Hall & Oates: 03/24/2003, A&E Live By Request
(SBD, A+, 69 min.)

1. Maneater

2. Sara Smile

3. Private Eyes

4. Rich Girl

5. Do It For Love

6. Everytime You Go Away

7. Out Of Touch

8. Say It Isn't So

9. You Make My Dreams

10. Me And Mrs. Jones

11. She's Gone

12. Forever For You

13. It's A Laugh

14. I Can't Go For That

Live by Request: Hall & Oates (9 pm/ET, A&E)

When Daryl Hall and John Oates take the stage — and fans' requests via the phone
and Internet — on Live by Request tonight, consider this: After more than 30 years, they
are still making hits, albeit now on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Chart, where their
2002 single "Do It for Love" went to No. 1.

Such a consideration is one of the great draws of LBR. It offers viewers a chance to
assess legendary artists' careers, from the evolution of their songs and the development
of their style to their place in music history. "The whole idea of the genre of rock-and-soul
was pretty much our baby," says Hall in summing up their legacy. "It's a hybrid that has
to do with our personalities and influences and has become a definite style in music that
we sort of made up." Perhaps that blend is at the core of their appeal. Songs like "Sara
Smile" and "She's Gone," are rooted in the soul tradition. You almost feel them before you
start hearing them, and when you do, they seem like they've been around longer than they
actually have.

The concert offers viewers a chance to hear the development of that unchanging Philly
style. "You can't separate us from the region we come from," says Hall, who, like Oates,
moved to Philadelphia in his teens. "We are as much locked into the sound of
Philadelphia as Dr. John is locked into the sound of New Orleans." Oates adds insight
into the nature of that sound. "One of the characteristics of our songs," he says, "is that
many times our background vocals are... the hook of the song." On "Do It for Love," for
example, he says, "When you hear the chorus, it's really being sung by the background
[vocalists] and Daryl's going off around it, and that's a very Philadelphia thing to do."
Wherever it comes from, it works. In a recent concert, screaming soccer moms were
elbowed out near the stage by teen and twentysomething fans reaching out to the
fiftysomething singers. While the industry sees songs and artists in terms of age and
demographics, fans, young and old, simply know what they like.

Charts and statistics never tell the whole story. But Live by Request, which features the
songs the fans love, performed with a spontaneity that often reveals an artist's true
nature, should give viewers a deeper understanding of Hall & Oates's art and legacy.

— William John Ecklund