by Daryl Hall is one of our greatest living talents. His music is specific. His melodies are catchy. He knows how to lead a group — like Hall and Oates — and he knows how to go it alone, as he now does every week in Live From Daryl’s House on Palladia.
Daryl Hall’s gift is being able to inspire talent and then make that talent undeniably better just by his presence. That’s the job of a producer, and when you’re also a performer, you bring a double bang whammy to a live performance. Daryl delivers lots of boom for your live performance Palladia buck in his weekly series where he plays from his house with a guest artist. Daryl Hall songs are performed along with songs the guest artist has helped make famous.
Live From Daryl’s House doesn’t always hit big — but the show always gives a great try. Two recent episodes that failed were with Rumer and another with Chiddy Bang. Rumer is a big blob of emotional boring — nothing Daryl tried brought her out or up out of her self-imposed miserable boredom; and Chiddy Bang, with their rapping and popping, just never found the right groove to fit in and match the vibe in Daryl’s house. Both episodes were valiant, if not bright, uncomfortable, failures.
Last week, Daryl was “Live from the Borgata” and that show, too, was an odd disappointment. The room seemed cold. The audience was too old. His band wasn’t squeezed into a tiny room in his house to create a great static electricity that grinds the show forward. Guest singer Sharon Jones was loud and unsympathetic. The youngish Allen Stone — Daryl believes he is the next coming of himself — was a fine talent, but I’m not sure if it’s a compliment to refer to Allen Stone as a Daryl Hall clone/brother/son/child/stepson, because a surefire totem of music business death is to brand a new talent circa-1980’s mainstream Pop. Sure, Allen Stone is gifted, but the world does not need a carbon copy of Daryl Hall. One is plenty enough for the pleasing, we thank you.
Sharper shows from Daryl’s House include the Cee Lo Green episode. Cee Lo was bang-on and in beautiful voice and seemed overjoyed to be there. He challenged Daryl to match his brilliance, and Daryl did just that. It was an amazing show filled with musicianship and deep respect from everyone in the room, and it was a true collaboration of musical talents. That show is a blueprint for how different styles can flow together to create something greater than what stood alone.
Another excellent episode was the Nick Waterhouse show. Nick is a little odd and old fashioned, but his throwback singing style doesn’t suggest something ancient and discovered. He instead brings us along a circuitous trip tinged with modern rhythms and a keen sense of a snapping melodic discipline. Daryl had to fight to keep up with Nick, but he did, and a terrific show of showmanship highlighted by outstanding music was the result.
By far, my favorite episode was the show with Butch Walker. Butch is a young, old timer. He’s been around forever. Butch has written big hits for a multiplicity of superstars like Katy Perry, Weezer, Avril Lavigne, Fall Out Boy and P!nk. Yet, Butch never really made it big on his own as an artist — not that he really cares — but I care, and so I went back to listen to some of his solo music. On his own, Butch Walker comes off wan and uncomfortably idiosyncratic. We quickly tire of his cloying cuteness. However — When Butch Met Daryl — something big changed in Butch and he, thankfully, became something other than himself. With Daryl’s help, Butch Walker began to shine and have fun and become interesting in personality and method. Daryl led Butch, taught him, and made him so much better as a singer and performer and, in the end, Butch realized just as much and told us so. That is an episode that must not be missed. You’ll see the Daryl Hall magic happen in real time.
If you want to watch the musical process in action — and learn how hits are made and why careers begin to mend and rejuvenate and invent again — then catch a watch of Live From Daryl’s House sometime and begin to live again. That fact that Daryl is still living with the brutality of Lyme disease makes his ongoing performances even more spectacularly special.
What a trooper! I too got Lyme disease although I no longer do — maybe early treatment was the trick. In any case, it is nice to see Daryl working with these fantastic musicians.
What? When did you get Lyme disease? Where is the article?
I thought Lyme disease was sort of like Herpes — it always stays with you and it can break out and bother you at any time.
I got Lyme disease in 1996 — four long years before I joined Go Inside. I didn’t think it was that… important? Since the doctor said I was clean and clear.
http://www.aldf.com/lyme.shtml
I had it treated less than a week after noticing the bulls-eye pattern on my arm.
Gordon! You should know by now:
No Article? = Never Happened! SMILE!
Thanks fo that link! I’m so glad to learn that Lyme disease isn’t an auto-immune sort of lingering nag!
Good one! You know it’s funny, I completely forgot about it until this article reminded me. 🙂
You need to write an article about it, Gordon. Too many people go undiagnosed and get really ill.
The story I heard about Daryl way back is that he was gravely ill and nobody knew why, and then his girlfriend — the Sara in “Sara Smile” (they are unfortunately broken up now after a long relationship) — was the one who thought he might have Lyme disease and she basically saved his life.
Wow. It really is important! I am putting it on my calendar!
Yah! I think you’re some kind of Superman or something to have figured it out so long ago and so early when so many doctors were confused and confounded!
And the fact that he and John are NOT in the Hall of Fame…totally excapes my mind! What the hell…they are such influential musicians to so many in the music industry and they are overlooked!
Excellent point, Luanne!
There’s no excuse… probably because they’re considered mainstream “Pop” stars and not “Rock” stars.
.Rumer is “a big blob of emotional boring”? You must be missing something. Burt Bacharach, Elton John, Jools Holland, Richard Carpenter, Donovan and Carly Simon are but a few of her fans. What do you want, The Archies???
Hi Diane! All I know is what I see and hear and when I watch Rumer and Daryl, I’m bored. She brings nothing new or original to the table. She sings in one emotional niche. She doesn’t challenge the listener. She’s a retread of things we’ve already heard and known. The fact that the long list of her admirers you provide are old and haven’t had a modern-day Pop hit in 20-30 years speaks to my concern that she’s repetitive.
Her remake of Sara Smile brings nothing new to the ear that is in any way aesthetically interesting or provocative in challenging us to think and feel another way about the song. Daryl appeared to know her limits, and that’s why he did her a large favor and moved her into another studio for the live show for one song and played the piano for her while she Karaoke’d Sara Smile to death. He offered an opportunity for her to shine in a different light, but she offered no known illumination.
Rumer has developed so much over the past year. Her vocal range is beautiful. She has brought to life, really otherwise unknown, older songs and given them a new audience. She is not a ‘big blob’ – how rude. She is a beautiful, in all meanings of the word, woman. She is NORMAL size, not a size zero. If you get bored listening to her, disappear and leave her to people who really appreciate what she does. Daryl would not have asked her if her didn’t rate her. That’s why she sang for your President coz she’s boring, i don’t think so. Elton John, Burt Bacharach, Jools Holland and more would not allow a ‘boring performer’ sing their compositions.
“Blob” has to do with energy, not size. She’s a boring singer and non-performer. She’s trying to repackage Karaoke as a legitimate singing style. I’m not interested in her reinterpretation of what has been successful in the past. She should follow the blazing paths of Fiona Apple and Adele before her, not just re-sing old hits and try to pass them off as new blood to younger ears that don’t know any better.
God you’re arrogant
Oh, now that’s rich!
You come to my blog to complain about a narrow part of a large review and then insult me on your way out:
You’ve left little doubt you’re the arrogant one by telling me to be quiet on my own blog. What gall you have!
The problem with anonymous trolls like you is that you hope to hit and run without any consequence — and the mere act of simply replying to your strange accusations is just too painful for you to cure — and so you become petty and nasty and rude.
You are finished here — as are any other budding Rumer trolls.
Goodbye.
love the show
Me too, Dave. I’m not as fond of the 30 minute Daryl’s House shows Palladia is now airing — I enjoy the full 60 minute format better because there’s a lot more music and interaction.