Daryl Hall and John Oates were last seen on stage together in October 2022, and that might be it for the most successful duo of all time.

In November, we learned of a lawsuit Hall filed against Oates relating to the sale of Oates’ share of the duo’s publishing enterprise Whole Oats Enterprises LLP to Primary Wave Music, which he declared "the ultimate partnership betrayal.”

Oates responded quickly with a filing dismissing Hall’s claim as “inflammatory, outlandish, and inaccurate.”

Obviously, this is not good news for people who want to see them playing “Rich Girl” and “Maneater” in an arena.

But, in the same way that the duo, formed in 1970, rejected the notion of “Hall & Oates,” they have been on their separate musical paths for decades. Their last combo record was a 2006 Christmas album.

Oates, who handles the lower, huskier parts in the duo, has released four solo albums since then and the follow-up to his rootsy 2018 album “Arkansas” is on the way, advanced by a single, “Get Your Smile On,” more in tune with their throwback blue-eyed soul sound.

In advance of An Evening of Songs of Stories at The Palace Theatre on Friday, Oates spoke with the PG in a phone interview from Nashville. Aware that he would not talk about the lawsuit, we dance around that.

Let’s start with the basic “How’s the tour going and what can people expect from it?”

The tour is going very well. It’s a unique show, called An Evening of Songs and Stories, and it’s an acoustic-based show with a small acoustic band. Basically, it’s a retrospective of my musical life. I’ve been a musician ever since I was a little kid. In addition to all the work I’ve done with Daryl over the years, I have seven, almost eight solo albums out now, with another one coming. I’m constantly recording, constantly collaborating and writing, and so it’s a chance to show people who I am as an individual outside of what I’ve done working with Hall & Oates.

“Arkansas” was very much a roots record and now the single “Get Your Smile On” is more blue-eyed soul. Is that the direction you’re going?

I guess if you look at those two different genres, you can see the dissimilarity between the two. But to my mind, they’re all the same. To me, the roots of American music — blues, Appalachian, bluegrass, the early days of rock ‘n’ roll — all of that kind of blends together in my musical mind. It manifests itself in different ways, and I don’t differentiate between the styles very much, even though I understand exactly what you’re saying.

It’s just that I’ve got a lot of music in me and I get it out one way or the other. I try not to put fences around the different styles. If I write a song, I treat the song the way I feel the musical accompaniment should treat that song. So, every song is different.

I know I’m going around in circles here, but, like I said, “Arkansas” was a very specific project to celebrate the idea of the roots of American music. It was almost like a history lesson. What I’m doing now is a little more contemporary and a little more taking those ideas of roots music, but putting them into the context of a contemporary recording, with all the skill and experience that I have as a musician who’s been doing it for over 50 years.

But it’s a little bit more of a pop production, the new album?

Yes, you could call it that. It’s definitely more of a pop production. It’s certainly not pop if you compare it to Beyoncé or Justin Timberlake. It’s not even close. I guess you could call it early R&B. That’s more of my sweet spot.

How did the reggae version of “Maneater” come about?

I released that as a series of singles last year. I initially thought that song could be a reggae song. When Daryl and I got together to finish my initial idea, we made it sound more like a song that belonged on a Hall & Oates record, which was quite frankly the right thing to do.

But I wanted to take it back to that original Inspiration, and I have a friend who is a traditional Jamaican reggae producer, and I told him about that, and he said, “Let’s go to Kingston and I’ll put a session together with some of the legends of reggae” — guys who played with Bob Marley and Toots and the Maytals.

I went down there for a couple days and cut this amazing track and tried to reimagine the song. I wanted to go into the studio with the Jamaican musicians pretending that I never heard the Hall & Oates version. I know that sounds crazy, but that was my idea.

How do you compare the process of working solo versus working with Daryl?

The songwriting process is not different at all. I’ve been writing with all sorts of people, all around the world, and I found there’s a commonality in the way that songwriters approach songwriting. The collaborative process depends on the person you’re working with.

Sometimes, the first thing you do, especially with a person you’re not familiar working with, is to figure out what your role should be: What do they want? What do they want from you? Are they lacking in lyrics? Do they need chord changes? What’s my contribution going to be? And that’s kind of a psychological dance in a way. You try to figure out the best way to get from point A to point B to finish the song and it’s unique to each individual.

The Hall & Oates shows, and your solo shows, do you prefer one to the other and how is your preparation different?

I’ve been doing solo shows for a long time, over 20 years, and I would say that my show is 180 degrees from the large-venue productions that was the Hall & Oates shows. No video screens, no amplifiers, no production, no roadies, no trucks. I strip it down to the most bare essential elements.

It’s musicians with their acoustic instruments going through a PA system. I have a percussionist who doesn’t even play a drum kit. I have a cello player and a new member who’s a guitarist and pedal steel player. I want to feature the organic naturalness of performance and not have it be affected by production elements and things like that.

I just wanted to strip it down to the most basic essential: a songwriter, his instrument and his voice.

Can you talk about the importance of the songs being licensed, and how that brings a younger audience to your music?

Yeah, that’s the gift that keeps giving. As a songwriter, what you hope for and what you strive for is to write a song that will not only stand the test of time, but resonate with people across generations. The added bonus of having it chosen to be used in movies, TV shows, commercials, is that it spreads the word.

In the modern music business, you almost need that to cut through the large amount of music that’s available to people. When a commercial is repeatedly played on TV, in a movie, a TV series, it really gives your songs a chance to be heard and appreciated, and it reminds people of them. So, it’s a fantastic new element to the way that music is being promoted.

Do you and your former partner have differences about that?

Interestingly enough, we agree on almost everything. I would say we agree on 99.9% of the requests we get. And we get a lot of requests. We get two to three requests a week, sometimes more.

The only things we have either individually or collectively rejected would be something that is inappropriate or questionable in terms of bothering us personally, if it’s super violent or something that’s distasteful that we feel we don’t want to be associated with.

But for the most part, I would say we approve 99.9 percent of requests that we get.

What can you say about your relationship right now?

Well, you know, we have a business relationship. We’re business partners. We’re associated together through our mutual history. We have a 50-year history that has a lot of complications and we deal with it as business partners through discussions, through making decisions based on what we think is best for ourselves individually and what we think is best for the music that we made collectively.

Do you talk personally at all?

No, not very much.

From the beginning, you resisted the idea of Hall & Oates and wanted it to be your two names. What did that mean to you guys?

That was something we decided from the very first album. If you go back to 1972, and you look at every album we ever made, it says specifically “Daryl Hall and John Oates.” The world ended up calling us Hall & Oates because it was just easier, but we went into this partnership with a complete understanding that we would be two individuals working together.

I know that seems like making a lot out of nothing, but it was actually very important because what we’ve done over the years that we worked together is what’s most famous and well-known. But if you look back, Daryl Hall made solo albums in the 1970s. This is nothing new for us. This is what we do; this is the basics of our relationship.

How did you have that foresight at that young age?

‘Cause we’re really smart. It was a thing that we were very adamant about. We were very sure that we could stand as individuals, musically and personally. And we didn’t want to be lumped in.

We made a joke when we created our touring company, we called it Two-Headed Monster.

Listen, I had a complete musical life before I met Daryl Hall. I started playing guitar and singing at 5 years old and I met Daryl Hall when I was 19. Daryl Hall did the same thing. He was a child star, a singer, he studied music, he played in other bands.

We operated completely independently of each other, but we also collaborated. And when we collaborated, we created together. It was something that was greater than the sum of its parts, that unique collaboration, and it’s world famous and those songs will live forever. So, I’m thrilled and grateful and proud of all that great music that we made. Now it’s time for me to do other things.

Bonus question: You guys get played a lot on the Yacht Rock station. How do you feel about the term?

It doesn’t mean anything to me. I’ve never worn a captain’s hat. I don’t even like boats, so I don’t even know what that means.

All I know is that, believe it or not, the Yacht Rock station on SiriusXM is one of, if not the most popular, channel, so there’s an audience out there who loves to hear music of that era and that genre. Some of our music certainly fits in and some of it doesn’t fit in, but it doesn’t matter. It’s labels and I don’t care about labels.

The show is at 8 p.m. Tickets start at $49; thepalacetheatre,org.

First Published: April 2, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: April 2, 2024, 7:56 p.m.