Daryl Hall said it last year, and it’s still news: There aren’t nearly enough of Philadelphia’s great bands in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The 2015 class will, in fact, include Joan Jett — a native of the Philly suburb of Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. But Hall and Oates seemed more stunned than pleased to have been the first homegrown inductee last year.
“Philadelphia has an incredible musical history going back way before rock ‘n’ roll,” John Oates tells Jambands, “but how about the beginning of rock ‘n’ roll, how about Bill Haley and the Comets? They did a song called ‘Rock Around the Clock’ and, whether you think it’s good or not, ‘The Twist’ by Chubby Checker was probably the biggest record, one of the biggest records in the history of rock ‘n’ roll. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. What about all the great Gamble and Huff artists, Stylistics, Delfonics, Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes? The list goes on and on.”
Hall and Oates had been eligible since 1997, and thus had plenty of time to think about how the selection process works for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Even having finally received the nod, John Oates says the duo remains sceptical.
“My feeling is that it’s a political thing on a lot of levels,” Oates adds, “but we’re in, and we got in for a reason. I think our body of work deserves it and I think, you know, I feel like we deserve it — and I’ve always felt like we’ve deserved it. But at the same time I wasn’t losing any sleep over the fact that we didn’t get the nod over the years.”
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- Christopher Hoffman, “Farewell Forever” from ‘Vision Is The Identity’ (2024): Streaming premiere - February 19, 2024
