Daryl Hall Quotations

Nobody really cares about what other people think anymore; they're all about themselves.

Reject what you don't want. Get rid of dead wood.

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.

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.

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 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!

The first thing I ever did was play talent shows at the Uptown Theater and the Adelphi Ballroom.

As I got older, my voice got better.

For years and years, I was beset with snide remarks by certain members of the press, where they would turn John Oates into a joke, or they would trivialize what I do, which never really bothered me all that much.

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.

As a singer, I float around. I'm kind of scatty, bouncing around a lot. I try to adapt to what's going on around me in the song and the arrangement.

I always say the same thing - believe in what you do, do it, and don't veer away from the truth of it.

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.

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 hear a lot of people singing in funny voices and singing like they're stupid. Singing in a deliberately fey and dumb and childish way. And I find it to be a disturbing trend.

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.

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 have to say I have never been comfortable with somebody else telling me what to do - in any way.

I don't like showboating. I was never a fan of showing off.

Most artists try to avoid cliches, but it's pretty hard to avoid them if you yourself end up being one.

Yes, I travel in unusual circles. George Osborne and his wife Frances are my cousins.

Chronic Lyme causes arthritis, heart problems, stroke - even death.

If you work hard and you're good, you can build something for yourself.

Nobody's going to sell 10 million records by not working hard.

To me, there's two kinds of music these days. There's ephemeral music, and there's music that has lasting power and depth.

When I was a kid, I always looked up to people like B.B. King and Ray Charles.

Some artists are nervous - most of them are, to tell you the truth, and they have different ways of exhibiting that. Some of them are boisterous, some are really quiet.

My house is actually two houses that were deconstructed. They were Connecticut Valley houses built in 1771 and 1781. I took them down piece by piece and reconstructed them about 50 miles to the west on the New York/Connecticut border.

My fan base is really expanding into an inter-generational thing - it's what every artist probably hopes for.

Obscurity is just obscurity. There's no romance in obscurity.

Nixon was the beginning of people not trusting politics.

I have four different diseases I'm being treated for, and I got lucky. I caught it fairly early. Neurologically, it does stuff to people. It's really nasty.

I'd like to see more crossover between white and black music. That's something I've been advocating for years.

If you are a superstar, or whatever you want to call yourself, a person who's had outrageous success, and you decide to go indie and tell the record companies to screw themselves? That takes a certain amount of courage. And bullheadedness, really.

Having a solo career is a funny thing.

I think an artist's true worth comes through an inter-generational thing - when you go beyond your own time, and start influencing people in a greater way than just what surrounds you.

Late 20th century music was a really important thing. It changed the world, and I'm part of that, and now I'm part of the museum that celebrates that.

I think there are people who really always have and always will care about the quality of music in general, about the sound of the music, things like that.

Who knows what the right time to get married is?

When you're playing in front of people, everything is external. It's all going from you out to an audience. When you're in a studio, it's very internalised, it's going from the air through you into this meticulously crafted, layered piece of work.

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.

What I do isn't black music; it's just my music.

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.

Smokey Robinson is one of my heroes as a singer and songwriter; a major influence on my own music from the very start.

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 have an English family and I've lived in England for years.

Traditionally, duos get accused of lots of things.

Americans think that if you're popular, there must be something wrong with you.

Any song I don't feel good about, I shelve. Anything you ever hear me sing, it's because I want to.

Being at college, I think that's the time when you really start searching for things outside yourself.

Around 1974, I graduated into the occult, and spent a sold six or seven years immersed in the Kabala and the Chaldean, Celtic, and Druidic traditions I also became fascinated with Aleister Crowley, the nineteenth-century magician who shared these beliefs.

When you have that first flash of what you think is going to be a great idea-from the mouth, from the hands-that's an amazing feeling. I don't think anything's quite as good as that.

I think Philadelphia has been underrated over the years as a musical region.

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?

I never felt entitled to anything. I'm the hardest worker I know.

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 have gone from one relationship to a marriage and stepchildren.

I love antique architecture, so if I have any indulgences, I have owned and renovated and reconstructed a lot of old houses.

You must always be very cautious and be as vigilant as you can. You work diligently to provide a secure environment,.

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 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.

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.

The biggest honor of my career was when I won R&B Artist of the Year back in the 1970s. I look at that as a major honor.

Every artistic form has its golden age, and unfortunately I think the golden age for whatever I do probably ended about 1990.

Success and failure are equally surprising.

The Daryls House thing has made me into a live musician even more than I ever was, and even in the way I record.

The Philadelphia/New York world of the music business is a tough place to be.

You externalise extreme emotions, and you look at them objectively and understand them from a different standpoint.

I specialize in early homes, and what I care about the most is renovating a home and taking it back to its original construction idea.

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.

I've watched the world crash and burn in every sense. I've watched the record industry crash and burn; politically I've watched it crash and burn, financially crash and burn.

The song 'Laughing Down Crying' is not a typical Daryl song.

I've always been a spontaneous singer. And all the stuff that you hear on the end of the songs, what they call the ad libs - that just comes out of my head. That's not thought out at all. I have the verses and the choruses, and then after that it's total improvisation.

I've always been a guy who likes to stretch my limits - to find out if I have any, really.

The whole American pop culture started in Philadelphia with 'American Bandstand' and the music that came out of that city.

This is an album that reflects our past, but it's very much about the present, ... This isn't about nostalgia we're singing these songs here and now, and doing them our way.

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.

The younger generation gives me more respect than I could ever hope for.

The biggest honor of my career was when I won R&B Artist of the Year back in the 1970s. I look at that as a major honor.

I've got a sense of humor. I'm a funny guy.

The Internet allows me to be more free.

I'm a born collaborator. This is what I was born to do, really.

I'm very enthused about everything. I have a lot to say and a lot of things I'm interested in.

I'm not a big fan of any video, especially my own. In a word, I hated the Hall & Oates videos.

I knew that I would be making music for my whole life; as far as how many people respond to it, you can't plan for that.

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 had the idea of 'Live From Daryl's House' way before I contracted Lyme disease.

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'm constantly on my toes and re-examining my own music.

If you can sing, you never lose your voice. If you don't know how to sing, your voice goes away because you sing from your throat.

If you're African American, you are forced into making different choices, in a lot of cases, than you are as a white person.

If you see me walking down the street, you're gonna see the same guy as you do on stage, dressed the same, looking the same, and nothing changes. I'm just one person.

In my Philly neighborhood, black and white kids hung together without even thinking about it. The spirit of Martin Luther King was alive and well.

I do a project, and then I move on.

You don't have to be a good singer any more if you can rap well.

You don't have to be a good musician if you've got certain computer skills.

The late 20th century had just enough communication abilities to allow superstar-ness and communality to happen. It was a musical renaissance that rivals the visual one that happened in the 1400s.