Episode 226 - Daryl Hall

Hello there and welcome to Soda Jerker on Songwriting. This is Simon here with Brian, and our guest today is an American singer, songwriter and musician, best known as one half of the most successful US duo of all time.

During what's now a half-century-long association with John Oates, with whom he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003, he's achieved no less than six number ones, twenty-nine top forty singles, and six multi-platinum albums.

His Stella vocals propel such enduring classics as Maneater, Private Eyes, Rich Girl, I Can't Go For That, Kiss on My List, Out of Touch, and You Make My Dreams? And as this reaches you he's just released before after, a thirty track anthology spanning thirty five years of solo recordings.

We are thrilled to welcome the great Daryl Hall to the podcast.

Darrell was born in nineteen forty six in Pottown, Pennsylvania. He received his earliest music education from his parents. His dad sang in a family harmony group, while his mother was a professional vocal coach. He moved to Philadelphia at seventeen, where he got his start doing session work for future songwriting and production giants Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Tom Bell.

Darrell also had his own band, the Temptones, made up of fellow students from Temple University. According to legend, he met John Oates in nineteen sixty-seven as the two made their escape from a mass sprawl that had broken out at a battle of the bands they were both attending. They swiftly became friends and roommates and later began collaborating musically, blending Daryl's soul stylings with John's folkier approach.

They were eventually discovered by Tommy Matola, who became their manager and signed to Atlantic, with Arif Mardin producing their first two albums, 1972's Holoats and the following year's Abandoned Lunchonette. Having left Philly for NYC in seventy six, Darrell and John signed to RCA, notching their first hits with Rich Girl and Sarah Smile.

The pair were hugely prolific throughout the remainder of the 70s, but it was 1980s self-produced voices that transformed them into commercial behemoths and household names, followed swiftly by the similarly hit-studded Privatize, H2O and Big Bam Boom. By the mid eighties, Darrell and John were the most chart topping double act in history.

After what had been an intensely productive period by anyone's standards, the pair then took a well deserved break, reuniting for the occasional album and intermittent live appearances and tours.

I remember in uh late nineteen ninety they appeared at a John Lennon fiftieth birthday concert here in Liverpool.

Yeah, I remember, yeah.

Yeah, it was down on the waterfront at the pier head and it was shown on the telly and uh they did Don't Let Me Down, I think.

Wow, good memory.

Ha ha ha.

Was Al Green on Mackey?

He was. It was quite an eclectic mix as I recall. Uh Al Green, Lou Reed, uh Cyndi Lauper, Kylie. Right. Wet wet wet I think as well.

Yeah.

And more I can't remember right now, but uh yeah. And it was compared by Mike Reed, the DJ, former DJ. And uh of all people, Christopher Reeve.

Well who else would you get for that? Anyway, the turn of the millennium ushered in a period of renewed recording activity for Daryl and John, with albums like 2003's Do It for Love and 2004's Our Kind of Soul. and they continue to tour tirelessly to this day putting performers half their age to shame.

As we said at the top of the show, Daryl's new before after compilation gathers together songs from his various solo projects over the years, which are ripe for rediscovery, aren't they?

Yeah, there's material from Sacred Songs produced by Robert Fripp and recorded in the late seventies. That's a thoroughly unique and brilliant record I would

Yeah, fantastic album.

nineteen eighty six's Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine is in there too.

Yeah, produced by our former guest Dave Stewart, no less. Yep, Soul Alone and Can't Stop Dreaming and a few cuts from Laughing Down Crying which is uh Daryl's most recent solo album, I think that came out in twenty eleven.

That was his last collaboration with uh T Bone Walk as well, wasn't it?

Ys, mae'n gwaith a'i gwaith a'i gwaith sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n sy'n.

He was a great musician, wasn't he?

Brilliant.

I used to love watching him on live from Darrell's house.

Yeah, he was heavily involved with that, wasn't he? And um there were some performances from that on before after too. And uh for anyone who hasn't had the pleasure, Live from Daryl's House is a fantastic web series. I think it became a T V series eventually too, and it features our guest Danis Band performing with the likes of his hero, Smokey Robinson, uh Nick Lowe, Ben Folds, Katie Tunstall, Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, and uh former guests Chromeo, to name but a handful.

Prepare to spend a lot of time on that website.

It's pretty addictive. If you're new to this podcast, do follow, rate and review us wherever you get your pods, and have a rifle through our archive of well over two hundred interviews with great songwriters. If you'd like to give towards the upkeep of this fully independent ad free show, you can do that at sodajerka.com slash donate.

Before we continue, thanks to Jennifer and also Jonathan for their help setting up the interview.

Okay, here we go. Please enjoy our chat with the great.

What a thrill to get to talk to you. You're very high up our list.

Thank you.

Bad to hear it.

Yeah.

But here I'm elevated on your list.

Mae'n amlwg ymwneudol ar gyfer ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol ymwneudol?

Well, it it was an editing process. You know, I decided I was gonna put equal amount on from each album. I think it's like five per album, something like that. And uh I just picked the ones that I thought fit together the best and uh held up the most and uh the ones I just thought would work. It really was uh just an intuitive thing.

And Dreamtime is a great one to open with from uh the Three Hearts album, which you made with Dave Stewart, didn't you?

I did indeed. I just uh came back from the Bahamas. I've been um working with Dave again. We're uh working on new material together.

And what was your creative partnership like with Dave on that record?

We get along really well. We're good friends and uh we have an intuitive understanding of each other creatively. And uh it all happens very quickly and very uh Lightheartedly. Sometimes with certain people it's like pulling teeth, the creative process. And with Dave, it's the opposite of that. It's very, very easy.

Yeah.

I think he talked a bit about Dream Time in his book, didn't he, Bry?

He did, yeah, he mentioned something about um it had its origins in a guitar shop that he used to visit.

Oh, I don't know that story. I can give you my version. My dreamtime story is that we just sat down and he said, I have this idea, I guess that's what he was referring to. And he just played me the chords of the chorus. And I started singing You're Living in Dream Time, maybe I started doing that. And then I sat down at the keyboard and wrote the verse, which is maybe a little more complicated the chord progression.

Yeah.

Oh wow, that's fluent.

Now it's interesting'cause Dave says in in his book he used to visit this guitar shop that was near his studio, and every time he went in to try the guitars the guy in they were playing this instrumental. And according to Dave, that became the basis of Dream Time.

Well, that was probably where he got his inspiration then brought it to the table.

Yeah.

You've also got some select performances from Live at Daryl's House on this record and we always loved that show. I mean It's one of the great contributions to music T V. We think it's just fantastic. What was that process like of choosing those particular tracks?'Cause you must have had so much you could have chosen from.

Oh, there were so many tracks to choose from. I mean we had eighty five somewhere in that vicinity shows, all with at least six to seven songs on each show. So look at all that that amount of of music. I don't know. I mean again I just picked the ones that I thought uh that were sort of highlights to me and and that I thought fit with the rest of what I was putting together, you know, with my source.

Yeah, you've got Todd on there, of course, who I know you're still performing with and stuff. He's been on a couple of episodes of Dallas House, hasn't he? But he's one of our favourites as well. In fact, he was our second ever guest on this podcast, wasn't he, bro?

He was, yeah, many moons ago, yeah.

Okay. Yeah, he's the only artist that actually had two episodes. Right. So yeah, that's uh somewhat of a distinction.

Yeah, I feel like you and Todd have quite a lot in common melodically in in terms of the chords you use and stuff like that. I guess that's maybe a a Philly thing.

Yeah, it's a very regional thing. He grew up a few miles from me, you know, as a kid. So he listened to the same radio, he listened to the same people, and we were both influenced by the same thing, literally. And uh I think that Tommy Bell Is a big common denominator with us. The guy that wrote, uh, didn't I blow your mind this time? Didn't I that that Tommy Bill? Stylistics, the Delphonics.

You always had an incredible ability to slot into any given situation on that show. Do you think of yourself as being a chameleon in that sense, or is it just your sensibilities being introduced to whoever the artist might be?

I don't know if I'd call it chameleon because I don't adapt to it. I'm just fluent in it. It's uh I can speak a lot of musical languages and I can uh swim in those waters to keep throwing analogies out. And and and uh I like doing it. I like collaboration, I like

Yeah. Some of those combinations are really surprising, aren't they? When you get, you know, Chromio or Katie Tunstall or whoever it might be, Ben Folds, and you hear your sensibilities come together. I think that's the magic of that show actually, is just hearing that combination.

Yeah, I mean I love not just what I do but what the band does with these songs. And most guests say the same thing to me. They go, I can't believe that these songs sound even better with you guys than they did when I recorded, which is a real compliment. I don't know if I always agree with that, but I certainly take

And obviously soul or groove based music is a key aspect of what you do and the solo stuff has songs like, you know, I'm in a Philly mood or Stop Loving Me, Stop Lovin' You, you know, and all of those are kind of rooted in some kind of funk. Did you always gravitate towards that feel from your earliest days?

Well, again, goes back to the regional thing. I mean, I grew up in Philadelphia. My baby food was that kind of music, was Philly music. I started with Gamble and Huff. They're a few years older than me, but we were all working for the same people. And uh then they went off on their own. I knew Tommy Bell from when he was a kid well, not a kid. Uh he was about nineteen, I think, when I met him. So I was part of all that. I was part of the creation of what people know as the Philly Sound.

It seems almost kind of mythical to us that, the idea that you could just be with Gamble and Huff and Tom Bell and these people when they're sort of, you know, in their late teens and that and all getting started at the same time. It's just an incredible kind of story really, isn't it? And then to have all the other things that have happened in the interim.

It is a story. I mean it's it it was an amazing time, I promise you. You know, Philadelphia the music scene was sm large but still small enough that people knew each other and they interacted and uh Everybody was all full of energy, man, trying new things. It was a great time. Great time to be a kid.

And I guess of all your um your solo projects, Sacred Songs is perhaps the one that's the most left field. I know I had something of a of a rough start in life, that record, didn't it? Certainly in terms of its release.

Yeah, I think it's quote left fieldness w was uh a a bit of a shock to the to the suits, you know, the guys with the ties that sit behind desks. And they wanted uh Rich Gerald Junior, you know. I mean they were uh They were leery of of me doing anything on my own anyway, because they thought it was in competition to, you know, the Holland Oates machine. And uh I've had that problem for

Yeah.

We won't get into that. But uh yeah, so Robert and I took things into our own hands and uh Gave it to a bunch of critics and things like that. And we literally went to record stores and played and you know, all that kind of stuff. And bucked the machine, really. And finally it almost forced them to put it out, which they did reluctantly, I have to say. But uh anyway, I'm glad they did. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean its reputation only seems to have grown over the years, I would say.

Yeah. It's a really unique album. I think it's an interesting combination of Robert's sensibilities and mine. It's just a an unusual collaboration.

Yeah, I think as an artist, you know, songs like Babs and Babs and NYC NY, they show such an interesting side of you, don't they?

I guess. That's all part of me, man. The song Babs A Babs is about the right side and the left side of the brain. If you look at the lyrics, you'll understand.

Did you approach your songwriting in in a different kind of way for that album or was it much the same as you would approach a a Hall and Oaks project?

Um the songs that were written beforehand were pretty much the same way as I would write any song. But some of the things that I did with Robert were very spontaneous, where literally we would just come up with something in the moment, somebody would hand me a set of lyrics, and I would just sing whatever came into my head. Like N Y C N Y is like that.

Is that North Star that song?

Yes, I'm I'm sorry I didn't mention it. Yes, it's North Star. Now that song was literally somebody handed me lyrics and Robert started playing those chords and I just started singing that melody. And that's how that song happened.

So the combination of New and Robert produced a kind of more experimental approach, would you say, doing things more in the moment?

Yeah, absolutely. There's always a a lot of spontaneity in my recordings, especially in the end of songs and things like that. I just sing whatever comes into my head. But uh yeah, working with Robert and doing that album was a an important step in my creative career. It opened my mind up to different things, really, literally different things.

Does that kind of technique help you in terms of finishing songs? Would you describe yourself as kind of a song finisher rather than just a a kind of ideas machine?

Well, I'm both. I know how to start a song and end a song.

Cool.

I fake.

Now that's interesting'cause we do speak to a lot of songwriters and some people, you know, they'll turn out hundreds of ideas and then maybe pick a few to finish later on over time. Um and some people sit down and as soon as something good comes they're gonna finish it, you know. Yes.

I'm the former. I come up with ideas all the time and then let them lay around or whatever or go around in my head and then cert ones I choose to finish. Yeah.

And although you're very self sufficient in terms of playing and singing and writing, you do seem to excel at collaboration. Is that what pushes you to expand your your songwriting palette, you know, being in close quarters with these other talented people?

Yeah, I like that give and take that happens with working with other people. I mean I'm perfectly happy to work on my own. You know, I've written so many songs just sitting down and doing it. But uh Th there's a magic that happens where you pass things back and forth. And there's a this collective excitement and spark that I I really enjoy.

I was really glad to rediscover the songs from Laughing Down Crying on this new set. Um I hadn't been back to those for a while, but talking to you is like talking to myself. Just a a great one. I mean, it's a great tune, Married with a Great Title, isn't it?

I wrote that about my family, you know, like many families, everybody's talking at once and nobody's listening, you know, all that kind of thing. And and I one time I I actually said at the dinner table, talking to you is like talking to myself. And my my stepdaughter, she said, There's a song right there, man. You just finish that. So anyway, that's how that happened.

So you'll do that, you'll you'll grab things that people say or something that you might say yourself and note it down.

Oh yeah, that happens all the time. I'm always writing down phrases. I'll read something, a little phrase, and maybe I'll change a couple of the words. I see signs, I see things. I mean I'm always writing down phrases and then using them.

Is your process in general quite well established after all these years, or do you find you'll still develop songs in all manner of ways?

They do come in all manner of ways. So in that respect it hasn't changed. I mean sometimes I'll have a lyric first. Or a phrase, as I just said, sometimes I'll have a drumbeat and that drumbeat will cause me to write the boom that o That's how that song happened. Uh chord progressions, chord patterns. You name it. Anyway, it can happen anyway.

One of the things I always loved about your songwriting is that I'm never confused why you wrote the song.

Ha ha good one.

Some people you can't quite understand what compelled them to finish it, you know. But you al you always have something, some concept, some hook, something that's undeniable, you know.

Wow. Oh thank you. I consider that a big compliment. My intentions are obvious. Good. Yeah. Sometimes it'll be a phrase and sometimes I'll elaborate on the phrase. Sometimes I'll wake up in the morning and write a complete lyric. You know, it's a complete thought. It can happen anyway, anyway at all.

So you might set an entire page of lyrics to music later?

Sometimes. Right. I've done that. That's uh less common, but I've done that, yes.

Is there quite a lot of discipline involved for you? D do you maintain any kind of routine for songwriting at all?

No, none at all. Through the pandemic, I didn't write anything. I completely hibernated creatively. I purposely did it because I thought what happens to me and everyone else when this starts opening up again is going to negate anything that I would write while it was happening. So I I just used it as this stew, you know, and first thing that happened is I went to the Bahamas with Dave and uh it all came out like

Right.

oh that's very interesting because we've had loads of people on the podcast who've had lockdown albums and stuff you know

Not me, I'm the opposite.

So were you kind of filling up the well in a certain way during the lockdown?

It was filling up, yes, it certainly was.

We wanted to mention there was something during the prep for this interview we watched um an old video. It's an MTV special and it's of you guys recording Go Solo. Oh. An electric lady stud I don't know if you have any memories of uh of that electric lady studios.

Well, I have many memories of Electric Lady studios, yes. We we we did a lot of great work there. I mean that was uh I was living about two blocks away when I was living in New York and uh oh yeah, I mean w I almost lived at Electric Lady for a few years.

Yeah, this particular video, it's just a great insight into the process because you you seem to be absolutely on fire when you're doing that. The band sounds great, the lead vocal seems to go down in one take. But I don't know if that's just the magic of this particular T V programme or whether that was actually the case for Go Solo.

My guess is we've probably faked it a little bit. I don't remember.

Ha ha.

But uh it's unreal getting to see you in that period, like at the piano, working on the song and that sort of thing.

Everything had come together at that point. That was like nineteen eighty three or eighty two, something like that. Eighty three.

I was at the center of this hurricane and you can either be swamped by it or energized by it. And I think that I was energized by it. I guess what you're talking about reflects that. I was on fire at that point in my life. I was very much on fire.

Yeah. Go solo in particular is one of our uh our favourites. I just love the concept and and the use of of the term going solo in the context of a relationship, it's such a kind of creative way. to talk about relationships. No ultimately that's what you're kind of looking for in songwriting, isn't it? It's finding a unique way to talk about something, a a common subject.

Yeah, that is exactly it. You just find a new way to say something that maybe other people think all the time uh through little stories and images.

The BVs add so much to that song, don't they, the way they set up the chorus.

I'm trying to remember. Yeah. The B Vs actually sing the chorus line, don't they? If you but a wada w Yeah, right, right. I forgot about that. Uh yeah, I mean I love doing B Vs. That's one of my favorite things. You know, I can whip them out really quickly.

Haha. And another aspect that song has is the kind of elements of surprise, which is then a a lot of your stuff, you know, even if it's just a a strange push in the rhythm arrangement or or maybe an unusual little interval in the melody, you always seem to be doing something to kind of entertain the ear. Is that important to you as you're writing the song?

I don't know about writing it, but that's sort of my production style. I always try and make little surprises happen and you know, I really pay a lot of attention to production.

Yeah, I always spot those things in your songs. Like even on big hits like I Can't Go For That, just the placements of No Can Do, it isn't quite where you expect it's gonna be every time. It's just uh you challenge the expectations of the listener, I suppose.

Little surprises are really important in songs, in my opinion.

Is it true that one was essentially a demo?

Uh no, the kiss on my list was the demo. Right. Yeah, no can do was written all in one shot. That's the closest I've come to being a one man band. I turned on this ridiculously simple rock and roll beat on uh rollin' compu rhythm, which is Hm this ancient instrument. Wasn't ancient then, it was modern then. And uh then I started playing that bass line on this organ. And there it is, the baseline you hear. And then I started playing the right hand and playing those chords.

That's when I realized I had a song that was interesting. It just kind of came together like that. And I had this idea for a guitar line and got John to play the guitar line. I sang it to him and he played it. And then uh I went in the vocal booth. And sang these nonsense lyrics in the melody that you hear. And uh that's it. That's how the song came about all at once.

That's another common technique that we hear from people, the idea of just singing a kind of a gibberish lyric and trying to get the kinds of sounds that you're gonna ultimately want.

Yeah, that's what I do. If I don't have a complete lyric, which I hardly ever do, I just sing whatever comes to my head that allows the phrasing and the melody to just come together without having to think about tying it to words. Then I create the words Sort of around that, although they're not subordinate to it. I it's hard for me to describe it. That's as close as I can get.

Yeah, no, I know what you mean. We've had people say that sometimes the mumbling that they did will kind of push them in a certain direction, like they'll hear something they think their subconscious might be telling them about the song.

It's like solving a puzzle.

Yeah, it is like sal very much like Salvador Puzzle. But uh yeah, it suggests things. Sometimes the nonsense some people think that it isn't nonsense. They'll hear it and they'll go, Oh, I really like that. And I go, No, I was just going, Ah badish la you know and but they already heard the lyrics, you know, that that kind of thing.

That catalogue though of songs is just unreal, isn't it? And the unpredictability of it too, like for example Private Eyes. I mean that's one where we try and deconstruct it and we think What are those chords actually doing there?'Cause that's that's a really a really special one we think.

That's a complicated chord progression, that's for sure. I really went all the way with that. That song actually was written by my partner at the time, Sarah Allen, and her sister her sister came up with a good part of the song, really, and another fellow that she was working with and his name was Warren Pash.

Yeah.

I love that moment on the um the Ben Folds episode of Daryl's house where he's he can't work out the chord that leads into the chorus. It turns out it's just an F over a G, but in the context of the song it sounds a lot more complex.

You hit it. It's not as complicated as it sounds. It's very logical with progression.

Yeah, it does flow beautifully that song, yeah.

Yeah. I guess that's another one with a play on words as well with private eyes and P. I see you got a kind of a detective story in there almost.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That was Jana. She came up with all that. So I I don't take a little bit of a little bit of a little bit

So obviously you've talked about some of those songs where you wrote on your own and I guess songs like Rich Girl and One on One and songs like that were just entirely you pretty much.

Well, okay. A great number of these songs were me on my own. It's the Lennon and McCartney syndrome where uh names are on there that aren't necessarily relevant. And I was dumb enough to not pay much attention to that stuff. Now I'm not saying I didn't write songs with John,'cause I did, especially in the early days. She's gone, you know, completely, you know, and uh out of touch, a man eater and all that. But um there's a a lot of songs that I wrote the song, and then maybe I would use

Sure. Yeah. But it's always interesting to us to find out what the different contributions were'cause every co-writing scenario is different, I suppose. So getting a sense of what the Allen contributed and what John contributed was always really interesting to us.

Yeah, there was a lot of sounding board things going on, but uh I was driving the bus. Right.

Right. But it was Jana who co wrote Kiss on my list, I think.

The first song I ever wrote with Jana, she was only 20, was Kiss on My List. And I wrote it with her, completely sat down with her. She said, play these chords. We wrote the song. I sang the song on a demo, four track demo, and that's what you hear. That is the kiss on my list. It was just a demo.

Crazy.

Using that stupid roll and uh copy rhythm making.

Yeah.

And uh yeah. And then she brought Private Eyes to be after that. And a lot of other songs. Did it in a minute, you know, a lot of things. She's a big contributor.

Kiss on My List is a really interesting one, lyrically, we thought, because if you're not listening too closely it could be a romantic song, but it's actually not that romantic, you know, the narrator is sort of

The fence.

Yeah, he's a l you don't know how trustworthy he actually is, he's quite secretive.

Yeah, I know. That's sort of what it was about. A lot of secretive uh lyrics at that period of time. Don't ask me why.

Yeah.

Yeah. I like the idea of an unreliable narrator though, it's kind of almost a Randy Newman esque approach to

Yeah.

I know. Every little phrase can be its opposite if you analyze it.

All of these skills that you had, you felt like a lot of that came from your early experiences with people like Gamble and Huff and Tom Bell.

Well yeah. The formats that I choose to write songs in come from that experience. You know, uh the great Philadelphia sound experience that goes back even before Gamble Huff goes back to the days of Cameo Parkway. and Chubby Checker and all those people, you know, verses and choruses, the way things were laid out and the way they were produced, the melodic choices, uh that's real Philly. You know, there's a tradition, a long tradition of that.

Yeah. And you mentioned Chubby Checker, I think you even wrote with Chubby Checker at one point, didn't you?

Oh yeah, I knew Chubby quite well back in the day. I wrote a song called uh Rich Man's Son and I think he recorded it. Yes, he did. I was like eighteen. Wow. Yeah.

And so, um, these days in terms of your writing process, do you find that progressions and melodies and things come to you just as quickly as they always did?

Yeah, they do. I just found out that they do because of having just worked with Dave. And uh yeah, I'm I'm feeling really good right now creatively. I just shut it all down and now it's coming back out.

I think Dave actually does have a way of drawing those things out to people though, doesn't he? Think he can just get a song out of almost anybody? No.

No kidding. Yes, absolutely true.

True. And is there a sort of a framework for your songs where you sort of think, okay, to best serve my voice, I'm gonna write in these keys or I'll aim for this particular register in the chorus or anything like that?

Yeah, I do. I a adjust keys to the melodic range of the song so that I can find my sweet spots of where to use falsetto, where to use uh full voice.

But I take it you're mostly acting in a kind of an instinctive way. You're not thinking about the theoretical aspects of music when you're actually in the moment.

Oh yeah, completely instinctive. But then after the fact I start analyzing it and say, Well maybe I should do this song at B flat, not C, you know that kinda

Yeah. We've often had people say that they'll avoid particular words or types of vowel sounds or or whatever in a chorus because they can't sing them powerfully. And remember Gary Newman told us he'll avoid certain kinds of vowel sounds in his lyrics. Is that the case for you as well?

Absolutely. Certain vowels sing better than others, especially when you're going to certain kind of vocal phrases, you know, high vocal phrases. Usually oohs and o's and eyes and a's work best, you know.

Did you have quite a strong sense of yourself as a creative force quite early on in life?

I come from a musical family and they they always encourage me from earliest age you can imagine. My mother was in a band in in Philadelphia area. And uh I used to watch her when I was two years old, you know, and that kind of thing. I sang in church. She was the choir director. I learned all that kind of stuff. I learned how to lead people. I learned how to coax things out of people. I uh sang on a street corner, you know, I mean my whole life has been music.

So you got a lot of your singing chops from your mum, you would say?

Oh yeah. My mother was well, she's ninety eight now, so she's not such a great singer, but maybe she is. Maybe she is. I don't know. I haven't heard her sing lately.

It's interesting you mentioned the Street Corner singing as well,'cause w you know, growing up watching Rocky, I I wondered if that was just a kind of romantic notion and and that didn't really happen, but apparently i that was a thing, the Street Corner singers.

Absolutely. That was completely real, that scene. We didn't stand around the open uh trash barrels, but uh

Yeah.

It was m more like in front of a convenience store or something. But yes, it was absolutely just hanging out and singing and people would come in, you know, from other neighborhoods and things like that, you know.

Frank Stallone.

All real. Yeah, Frank. Yeah. Take me back.

Wow, what a cast of characters you've known, Darrell, through your life.

Oh yeah. You don't know the half of it.

Rydyn ni wedi adnodd yw'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r pethau'r Which is uh another interesting title, quite an unusual bit of syntax that did you start with the title for that one?

Yeah, that sort of described my life at that time. You know, I had a difficult marriage and uh it was always both things at the same time. You know, it was a lot of laughing and a lot of not laughing. Mm. I came up with that phrase because it sort of described my mental state at the time. All I remember was having the phrase I don't remember the actual I probably just sat down on the guitar and started trying to figure out what to do with it. So you

you'll jump between guitar and keyboards when you write?

Yeah, yeah. Sometimes I'll start a song on guitar and then move to the keyboard to uh fill it out and then make some different chords because you you approach it differently. I I I usually write sort of on both instruments simultaneously.

Any of those hit Zacapella?

Cappella. Well, sometimes I I just sing something and then I say, oh, that sounds good, and then I put the chords to it. Yeah, it happens.

We've had songwriters tell us that sometimes they will deliberately just leave the instrument alone'cause sometimes it'll free them up melodically, not being sort of nailed down to a set of chords they can just kinda go off on tangents and come up with interesting melodic ideas that way.

I'm not really that way. I find that I can be more free and melodically interesting, juxtaposing what I'm playing to what I'm singing, rather than just singing on my own. If I play a certain chord, it'll cause me to have a whole series of melodic riffs, and then I move to another chord and it does that. I prefer that.

Well, we could hear you talk about music all day, Darrell, but I guess we have to let you go. But thanks so much for doing this. It's just such a thrill for us to get to talk to you.

Thank you. This is fun man. Real musical discussion. What a concept. Okay

That was the great Darrell Hall talking to us about his new retrospective solo anthology Before After.

What a joy it was to get a quism about his work. And to cover such a lot of ground as well.

Yeah, well he's a very straight to the point guy, isn't he? He's not gonna overly embroider things for you, so when you do speak with him, you can really dig through a lot of the catalogue quite quickly.

And he's got a good memory too, hasn't he? You know, there were some real gems in there I thought.

Yeah, I don't know about you but I really want to hear that Bob Dylan version of Dream Time.

Yeah.

Or uh Dreamtime, as he'd call it.

I think Darrell's solo work's probably quite underappreciated, you know, with Hollow Note's looming so large in the public consciousness.

Definitely, yeah, you can understand why he wanted to get this stuff out there and make sure people realise what a great contribution those solo albums make to the story of his career.

Yeah, and not forgetting Darrell's house as well, which, you know, is one of his more recent exploits, but it's a massive contribution that, isn't it?

Definitely. It's just such a rich musical tapestry he's been weaving since back in the mid sixties, really, with the temp tones, right through to the present day.

Yeah, it's amazing. It's almost like mythology to me this career.

And I'm excited to hear this new stuff with Dave Stewart too, that's probably gonna add another dimension to the whole thing.

Yeah, I can't wait to see what comes out of those sessions. I mean, things do tend to happen around Dave Stewart.

Yeah, that guy walks into a room and songs get written.

And of course getting to talk about those Hall of Notes hits was just like magic time for us, wasn't it?

Well there's just so many indelible tunes in that catalogue and as I said in the interview, I'm always intrigued by the interesting choices they make within those songs, even those big hits that everybody knows.

Yeah, I mean they were mainstream hits, weren't they, but the underlying complexity and sophistication of the songs shouldn't be overlooked.

Yeah, the songs don't draw attention to those things. You know, I guess it's like the Great American Songbook in that sense, you know, if you go back to like Cole Porter and George Gershwin's songs. Those were fiendishly complex melodically and and chordally, yet you don't think that when you hear them, you just think great songs.

Yeah, an excellent observation, my friend.

Thank you very much.

I'll keep you around.

Ha ha.

So before after is out now, thanks to Daryl for the one on one.

See what he did there. Cheers to Jennifer, Chase and Jonathan for their help and we'll be back very soon.