As John Oates says goodbye to Hall & Oates, he reveals the secret behind their first performance
nypost.comBefore they ever went one on one as Hall & Oates, John Oates played his first show with his longtime partner Daryl Hall in New York City.After meeting as students at Temple University in Philadelphia in 1967, the blue-eyed soul brothers behind such classics as “Rich Girl,” “Kiss on My List,” “Maneater” and “Out of Touch” made their debut in the middle of Greenwich Village’s fertile folk scene in the late ’60s.“[Daryl] had a doo wop group called the Temptones,” Oates, 76, told The Post outside the site of the former Gaslight Cafe where the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame duo first played together in public — five-plus decades before their shocking breakup last fall.“They were a vocal group, and they needed a backing band.
They had a backing band, and they lost their guitar player,” he recalled. “And Daryl basically asked me to play guitar as a backup guitarist for the vocal group, and they were trying to get a record contract.”So Oates drove from Philadelphia to support the man who would turn out to be his rock-and-soulmate for over 50 years.“We came to New York and first thing I did was go to 48th Street, where the music stores were,” said Oates. “I bought a new guitar for the occasion, came down here and played backup guitar for them.”Although the Temptones didn’t get a record deal that night, there was another kind of momentous occasion.“What did work out was the Temptations were playing at the Apollo Theater, and Daryl was friends with those guys and said, ‘Let’s go to the Apollo,’ ” Oates told The Post.
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