To write a good song, an artist has to drawn from reality. There has to be some spark from realism that communicates a real feeling to someone else. You have to be real. Or you have to be a really good storyteller.
— Daryl Hall
Obscurity is just obscurity. There's no romance in obscurity.
Most artists try to avoid cliches, but it's pretty hard to avoid them if you yourself end up being one.
I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.
I have gone from one relationship to a marriage and stepchildren.
I don't really strain my voice.
You don't have to be a good musician if you've got certain computer skills.
In the early '70s, I started to feel like Philadelphia soul was the black-sheep brother of rock and roll. I decided to try to get away from it.
Being at college, I think that's the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.
I definitely dislike pomposity and artifice. I hope that I'm not that. Once I write a song, it belongs to the world, and the way people perceive it, it's cool.
I was just like a 21st century person waiting to be born, and this is the medium that I thrive in. And I feel stronger now than I did any time since I've been a teenager - I mean, musically, creatively.
The difference between me and other people in my generation is instead of saying the Internet's killing the record business, I say, 'Who cares about the record business, the Internet is enhancing music.'
I have an English family and I've lived in England for years.
Traditionally, duos get accused of lots of things.
Chronic Lyme causes arthritis, heart problems, stroke - even death.
If you take a bunch of superstars and put them in a room where they don't have their assistants and entourage, it's funny to see what happens.
My fan base is really expanding into an inter-generational thing - it's what every artist probably hopes for.
Americans think that if you're popular, there must be something wrong with you.
I do a project, and then I move on.
I'm used to the egos in the 1960s, '70s and '80s where people just expected massive success and thought it was their birth right to be successful.
I've been watching RFD-TV for a few years. As a person who lives mostly in the country, I appreciate a network that shows the many facets of rural life.
Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.
You don't have to be a good singer any more if you can rap well.
When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.
I'm in the trenches; I do the best work I can always do. Having said that, the way that what I do converges with the outside world is fascinating to me. Because it ebbs and flows. People's interest and understanding, it changes all the time.
I was very inspired by my mother. She was a vocal teacher and sang in a band, and my first memories of her were going out with her on the local circuit.
I have to say I have never been comfortable with somebody else telling me what to do - in any way.
If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.
Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.
Everybody who I ever cared about has told me that they like my music: Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney, Al Green, The Spinners, Smokey Robinson. Everybody that matters.
I returned to upstate NY where I just laid in bed for days with a fever that just wouldn't go away. After more of this, I grew increasingly sure that this was not simply the flu!
I'm very enthused about everything. I have a lot to say and a lot of things I'm interested in.
I'm just about the best singer I know, and it's time for everybody to say that. I have total facility with my voice. And for some weird reason, critics don't talk about it.
I was always an introvert as a kid. Then, when I first kind of came out as a human being, I used to be one of those guys who'd go nuts on the dance floor, and people would gather around.
Who knows what the right time to get married is?
The 'Daryl's House' thing has made me into a live musician even more than I ever was, and even in the way I record.
I'm not a big fan of any video, especially my own. In a word, I hated the Hall & Oates videos.
All artists have insecurity.
The first thing I ever did was play talent shows at the Uptown Theater and the Adelphi Ballroom.
If Paul McCartney tells me that so-and-so song is his favorite song, what do I care? What do I care what anybody else says?
Like all soul singers, I grew up singing in church but sometimes I would leave early and sit in the car listening to gospel band, The Blind Boys of Alabama. Hearing their lead singer Clarence made me connect the idea of church and show business and see how I could make a career singing music that stirred the soul.
I was a pioneer in MTV and I was there from the very beginning. So I saw how that developed and how loose it was and how much fun it was in its looseness. And I was influenced a lot by that.
I wanted to show the world, and myself too, what I can do. I came up in the world of Philadelphia soul, but I'm fluent in a lot of languages musically and I like working with different people from different generations.
I grew up in a very racially integrated place called Pottstown. It was an agricultural / industrial town which has since become a suburb of Philadelphia. I grew up basically in a black neighborhood.
Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter; a major influence on my own music from the very start.
This illness made it impossible for me to give my best effort to our audience, but now that it's been identified, I'm looking forward to a complete, quick recovery and to get back out there with John as soon as possible.
