Hey, this is one of those unexpected pleasures of mine, Hall & Oates.. I just got it together today and can't wait for you to hear it, so I dub this one a Humpday Classic just in time for Wednesday...and to make up for that Steely Dan Rikki misstep. Hope you like!
The legend is true, Hall & Oates met while escaping a rapidly deteriorating situation between two rival gangs while at a record hop. They discovered their mutual love of Doo Wop groups and The Temptations and hung around together.
Daryl Franklin Hohl was born October 11, 1948 in Philadelphia, PA. He often ditched his piano lessons riding his bike into the Chicken Hill ghetto where he indulged his love of R&B.
John Oates was born on April 7, 1949 in NYC learning to play chords on a three string banjo at a young age. By the time he was in the sixth grade, he had his own Motown cover band and was able to make money and support himself.
In 1967 they met when they each entered with their own vocal groups for the competition, but they did not really coalesce until 1970. Their debut album of 1972 "Whole Oates" did not yield any hits, but their second LP, "Abandoned Luncheonette" contained the soul classic "She's Gone". They followed that up with "Sara Smile" in June of 1976.
Experimenting with big beat sounds, they did not hit again until 1976 when "Rich Girl" spent two weeks at the top of the Hot100 at the end of March, 1977 taking nine weeks to get there.
Now the real dirt on the song...it was not written with a girl in mind but with an ex beau of Sara Allen, a man who was heir to a fast food chain. Daryl explained to Rolling Stone "But you can't write you're a rich boy in a song, so I changed it to a girl"
