Search - Hall & Oates :: Philadelphia Years

Definitive Demos from Daryl Hall and John Oates

TomAzon | United States | 08/04/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

""The Philadelphia Years" is by far the best-sounding album of Hall & Oates demos to ever come out. That's essentially because they came from the original master tapes provided by the original producer John Madara and aren't bootlegs as every other "demo" album that's come out since 1977 is.



The sound is much clearer than even the Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs disc that came out a while back. No over-processing here, just good, clean sound from the genesis of the best duo of the rock era.



The songs themselves are very simple productions, usually nothing more than drums, pianos, guitars, vocals and backgrounds. It's mainly on the folk-side than the rock side of things, musically.



As far as the tracks themselves go, I'm surprised "The Provider", "The Reason Why", "Dry In The Sun", "I'm Tired of Wearing Buckskin", "Sally", "All Our Love" and "Months, Weeks and Days" didn't make it.... Looks like die-hard fans will have to get some of the bootlegs anyway. Also, songs included like ""Back In Love Again", "Gotta Be Stronger", "I Ain't Afraid of The Cold", and "You Don't Know" are listed as 'Previously Unreleased' but I found them, along with "Sally" and "All Our Love" on a demo vinyl album called "All Our Love".



The bonus tracks feature songs from the Parralax single "Vicky-Vicky" b/w "A Lonely Girl". Typical late '60's rock. The CD concludes with Daryl's version of "Girl, Don't Make Me Wait", written by Leon Huff.



The liner notes are fairly accurate except for John Oates' birth year (1948) and the author Bill Dahl unfortunately chose to use that derogatory 'blue-eyed soul' term to describe their music. Plus somebody misspelled the "Whole Oats" album. It's the most misspelled album title on record.



The liner notes also make mention of John Oates' single performed with The Masters - "I Need Your Love" b/w "Not My Baby" on the Crimson label.



I would love to see a part two of this disc to hear those also.



If you like history, pick up this collection along with "The Temptones" CD with early Daryl Hall that pre-dates even these songs.



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