Hall formed Gulliver, a group that recorded one LP on Elektra in 1969, and Oates joined just before it disbanded. Oates then traveled to Europe and Hall became a studio musician, singing backup for The Delfonics, The Stylistics, and The Intruders. Upon Oates' return, the two decided to team up. In 1972 they signed with Atlantic Records and released their Arif Mardin-produced debut, "Whole Oates", a folksy album that attracted little attention. Their next LP, the R&B-oriented "Abandoned Luncheonette" (also produced by Mardin), yielded "She's Gone", that was a flop for Hall and Oates but a #1 R&B hit for Tavares six months later. In 1974 the two recorded "War Babies", a concept LP, with producer Todd Rundgren. A drastic departure from their earlier efforts, the LP sold 100,000 copies in the New York area, but, citing a lack of hit singles and stylistic inconsistency, Atlantic dropped them. Surprisingly, "She's Gone" was re-released in 1976 and made it to #7 on Billboard's Hot 100.
Their RCA debut album, "Daryl Hall and John Oates", contained a soft ballad called "Sara Smile" that became a #4 hit. The tune was co-written by Hall for his frequent collaborator/girlfriend Sara Allen (whose sister Janna Allen helped write "Kiss on My List", "Private Eyes", and other Hall and Oates songs. She died of leukemia in 1993. With the release of 1976's "Bigger Than Both of Us", the two previous albums went Gold. "Bigger" eventually became their first platinum LP and contained their first #1 single, "Rich Girl", which topped the Hot 100 on March 26th, 1977.
Hall, the more prolific writer of the two, began working with Robert Fripp on a solo LP, "Sacred Songs", which RCA refused to release until 1980. He also sang on Fripp's "Exposure". Yet apart from "Back Together Again" (#28) and "It's a Laugh" (#20) and "Wait For Me" (#18), the duo hit a late-Seventies commercial slump.
Hall and Oates retrenched and decided to produce their next LP themselves. The result, 1980's Platinum selling "Voices", returned the duo to the singles chart with a vengeance, with "How Does It Feel to Be Back" (#30), "Kiss on My List" (#1), a cover of the Righteous Brothers "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" (#12), and "You Make My Dreams" (#5). The following year's LP "Private Eyes" was similarly successful, with the title cut and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" both reaching #1, while "Did It in a Minute" came in at #9. The album "H20" yielded still more hits with "Maneater" (#1), "Family Man" (#6), and "One On One" (#7). Even the two new songs included on a best-of LP, the double-Platinum "Rock 'n' Soul, Part 1", cracked the Top Ten: "Say It Isn't So" (#2, 1983) and "Adult Education" (#8, 1984). "Big Bam Boom" incorporated a marked hip-hop influence and produced Hall and Oates' sixth and last #1 hit, "Out of Touch", as well as "Method of Modern Love" (#5, 1985), "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid" (#18, 1985), and "Possession Obsession" (#30, 1985). In January, 1985 Daryl was one of the featured voices on "We Are The World", the Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie production designed to raise money to fight poverty in hunger in Africa and America. John Oates also sang on the chorus.
After a live LP recorded at Harlem's Apollo Theatre with former Temptations Eddie Kendricks and David Ruffin, Hall and Oates took a three-year sabbatical, during which time Hall released a second solo album, "Three Hearts In The Happy Ending Machine". Its "Dreamtime" went Top Five in 1986. Daryl and John resumed recording together in 1988, but this third career phase was noticeably less successful. Their two albums, "Ooh Yeah!" and "Change of Season", contained only one hit apiece: "Everything Your Heart Desires" (#3, 1988) and "So Close" (#11, 1990).
It would be seven years before the pair would release another album. 1997's "Marigold Sky" was issued by an independent label called Push Records, that was partly owned by Daryl and John. As the duo continued to tour, another greatest hits compilation called "Behind The Music" was released in 2002, followed by a new studio album, "Do It For Love" in 2003. 2004 saw their next album, "Our Kind of Soul" peak at #69 on The Billboard 200, and John and Daryl continued to tour in support of the CD in 2005 and 2006. November of 2006 brought another new album, "Home for Christmas" released on their own label, U-Watch / DKE Records. The 11-track disc includes classic and obscure holiday tracks as well as two originals that are a throwback to their older classics, like "Maneater", "Out of Touch" and "Private Eyes". "When you make a Christmas album, you have a delicate balance of doing something that's somewhat familiar so that it feels like a Christmas record," said John Oates, who wrote "No Child Should Ever Cry on Christmas" for the CD. "And at the same time you want to do something that's original so that you're not just basically karaoke-ing the past 30, 40, 50 years." Hall and Oates recorded the disc over several months in the Bahamas, upstate New York, London and Colorado, where Oates has a mini ranchette.
In 2007, Daryl Hall began hosting an award-winning Web series "Live From Daryl's House" (livefromdarylshouse.com), where he invited everyone from Train to Todd Rundgren into his Millerton, N.Y. home for candid chat and live performances. The series was slated to debut in ninety-five TV markets on September 27th. At 64, Daryl was also preparing for the release of "Laughing Down Crying", his first solo album to arrive stateside since the 2003 release of "Can't Stop Dreaming". In October, 2011, the single "Talking to You (Is Like Talking to Myself)" was a Top 20 hit on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart. John Oates also made that chart as a co-writer of Margo Rey's "Let the Rain", which shot to #17. (The jazz-oriented Rey is married to comedian Ron White).
In June, 2013, John Oates launched a series called Good Road To Follow which would see him release a single every month for the next year via Oates' PS Records and Elektra Records. December of that same year brought the announcement that Daryl and John would finally be inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in April, 2014, alongside Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, Cat Stevens, Kiss and Linda Ronstadt. In July, 2014, Hall And Oates got together to perform at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin, Ireland with cameras and sound equipment rolling. The result was "Daryl Hall and John Oates: Recorded Live From Dublin", which was slated for release on DVD and Blu-ray on March 31, 2015. Although they had no plans to write or record any new material, the pair had a half dozen concert dates booked together spread throughout the year. Hall continued his popular music TV show Live From Daryl's House as well as working on a new solo album, while Oates maintained his own solo touring schedule.
In early March, 2015, the duo was back in the news again when they confirmed that they were suing cereal maker Early Bird Foods & Co. over the company's use of the name Haulin' Oates for their granola bars. On April 22nd, John Oates announced that he had signed a book deal to write his autobiography, slated for release in late 2016. Oates said that the story will be "pretty detailed" and would tell the "intimate and fascinating" story about his life and career. In early October, Daryl Hall's web-to-cable series Live From Daryl's House was renewed with Viacom through 2017.
For 2016, Hall And Oates were scheduled for a lengthy tour across the United States beginning on May 13 at Gexa Energy Pavilion in Dallas. 2017 saw the duo touring with Tears For Fears for a 29 date trek across North America. 2018 plans included teaming up with the band Train for a summer tour of the United States. Ahead of that, the two bands recorded a new song called "Philly Forget Me Not", a horn-filled ode to Hall and Oates' former home town. It was Daryl and John's first original track since 2002's "Do It For Love". 2019 saw the duo perform their first-ever concerts in Argentina, Chile and Brazil. In mid-January, 2020 the pair announced that after a few warm-up dates in February, March, and May, a thirty-two date tour would kick off on May 29th at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles and wrap up September 2nd at the Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford, New Hampshire. The COVID-19 virus put an end to those plans, but Live From Daryl's House was slated to return on October 1st for ten episodes.
When pandemic restrictions started to ease in August, 2021, the duo re-launched their postponed North American tour at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Massachusetts. Starting in Chicago on April 1st, 2022, Daryl Hall was scheduled to launch a two-week, solo tour in support of an upcoming two-disc solo retrospective. He was to be joined by Todd Rundgren. John Oates would hit the road on March 16 for "An Evening of Songs and Stories," a seven-date run of shows that would kick off in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and wrap on March 26 in Newport, R.I. In late October, he issued a new song called "Pushin' a Rock", the first of six new tunes scheduled for release monthly in a deal with distribution company The Orchard. Oates followed that with "Disconnected" in February, 2023.
In late November, 2023, the music world was shocked to learn that Daryl Hall had launched a lawsuit against John Oates over a plan to sell off his share of Whole Oats Enterprises LLP to Primary Wave IP Investment Management LLC. Details of the suit were sealed by the court. In a statement to the press, John Oates said that he couldn't share any details about the case, but predicted, "Things will work itself out and time will tell. You can't ignore the fact that the Hall & Oates catalog of hits and the 50-year career will always trump almost anything that Daryl does on his own or I do on my own. Which is okay, because I'm very proud of that music. I'm really proud of what Daryl and I created together."
Oates stayed busy by recording a new album called "Reunion", scheduled for release on May 17th, 2024. Unfortunately for fans, the name of the LP was not in reference to getting back together with Daryl Hall, but was inspired by John's 100 year old father, who told the singer that he was ready to be reunited with John's mother. A twenty-one date tour of the US was planned for the Spring and Summer of '24 in support of the new album.
