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The Specials

The Specials, also known as The Special AKA, were an English 2 tone and ska revival band formed in 1977 in Coventry. After some early changes, the first stable lineup of the group consisted of Terry Hall and Neville Staple on vocals, Jerry Dammers on keyboards, Lynval Golding and Roddy Radiation on guitars, Horace Panter on bass, John Bradbury on drums, and Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez on horns. The band wore mod-style "1960s period rude boy outfits (pork pie hats, tonic and mohair suits and loafers)". Their music combines the danceable rhythms of ska and rocksteady with the energy and attitude of punk. Lyrically, their work (often written by primary songwriter Dammers) presented overt political and social commentary.

In 1980, their The Special AKA Live! EP, featuring lead track "Too Much Too Young", reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart. In 1981, the recession-themed single "Ghost Town" also hit No. 1 in the UK.

After seven consecutive UK top 10 singles between 1979 and 1981, main lead vocalists Hall and Staple, along with guitarist Golding, left to form Fun Boy Three. Continuing as "The Special AKA" (a name they used frequently on earlier Specials releases), a substantially revised Specials line-up issued new material until 1984, including the top 10 UK hit single "Free Nelson Mandela". After this, founder Jerry Dammers dissolved the band and pursued political activism.

The group re-formed in 1993, and continued to perform and record with varying line-ups – none of them involving Dammers – until the death of Terry Hall in December 2022.

Founding and early years (1977–1978)
The group was formed in 1977 by songwriter/keyboardist Dammers, vocalist Tim Strickland, guitarist/vocalist Lynval Golding, drummer Silverton Hutchinson and bassist Horace Panter (Sir Horace Gentleman). Strickland was replaced by Terry Hall shortly after the band's formation. The band was first called the Automatics, then the Coventry Automatics. Guitarist Roddy Byers (usually known as Roddy Radiation) agreed to join the band in March 1978 ahead of a recording session of demos.

The new line-up changed their name to The Special A.K.A. The Automatics after another band called the Automatics signed a record deal with Island Records. The new name was a bit of a mouthful and was shortened to The Special AKA. The name Special AKA soon evolved into The Specials – the moniker that would be used for most of the band's career.

Joe Strummer of The Clash had attended one of their concerts, and invited the Special AKA to open for his band in their "On Parole" UK tour. This performance gave the Special AKA a new level of national exposure, and they briefly shared the Clash's management. During the tour Neville Staple, who was initially one of the roadies, became a full member of The Specials when his version of "Monkey Man" was incorporated into the group's set.

The Specials began at the same time as Rock Against Racism, which was first organised in 1978. According to Dammers, anti-racism was intrinsic to the formation of the Specials, in that the band was formed with the goal of integrating black and white people. Many years later Dammers stated that "Music gets political when there are new ideas in music... punk was innovative, so was ska, and that was why bands such as the Specials and the Clash could be political".

Ascendancy of the Specials (1979–1981)
In 1979, shortly after drummer Hutchinson left the band to be replaced by John Bradbury, Dammers formed the 2 Tone Records label and released the band's debut single "Gangsters", a reworking of Prince Buster's "Al Capone". "The Selecter" by The Selecter appeared on the B-side. The fledgling 2 Tone records released Gangsters / The Selecter in a completely independent do-it-yourself operation. After initial good sales, Rough Trade then agreed to repress and distribute the single through its independent distribution network. In May 1979 John Peel played the record on his influential late night BBC Radio One show. The record became a Top 10 hit that summer.

Following the release and early success of "Gangsters", major record labels lined up with offers to sign the Specials. The aim of the Specials was not only to secure a record deal for the group but to get an agreement that would establish 2 Tone as an independent sub-label. The plan was for 2 Tone to put out singles by non-signed bands who would not be held to any contract. Chrysalis agreed to the terms that would establish 2 Tone as a viable independent label and the Specials would get the backing of a major record company.

The band had begun wearing mod/rude boy/skinhead-style two-tone tonic suits, along with other elements of late 1960s teen fashions. Changing their name to the Specials, they recorded their eponymous debut album in 1979, produced by Elvis Costello. Horn players Dick Cuthell and Rico Rodriguez were featured on the album, but would not be official members of the Specials until their second album.

The Specials led off with Dandy Livingstone's "Rudy, A Message to You" (slightly altering the title to "A Message to You, Rudy") and also had covers of Prince Buster and Toots & the Maytals songs from the late 1960s. In 1980, the EP Too Much Too Young (predominantly credited to the Special A.K.A.) was a No. 1 hit in the UK Singles Chart, despite controversy over the song's lyrics, which reference teen pregnancy and promote contraception.

Reverting once again to the name of the Specials, the band's second album, More Specials, was not as commercially successful and was recorded at a time when, according to Hall, conflicts had developed in the band. Female backing vocalists on the Specials' first two studio albums included Chrissie Hynde, Rhoda Dakar (then of the Bodysnatchers and later of the Special AKA), and Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey of the Go-Go's. In the first few months of 1981, the band took a break from recording and touring, and then released "Ghost Town", a non-album single, which hit No. 1 in 1981. At their Top of the Pops recording of the song, however, Staple, Hall and Golding announced they were leaving the band. Golding later said: "We didn't talk to the rest of the guys. We couldn't even stay in the same dressing room. We couldn't even look at each other. We stopped communicating. You only realise what a genius Jerry was years later. At the time, we were on a different planet." Shortly afterwards, the three left the band to form Fun Boy Three.

Band split, rebirth as the Special AKA (1982–1984)
For the next few years, the group was in a seemingly constant state of flux. Adding Dakar to the permanent line-up, the group recorded "The Boiler" with Dakar on vocals, Dammers on keyboards, Bradbury on drums, John Shipley (from the Swinging Cats) on guitar, Cuthell on brass and Nicky Summers on bass. The single was credited to "Rhoda with the Special AKA". The track describes an incident of date rape, and its frank and harrowing depiction of the matter meant that airplay was severely limited. Nevertheless, it managed to reach No. 35 on the UK charts, and American writer Dave Marsh later identified "The Boiler" as one of the 1,001 best "rock and soul" singles of all time in his book The Heart of Rock & Soul.

After going on tour with Rodriguez, the band (without Dakar, and as "Rico and the Special AKA") also recorded the non-charting (and non-album) single "Jungle Music". The line-up for the single was Rodriguez (vocal, trombone), Cuthell (cornets), Dammers (keyboards), Bradbury (drums), Shipley (guitar), returning bassist Panter, and new additions Satch Dickson and Groco (percussion) and Anthony Wymshurst (guitar).

Rodriguez and the three newcomers were all dropped for the next single, "War Crimes", which brought back Dakar and added new co-vocalists Egidio Newton and Stan Campbell, as well as violinist Nick Parker. Follow-up single "Racist Friend" was a minor hit (UK No. 60), with the band establishing themselves as a septet: Dakar, Newton, Campbell, Bradbury, Cuthell, Dammers and Shipley.

The new line-up (still known as the Special AKA) finally issued a new full-length album In the Studio in 1984. Officially, the band was now a sextet: Dakar, Campbell, Bradbury, Dammers, Shipley and new bassist Gary McManus. Cuthell, Newton, Panter and Radiation all appeared on the album as guests; as did saxophonist Nigel Reeve, and Claudia Fontaine and Caron Wheeler of the vocal trio Afrodiziak. Both critically and commercially, In The Studio was less successful than previous efforts, although the 1984 single "Free Nelson Mandela" was a No. 9 UK hit. The latter contributed to making Mandela's imprisonment a cause célèbre in the UK, and became popular with anti-apartheid activists in South Africa. Dammers then dissolved the band and pursued political activism.

Later developments
Following the break-up of the original line-up, various members of the band performed in other bands and reformed several times to tour and record in Specials-related projects. However, there was never a complete reunion of the original line-up.

After their departure from the Specials, Golding, Hall and Staple founded the pop band Fun Boy Three and enjoyed commercial success from 1981 to 1983 with hits such as "Tunnel of Love", "It Ain't What You Do (It's the Way That You Do It)", "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)". The group ended with Hall's sudden departure, leading to a 15-year rift with Staple.

After Fun Boy Three, Staple and Golding joined Pauline Black of the Selecter in the short-lived band Sunday Best, releasing the single "Pirates on the Airwaves".

In 1990, Bradbury, Golding, Panter and Staple teamed up with members of the Beat to form Special Beat, performing the music of the two bands and other ska and Two Tone classics. The group, undergoing many line-up changes, toured and released several live recordings through the 1990s.

A 1994 single credited to "X Specials" featured Staple, Golding, Radiation, and Panter. A cover of the Slade song "Coz I Luv You", the project was produced by Slade's Jim Lea.

Moving into production and management, Staple "discovered" and produced bhangra pop fusion artist Johnny Zee. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Staple would stay active producing and guesting with a variety of artists, including International Beat, Special Beat, Unwritten Law, Desorden Publico, the Planet Smashers and others, as well as leading his own bands and starting the Rude Wear clothing line. He sang with the 1990s Specials line-up, and again from 2009 to 2012.

Panter went on to join with members of the Beat and Dexys Midnight Runners to form General Public, and then Special Beat. He joined the 1990s Specials before training as a primary school teacher at the University of Central England in Birmingham. He continued to play with latter-day Special Neol Davies in the blues outfit Box of Blues. However, he rejoined the band for their 2009 reunion and continued as a member until the group came to an end in December 2022.

Golding teamed up with Dammers for a brief spell of club DJing, and then worked with Coventry band After Tonight. After Special Beat, he went on to lead the Seattle-based ska groups Stiff Upper Lip, and more recently, Pama International, as well as many collaborations with other ska bands. He has also toured with the Beat. He joined the 1990s Specials line-up, but left in 2000. He rejoined in 2009, and remained with the group until its end in 2022.

Radiation fronted and worked with numerous artists including the Tearjerkers (a band that he had begun in the last months of the Specials), the Bonediggers, the Raiders and Three Men & Black (including Jean-Jacques Burnel of the Stranglers), Jake Burns (Stiff Little Fingers), Pauline Black, Bruce Foxton (the Jam), Dave Wakeling (the Beat, General Public) and Nick Welsh (Skaville UK). He also fronts the Skabilly Rebels, a band that mixes rockabilly with ska. He joined the 1990s Specials line-up and again in 2009, continuing to 2014.

Bradbury continued through the Special AKA era, then formed the band JB's Allstars, before moving into production. He joined Special Beat for several years, then a reformed Selecter, before retiring from music to work as an IT specialist. He rejoined the band for their 2009 reunion, and continued to perform with them until his death in 2015.

From 1984 until 1987, Hall fronted the Colourfield, with some commercial success. After they disbanded, he pursued a solo career, working mostly in the new wave genre. He co-wrote a number of early Lightning Seeds releases. He also performed some vocals for a Dub Pistols album. He and Eurythmics member David A. Stewart formed the duo Vegas in the early 1990s, releasing an eponymous album in 1992. Hall joined the Specials for their 2009 reunion, and continued to perform with them until his death in 2022.

In 2006, Dammers formed large, jazz-style ensemble the Spatial AKA Orchestra.

The Specials Mk.2 (1993–1998)
The first reunion under the Specials name occurred in 1993. Producer Roger Lomas was asked by Trojan Records to get some musicians together to back ska legend Desmond Dekker on a new album. He approached all members of The Specials and the four that were willing to participate were Roddy Radiation, Neville Staple, Lynval Golding and Horace Panter, they were also joined by Aitch Bembridge, who had been the drummer in The Selecter. Bembridge, had played with soul singer Ray King in the 1970s, who mentored and worked with Dammers, Staple, Golding and Hutchinson in their days before the Specials. A group of studio musicians filled out the band, including keyboardist Mark Adams. The album, released by Trojan Records as King of Kings, was credited to Desmond Dekker and the Specials.

The release of the album with Desmond Dekker created some buzz for the band, and led to an offer from a Japanese promoter to book a tour. Rejoined by Golding, along with Bembridge & Adams from the "King of Kings" sessions, the band added horn players Adam Birch and Jonathan Read and began rehearsing and playing live. Initially using the names the Coventry Specials, The X Specials, and Specials2, they shortly reverted to The Specials after accepting that it was the name promoters were using anyway, although the line-up was referred to as Specials MkII by those involved. This line-up went on to tour internationally and released two studio albums: Today's Specials, a collection of mostly reggae and ska covers in 1996, and Guilty 'til Proved Innocent! in 1998, a collection of original compositions. The band toured heavily in support of both releases – including headlining the Vans Warped Tour – and received positive reviews of their live shows.

Despite the live success, the band fizzled out after a 1998 Japan tour (which Panter missed due to illness ), although limited touring with a different line-up continued into 2000. The release of the earlier Trojan sessions, Skinhead Girl in 2000 and Conquering Ruler in 2001, would be the last heard from the band for some time.

After completing a similar project with The Selecter in 1999, Roger Lomas brought the group back into the studio to record a number of classic songs from the Trojan Records back catalogue. Two weeks before this project, Golding left the group to concentrate on domestic life in Seattle. Turning to another Selecter veteran for help, the band replaced him on guitar with Neol Davies. Davies, Staple, Radiation and Panter, joined by a group of session musicians, recorded a wealth of tracks that eventually saw release by Trojan sub-label Receiver Records as Skinhead Girl in 2000 and Conquering Ruler in 2001.

Terry Hall & Friends
In 2007, Hall teamed up with Golding for the first time in 24 years, to play Specials songs at two music festivals. At Glastonbury Festival, they appeared on the Pyramid Stage with Lily Allen to perform "Gangsters". In May 2009, Golding claimed that Allen's reuniting him with Hall played a "massive part" in the group's later reformation. Later the same day, they played on the Park Stage, with Damon Albarn of Blur on piano and beatboxer Shlomo providing rhythm, to perform "A Message to You, Rudy". At GuilFest, Golding joined the Dub Pistols to again perform "Gangsters". In 2007, Golding regularly performed concerts and recorded with Pama International, a collective of musicians who were members of Special Beat.

On 30 March 2008, Hall stated that the Specials would be reforming for tour dates in autumn 2008, and possibly for some recording. This was officially confirmed on 7 April 2008. On 6 September 2008, six members of the band performed on the main stage at the Bestival, billed as the "Surprise Act". By December 2008, the band had announced 2009 tour dates to celebrate their 30th anniversary, although founder member Dammers was not joining the band on the tour.

Hall was quoted as saying, "The door remains open to him". However, Dammers described the new reunion as a "takeover" and claimed he had been forced out of the band. Around that same time, longtime Specials fan Amy Winehouse joined Dammers onstage at Hyde Park, singing the song he wrote for the Specials, "Free Nelson Mandela", for Mandela's 90th birthday concert, dubbed 46664 after Mandela's prison number, and also the name of his AIDS charity, which received money raised by the birthday bash.

30th Anniversary Tour and beyond
On 10 April 2009, the Specials guested on BBC Two's Later... with Jools Holland. The following month, Bradbury and Golding expressed their intentions to release further original Specials material at a later date. On 8 June 2009, it was announced that the Specials would embark on a second leg of their 30th anniversary tour, taking in the locations and venues that they missed earlier in the year. In July and August 2009, the Specials toured Australia and Japan. In October, the band picked up the Inspiration Award at the Q Awards. In 2010, they performed at the Dutch festival Lowlands.

In an interview at the Green Room in Manchester in November 2010, Hall confirmed that there would be further Specials dates in the autumn of 2011, and confessed to having enjoyed playing live again: "It's a celebration of something that happened in your life that was important, and we're going to do that again next year, but then maybe that'll be it". In late 2010, the band re-released "A Message to You, Rudy" as a Haiti Special Fund available to download from iTunes in both the UK and the US, with proceeds going to aid the UNICEF effort to help children in earthquake-stricken Haiti.

In February 2012, it was announced that the Specials would perform at Hyde Park with Blur and New Order to celebrate the 2012 Summer Olympics closing ceremony. Panter said that the band were excited to be involved in such a momentous event: "We have been keeping it under our pork pie hats for a month or so now. I think it is going to be the only chance people get to see the Specials performing in the UK this year." The Specials' performance was said to have remained synonymous with Britain's political and social upheaval of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In August 2012, the Specials released a new live album, ''More... Or Less. – The Specials Live'', featuring "the best of the best" performances from their 2011 European tour, selected by the band themselves on a double-disc CD and double-vinyl LP.

Departures of Neville Staple and Roddy Radiation
In January 2013, the Specials announced the departure of Staple with the following message on their website: "We are very sad Neville cannot join us on the Specials' UK tour in May 2013 or indeed on the future projects we have planned. He has made a huge contribution to the fantastic time and reception we have received since we started and reformed in 2009. However, he missed a number of key shows last year due to ill health, and his health is obviously much more important. We wish him the very best for the future".

The Specials completed a North American tour in 2013, performing to sold-out crowds in Chicago, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Portland and Vancouver.

In February 2014, it was revealed that Roddy Radiation had left the reformed group. In spite of his departure, the Specials played an extensive tour in the autumn of 2014 with Steve Cradock (Ocean Colour Scene, Paul Weller) as lead guitarist.

Death of John Bradbury
Drummer John Bradbury died on 28 December 2015 at the age of 62. On 22 March 2016, the Specials announced that The Libertines drummer Gary Powell would be performing on their upcoming tours. Powell was replaced by PJ Harvey/Jazz Jamaica drummer Kenrick Rowe on the Encore album and subsequent tour.

Encore and Protest Songs 1924–2012
In 2017, the band invited 20-year-old Birmingham native Saffiyah Khan to a show after a photo of her confronting an "English Defence League goon" in a Specials t-shirt at a counter-demonstration went viral. Less than two years later, Khan had performed on stage for the first time, recorded a song and toured North America with the band.

On 29 October 2018, the Specials announced a UK tour in 2019 to coincide with the release of a new album, Encore.

On 1 February 2019, the band announced a spring North American tour to promote the 1 February 2019 release of Encore (out via Island Records). The following week, Encore debuted at number 1 on the UK Albums Chart, giving the band their first chart-topping album since 1980. During late 2019, The Specials invited 17-year-old artist and photographer Sterling Chandler to join and photograph the band on the remaining leg of the tour.

In March 2021, the band announced a UK tour. On 7 July 2021, Horace Panter announced a new 12-track Specials album that was released on 23 August 2021, titled Protest Songs 1924–2012. Vocalist Hannah Hu joined the band for their 2021 tour and also sang on the new album.

Death of Terry Hall
On 19 December 2022, the Specials announced on social media that Hall had died at age 63 after a brief illness which was later revealed to be pancreatic cancer. They had planned to record a new album in the United States before Hall's health deteriorated.

In a 2023 interview, bass player Horace Panter confirmed that The Specials had ceased to be following Hall's death. He stated, "It would be ludicrous to tour without Terry, so yes, that's definitely the end of The Specials".

Principal original members

 * Terry Hall – lead vocals (1977–1981, 2008–2022; his death)
 * Lynval Golding – rhythm and lead guitar, vocals (1977–1981, 1993, 1994–1998, 2008–2022)
 * Horace Panter – bass guitar (1977–1981, 1982, 1993, 1994–1998, 2000–2001, 2008–2022)
 * Jerry Dammers – keyboards, principal songwriter, vocals (1977–1981)
 * Roddy Radiation – lead guitar, vocals (1978–1981, 1993, 1996–2001, 2008–2014)
 * Neville Staple – toasting, vocals, percussion (1978–1981, 1993, 1996–2001, 2008–2012)
 * John Bradbury – drums (1979–1984, 2008–2015; his death)
 * Dick Cuthell – flugelhorn, trumpet (1979–1984)
 * Rico Rodriguez – trombone (1979–1981, 1982; died 2015)

Specials reunion touring and session musicians

 * Tim Smart – trombone (2008–2022)
 * Nikolaj Torp Larsen – keyboards, vocals (2008–2022)
 * Steve Cradock – lead guitar, vocals (2014–2022)
 * Pablo Mendelssohn – trumpet (2014–2022)
 * Kenrick Rowe – drums (2019–2022)
 * Hannah Hu – guest vocals (2021–2022)
 * Stan Samuel – rhythm guitar (2021–2022)
 * Sid Gauld – trumpet (2021)

The Coventry Automatics

 * Silverton Hutchinson – drums (1977–1979)
 * Tim Strickland – vocals (1977)

The Specials (original line-up)

 * Terry Hall – lead vocals (1977–1981, 2008–2022; his death)
 * Lynval Golding – rhythm and lead guitar, vocals (1977–1981, 1993, 1994–1998, 2008–2022)
 * Horace Panter – bass guitar (1977–1981, 1982, 1993, 1994–1998, 2000–2001, 2008–2022)
 * Jerry Dammers – keyboards, principal songwriter, vocals (1977–1981)
 * Roddy Radiation – lead guitar, vocals (1978–1981, 1993, 1996–2001, 2008–2014)
 * Neville Staple – toasting, vocals, percussion (1978–1981, 1993, 1996–2001, 2008–2012)
 * John Bradbury – drums (1979–1984, 2008–2015; his death)
 * Dick Cuthell – flugelhorn, trumpet (1979–1984)
 * Rico Rodriguez – trombone (1979–1981, 1982; died 2015)

The Special A.K.A.

 * Jerry Dammers – keyboards, principal songwriter, vocals (1981–1984)
 * Horace Panter – bass guitar (1982)
 * Stan Campbell – vocals (1982–1984)
 * Rhoda Dakar – vocals (1981–1982, 1982–1984)
 * Dick Cuthell – flugelhorn, trumpet (1981–1984)
 * John Shipley – guitar (1981–1984)
 * Satch Dixon – percussion (1982)
 * Tony 'Groco' Uter – percussion (1982)
 * Anthony Wimshurst – guitar (1982)
 * Egidio Newton – vocals, percussion (1982–1983)
 * Nick Parker – violin (1982)
 * Gary McManus – bass guitar (1983–1984)

The Specials Mk.2.

 * Neville Staple – toasting, vocals, percussion (1996–1998)
 * Jon Read – trumpet, percussion, bass (1996–1998, 2008–2014)
 * Adam Birch – trumpet (1996–1998)
 * Mark Adams – keyboards (1993, 1994–1998)
 * Kendell Smith – vocals (1998)
 * Aitch Bembridge – drums (1993, 1994–1998)

Trojan era Specials

 * Neville Staple – toasting, vocals, percussion (2000–2001)
 * Neol Davies – rhythm guitar, vocals (2000–2001)
 * Anthony Harty – drums, percussion (2000–2001)
 * Justin Dodsworth – keyboards (2000–2001)
 * Steve Holdway – trombone (2000–2001)
 * Paul Daleman – trumpet (2000–2001)
 * Leigh Malin – tenor sax (2000–2001)

The Specials (2008–2022)

 * Drew Stansall – saxophone, flute (2008–2012)
 * Gary Powell – drums (2016–2019)

As The Specials

 * The Specials (1979)
 * More Specials (1980)
 * Today's Specials (1996)
 * Guilty 'til Proved Innocent! (1998)
 * Skinhead Girl (2000)
 * Conquering Ruler (2001)
 * Encore (2019)
 * Protest Songs 1924–2012 (2021)

As The Special A.K.A.

 * In the Studio (1984)

title: The Specials


text:
User:Dhagberg

Please contact me at dhagberg - at - millibits.com if you have any questions. The discussion below is related to the re-use of Wikipedia technologies for knowledge management in another system.

= Simple Content Markup = -

ISSUE
For wide acceptance and delivery of Voyager, we need to have a simple, clean, consistent model for simple content contribution that allows for adding a minimal amount of content structure, formatting, and semantics. The current contribution/editing interface for simple documents is not sufficient for several reasons:

 * The wrapping problem. Currently, to get documents to display exactly the same on-screen, in the Preview window and on SunSolve, the TEXTAREA forms are set to Hard-Wrap.  This feature will auto-wrap the 1st time.  But the when one attempts to edit the document, they will find that they need to manually re-wrap the entire paragraph they were working on.

 * The table problem. Currently, if a user contributes an article with an ASCII table, that table *must* be narrower than 75 characters and, every time a longer word or a column needs to be added to the table, the user will need to manually re-wrap the entire table.

 * The list problem. If the user wants to contribute an article with a numbered list, they would format it like this one (or similarly).  If they go back and add an item to the middle of the list, they will need to re-number the entire list.

 * The styling/formatting problem. Adding *emphasis* like this or /this/ is not the most effective means of communications with Sun's customer base, who expect professional-looking documentation of the same caliber they can get from docs.sun.com or the Microsoft Knowledge Base.

 * The semantics/linkage problem. Currently, there's no way for a contributor to mark 48004566 as a BugId.  It could very well be an Oracle shared memory segment size or the output of the df command.

 * The StarOffice problem. Firing up StarOffice every time the user wants to contribute a document with the *slightest* amount of formatting is a lot of overhead.  90+% of our contributors would prefer an all-in-one solution where the content and editing is kept in the browser.

SOLUTION
A simple text format that follows intuitive rules for formatting has been widely adopted in the open source and technical communities called WikiWikiWeb or just Wiki for short. See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWiki for background and the very first implementation, http://c2.com/cgi/wiki, for details, and http://twiki.org/ for one of the more full-featured wiki implementations available.

A short description of this proposed format follows. Also note that this document is also in Wiki format, and can be seen at http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/User%3ADhagberg

 * Paragraphs are separated by a blank line, just like this document. Simple end-of-line breaks are ignored.  Multiple blank lines will be collapsed into a single paragraph break.

 * Lines that start with spaces will be treated as literal text to allow for script, code, or output samples as shown below. Inside literal text, none of the formatting characters described below are significant.

if [ -r /tmp/filename ]; then echo "FILE exists!" exit 1 fi

 * Emphasis is added by surrounding a word with 2 or more single-quote (apostrophe) characters like this for emphasis, this for strong emphasis, and this for very strong emphasis.

 * Sections are started by beginning a line with == Section Name ==. Sub-sections are started by beginning a line with === Subsection Name === and Sub-sub-sections are started by beginning a line with ==== Sub-subsection Name ====.

 * Bulleted lists, like this one, start with an asterisk (*) at the beginning of the line. For nesting, start the line with 2 or more asterisks.  The list ends at the first blank line (so actually, in this document, each bulleted paragraph is its own list).

 * Numbered lists start with a hash (#) at the beginning of the line. Again, for nesting, start the line with 2 or more hash signs.  The list ends at the first blank line, so if this document used # instead of *, all the numbers would be 1.

 * Definition lists start each term with a semicolon at the start of the line, the term, a colon, and the definition body, with no spaces before the semicolon or between the term and the definition body (this lets people use semicolons normally in a sentence: like this).  See the next paragraph for an example:

 * This term:This is the definition for the term and may span a paragraph break, so here's a little more text to fill it in.

 * Links to CMS-specific items will be done like BugId:4700556, PatchId:110556-05, and Article:27005 but cannot be shown on Wikipedia since they do not know how to interpret these types of links.

 * Image URLs, like http://www.wikipedia.org/upload/wiki.png will be shown as links unless they are in square brackets, in which case they will be shown inline. A similar treatment will be used for the Attachments functionality of the CMS.

 * Tables will be handled slightly differently than implemented on the Wikipedia, namely that if the following section were not indented, it would be formatted as the table following the example:

|Top Left | Top Right| |     Bot Ctr      ||

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: User:Dhagberg


text:
Miller v. California

Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court clarifying the legal definition of obscenity as material that lacks "serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value". The ruling was the origin of the three-part judicial test for determining obscene media content that can be banned by government authorities, which is now known as the Miller test.

Background
In 1971, Marvin Miller, owner of a California mail-order business specializing in pornographic films and books, mass-mailed a brochure advertising products that graphically depicted sexual activity between men and women. Five of the brochures were mailed to a restaurant in Newport Beach, California. The owner and his mother opened the envelope and seeing the brochures, called the police.

Miller was arrested and charged with violating California Penal Code 311.2(a) which says in part: "Every person who knowingly sends or causes to be sent, or brings or causes to be brought, into this state for sale or distribution, [...] any obscene matter is for a first offense, guilty of a misdemeanor." California lawmakers wrote the statute based on two previous Supreme Court obscenity rulings: Memoirs v. Massachusetts and Roth v. United States.

Miller was tried by jury at the Superior Court of Orange County. The judge instructed the jury to evaluate the evidence by the community standards of California as defined by the statute. The jury returned a guilty verdict.

Miller appealed to the Appellate Division of the Superior Court, arguing that the jury instructions did not use the standard set in Memoirs v. Massachusetts which said that in order to be judged obscene, materials must be "utterly without redeeming social value." The appellate division rejected this argument and upheld the jury verdict. Miller then filed an appeal with the California Court of Appeal for the Third District, which declined to review the lower court rulings.

Adopting a freedom of speech argument, Miller applied to the U.S. Supreme Court for certiorari, which was granted. The first oral arguments were heard in January 1972.

Supreme Court precedents on obscenity
The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari to Miller because the California statute at issue was based on two previous obscenity precedents that the Court wanted to revisit. Chief Justice Warren Burger believed that the Court's obscenity jurisprudence was misguided and that governments should be given more leeway to ban obscene materials. Burger pushed for a looser definition of "obscenity" which would allow local prosecutions. Meanwhile, Justice William J. Brennan, Jr., pushed for First Amendment protection for all "obscenity" unless distributed to minors or exposed offensively to unconsenting adults. These disagreements among the Justices resulted in three different hearings, pushing Miller's case into 1973.

Since the Roth v. United States ruling in 1957, the Supreme Court had struggled to define what embodied constitutionally unprotected obscene material. Under the Comstock laws controlling mail distribution that prevailed before Roth, any material that tended to "deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences" was deemed "obscene" and could be banned on that basis. Roth defined obscenity more strictly, as material whose "dominant theme taken as a whole appeals to the prurient interest" to the "average person, applying contemporary community standards". Only material meeting this test could now be banned as "obscene".

In Jacobellis v. Ohio in 1964, about a state ban of an adult-oriented film, Justice Potter Stewart opined that the Court "was faced with the task of trying to define what may be indefinable", and that criminal laws were constitutionally limited to hardcore pornography, which he did not try to define: "perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it". In Memoirs v. Massachusetts in 1966, the Supreme Court refined the Roth test to material that is "patently offensive" and "utterly without redeeming social value". These precedents resulted in an unclear definition of obscene material that could be banned by government authorities.

Opinion of the Court
Miller had based his appeal in California on the Memoirs v. Massachusetts precedent, particularly its test for material without any redeeming social value. Miller believed that such material had value for consenting adults who purchased it voluntarily. Per this argument positioning such material as items of expression, the question before the Court was whether the sale and distribution of that material was protected under the First Amendment's guarantee of freedom of speech. The court determined that the material at issue in Miller's case was pornography that could have been banned under the Roth precedent.

However, the Court acknowledged "the inherent dangers of undertaking to regulate any form of expression", and said that "State statutes designed to regulate obscene materials must be carefully limited." The Court, in an attempt to set such limits, devised a set of three criteria which must be met for a media item to be legitimately subjected to state regulatory bans:
 * 1) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards, would find that the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest;
 * 2) whether the work depicts or describes, in an offensive way, sexual conduct or excretory functions, as specifically defined by applicable state law; and
 * 3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

This test clarified the definition of obscenity originally set out in the Memoirs precedent. This three-part analysis became known as the Miller test.

The result of the ruling was that the Supreme Court overturned Miller's criminal conviction and remanded the case back to the California Superior Court for reconsideration of whether Miller had committed a misdemeanor. On overturning Miller's conviction, the Court stated: "Under the holdings announced today, no one will be subject to prosecution for the sale or exposure of obscene materials unless these materials depict or describe patently offensive 'hard core' sexual conduct specifically defined by the regulating state law, as written or construed."

Impact and subsequent events
The Miller ruling, and particularly the resulting Miller test, was the Supreme Court's first comprehensive explication of obscene material that does not qualify for First Amendment protection and thus can be banned by governmental authorities. Furthermore, due to the three-part test's stringent requirements, very few types of content can now be completely banned, and material that is appropriate for consenting adults can only be partially restricted per delivery method.

The ruling had no direct impact on government attempts to restrict live adult entertainment, which is largely addressed in another Supreme Court precedent from roughly the same period: Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton.

Categories of media material that completely fail the Miller test, and thus can be completely banned by government authorities, have been narrowed down in later Supreme Court rulings. Child pornography was deemed to be unprotected by the First Amendment in New York v. Ferber in 1982, because it has no redeeming social value per the Miller test. In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition in 2002, however, the Court held that sexually explicit material that only appears to depict minors, but actually does not, might be exempt from obscenity rulings.

The "community standards" portion of the Miller test is of particular relevance with the rise of the Internet, as materials believed by some to be "obscene" can be accessed from anywhere in the nation, including places where there is a greater concern than other areas of the nation. Enforcing and applying obscenity laws to the Internet have proven difficult. Due to the difficulty in determining which "community" is most relevant, both the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) and the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) have had sections struck down as unconstitutional in cases such as Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition and Ashcroft v. ACLU.

title: Miller v. California


text:
Nancy Carroll

Nancy Carroll (born Ann Veronica Lahiff; November 19, 1903 – August 6, 1965) was an American actress. She started her career in Broadway musicals and then became an actress in sound films and was in many films from 1927 to 1938. She was then in television roles from 1950 to 1963. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on February 8, 1960.

Life and career
Of Irish parentage, the daughter of Thomas and Ann Lahiff, Carroll was born in New York City. Her education came at Holy Trinity School in New York, but she left there at age 16 to work as a stenographer in an office of a lace manufacturer.

Carroll and her sister Elsie once performed a dancing act in a local contest of amateur talent. This led her to a stage career and then on to screen stardom. She began her acting career in Broadway musicals. She became a successful actress in sound films because her musical background enabled her to play in movie musicals of the 1930s. Her film debut was in Ladies Must Dress in 1927. In 1928 she made eight films. One of them, Easy Come, Easy Go, co-starring Richard Dix, made her a movie star. In 1929 she starred in The Dance of Life with Hal Skelly, and The Wolf of Wall Street along with George Bancroft and Olga Baclanova. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1930 for The Devil's Holiday. Among her other films are Laughter (1930), Paramount on Parade (1930), Hot Saturday (1932) with Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, The Kiss Before the Mirror (1933) directed by James Whale, and Broken Lullaby aka The Man I Killed (1932) directed by Ernst Lubitsch.

Under contract to Paramount Pictures, Carroll often balked at the roles the studio offered her, and she earned a reputation as a recalcitrant and uncooperative actress. In spite of her ability to successfully tackle light comedies, tearful melodramas, and even musicals, and as well as garnering considerable praise by the critics and public – she received the most fan mail of any star in the early 1930s – she was released from her contract by the studio. In the mid-1930s under a four-film contract with Columbia Pictures, she made four rather insignificant films and was no longer an A-list actress.

Carroll retired from films in 1938, returned to the stage, and starred as the mother in the early television series The Aldrich Family in 1950. In the following year, she guest-starred in the television version of The Egg and I, starring her daughter, Patricia Kirkland.

Death
On August 6, 1965, Carroll was found dead after failing to arrive at the theater for a performance. The cause of her death was an aneurysm. She was 61 years old.

Hollywood Walk of Fame
For her contributions to the film industry, Carroll has a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1725 Vine Street. The star was dedicated February 8, 1960.

title: Nancy Carroll


text:
R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul

R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, 505 U.S. 377 (1992), is a case of the United States Supreme Court that unanimously struck down St. Paul's Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance and reversed the conviction of a teenager, referred to in court documents only as R.A.V., for burning a cross on the lawn of an African-American family since the ordinance was held to violate the First Amendment's protection of freedom of speech. The Court reasoned that an ordinance like this constitutes "viewpoint discrimination" which may have the effect of driving certain ideas from the marketplace of ideas.

Facts and procedural background
In the early morning hours of June 21, 1990, the petitioner and several other teenagers allegedly assembled a crudely made cross by taping together broken chair legs. The cross was erected and burned in the front yard of an African American family that lived across the street from the house where the petitioner was staying. Petitioner, who was a juvenile at the time, was charged with two counts, one of which a violation of the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance. The Ordinance provided the following: "Whoever places on public or private property, a symbol, object, appellation, characterization or graffiti, including, but not limited to, a burning cross or Nazi swastika, which one knows or has reasonable grounds to know arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender commits disorderly conduct and shall be guilty of a misdemeanor."

Petitioner moved to dismiss the count under the Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance on the ground that it was substantially overbroad and impermissibly content based, and therefore facially invalid under the First Amendment. The trial court granted the motion, but the Minnesota Supreme Court reversed, rejecting petitioner's overbreadth claim because, as the Minnesota Court had construed the Ordinance in prior cases, the phrase "arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others" limited the reach of the ordinance to conduct that amounted to fighting words under the Chaplinsky v. New Hampshire decision. The Minnesota Court also concluded that the ordinance was not impermissibly content based, because "the ordinance is a narrowly tailored means towards accomplishing the compelling governmental interest in protecting the community against bias-motivated threats to public safety and order." Petitioner appealed, and the United States Supreme Court granted certiorari.

Decision
Justice Antonin Scalia delivered the opinion of the court, in which Chief Justice William Rehnquist, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Justice David Souter, and Justice Clarence Thomas joined. Justice Byron White wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, which Justice Harry Blackmun and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor joined in full, and Justice John Paul Stevens joined in part. Justice Blackmun wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justice Stevens wrote an opinion concurring in the judgment, which was joined in part by Justice White and Justice Blackmun.

The majority decision
The Court began with a recitation of the relevant factual and procedural background, noting several times that the conduct at issue could have been prosecuted under different Minnesota statutes. In construing the ordinance, the Court recognized that it was bound by the construction given by the Minnesota Supreme Court. Therefore, the Court accepted the Minnesota court's conclusion that the ordinance reached only those expressions that constitute "fighting words" within the meaning of Chaplinsky.

Petitioner argued that the Chaplinsky formulation should be narrowed, such that the ordinance would be invalidated as "substantially overbroad," but the Court declined to consider this argument, concluding that even if all of the expression reached by the ordinance was proscribable as "fighting words," the ordinance was facially unconstitutional in that it prohibited otherwise permitted speech solely on the basis of the subjects the speech addressed.

The Court began its substantive analysis with a review of the principles of free speech clause jurisprudence, beginning with the general rule that the First Amendment prevents the government from proscribing speech, or even expressive conduct, because of disapproval of the ideas expressed. The Court noted that while content-based regulations are presumptively invalid, society has permitted restrictions upon the content of speech in a few limited areas, which are "of such slight social value as a step to truth that any benefit that may be derived from them is clearly outweighed by the social interest in order and morality."

The Court then clarified language from previous free speech clause cases, including Roth v. United States, Beauharnais v. Illinois, and Chaplinsky that suggested that certain categories of expression are "not within the area of constitutionally protected speech," and "must be taken in context." The Court's clarification stated that this meant that certain areas of speech "can, consistently with the First Amendment, be regulated because of their constitutionally proscribable content (obscenity, defamation, etc.)—not that they are categories of speech entirely invisible to the Constitution, so that they may be made the vehicles for content discrimination." Thus, as one of the first of a number of illustrations that Justice Scalia would use throughout the opinion, the government may "proscribe libel, but it may not make the further content discrimination of proscribing only libel critical of the government."

The Court recognized that while a particular utterance of speech can be proscribed on the basis of one feature, the Constitution may prohibit proscribing it on the basis of another feature. Thus, while burning a flag in violation of an ordinance against outdoor fires could be punishable, burning a flag in violation of an ordinance against dishonoring the flag is not. In addition, other reasonable "time, place, or manner" restrictions were upheld, but only if they were "justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech."

The Court recognized two final principles of free speech jurisprudence. One of these described that when "the entire basis for the content discrimination consists entirely of the very reason the entire class of speech is proscribable, no significant danger of idea or viewpoint discrimination exists." As examples, Justice Scalia wrote,

"A State may choose to prohibit only that obscenity which is the most patently offensive in its prurience — i.e., that which involves the most lascivious displays of sexual activity. But it may not prohibit, for example, only that obscenity which includes offensive political messages. And the Federal Government can criminalize only those threats of violence that are directed against the President, since the reasons why threats of violence are outside the First Amendment (protecting individuals from the fear of violence, from the disruption that fear engenders, and from the possibility that the threatened violence will occur) have special force when applied to the person of the President."

The other principle of free speech jurisprudence was recognized when the Court wrote that a valid basis for according different treatment to a content-defined subclass of proscribable speech is that the subclass "happens to be associated with particular 'secondary effects' of the speech, so that 'the regulation is justified without reference to the content of the ... speech'" As an example, the Court wrote that a State could permit all obscene live performances except those involving minors.

Applying these principles to the St. Paul Bias-Motivated Crime Ordinance, the Court concluded that the ordinance was facially unconstitutional. Justice Scalia explained the rationale, writing,

"Although the phrase in the ordinance, 'arouses anger, alarm or resentment in others,' has been limited by the Minnesota Supreme Court's construction to reach only those symbols or displays that amount to 'fighting words,' the remaining, unmodified terms make clear that the ordinance applies only to 'fighting words' that insult, or provoke violence, 'on the basis of race, color, creed, religion or gender.' Displays containing abusive invective, no matter how vicious or severe, are permissible unless they are addressed to one of the specified disfavored topics. Those who wish to use 'fighting words' in connection with other ideas—to express hostility, for example, on the basis of political affiliation, union membership, or homosexuality—are not covered. The First Amendment does not permit St. Paul to impose special prohibitions on those speakers who express views on disfavored subjects."

The Court went on to explain that, in addition to being an impermissible restriction based on content, the Ordinance was also viewpoint- based discrimination, writing,

"As explained earlier, see supra, at 386, the reason why fighting words are categorically excluded from the protection of the First Amendment is not that their content communicates any particular idea, but that their content embodies a particularly intolerable (and socially unnecessary) mode of expressing whatever idea the speaker wishes to convey. St. Paul has not singled out an especially offensive mode of expression—it has not, for example, selected for prohibition only those fighting words that communicate ideas in a threatening (as opposed to a merely obnoxious) manner. Rather, it has proscribed fighting words of whatever manner that communicate messages of racial, gender, or religious intolerance. Selectivity of this sort creates the possibility that the city is seeking to handicap the expression of particular ideas. That possibility would alone be enough to render the ordinance presumptively invalid, but St. Paul's comments and concessions in this case elevate the possibility to a certainty."

Displays containing some words, such as racial slurs, would be prohibited to proponents of all views, whereas fighting words that "do not themselves invoke race, color, creed, religion, or gender—aspersions upon a person's mother, for example—would seemingly be usable ad libitum in the placards of those arguing in favor of racial, color, etc., tolerance and equality, but could not be used by those speakers' opponents." The Court concluded that "St. Paul has no such authority to license one side of a debate to fight freestyle, while requiring the other to follow Marquess of Queensberry rules."

The Court concluded, "Let there be no mistake about our belief that burning a cross in someone's front yard is reprehensible. But St. Paul has sufficient means at its disposal to prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the fire."

Limitation
In Virginia v. Black (2003), the United States Supreme Court deemed constitutional part of a Virginia statute outlawing the public burning of a cross if done with an intent to intimidate, noting that such expression "has a long and pernicious history as a signal of impending violence."

title: R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul


text:
The Devil's Holiday

The Devil's Holiday is a 1930 American Pre-Code film starring Nancy Carroll, Phillips Holmes, ZaSu Pitts, James Kirkwood, Sr., Hobart Bosworth, and Ned Sparks. The movie was adapted by Edmund Goulding from his story, directed by Goulding, and released by Paramount Pictures. The film was nominated for Academy Award for Best Actress (Nancy Carroll).

Plot
A golddigger marries a young man for his money, but finds that she really loves him and wants to keep him despite his family's disapproval.

Cast

 * Nancy Carroll - Hallie Hobart
 * Phillips Holmes - David Stone
 * James Kirkwood - Mark Stone
 * Hobart Bosworth - Ezra Stone
 * Ned Sparks - Charlie Thorne
 * Morgan Farley - Monkey McConnell
 * Jed Prouty - Kent Carr
 * Paul Lukas - Dr. Reynolds
 * ZaSu Pitts - Ethel
 * Morton Downey - Freddie, the tenor
 * Guy Oliver - Hammond
 * Wade Boteler - House Detective
 * Laura La Varnie - Madame Bernstein (*billed Laura Le Vernie)

title: The Devil's Holiday


text:
Sarah and Son

Sarah and Son is a 1930 pre-Code American drama film directed by Dorothy Arzner. The screenplay by Zoë Akins was adapted from Timothy Shea's novel of the same name. It stars Ruth Chatterton, Fredric March, Gilbert Emery, and Doris Lloyd. It was filmed at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles and released by Paramount Pictures.

Plot
Sarah Storm, an Austrian immigrant, has taken up with Jim Grey, with the goal of both of them becoming vaudeville entertainers. Months after their stage debut, they now have a baby boy and no steady income, and Jim expresses little interest in finding work or supporting the family. After a fight with Sarah, Jim tries to get a loan from John Ashmore, a wealthy businessman, who denies his request, but mentions his envy at Jim's fatherhood, since his wife cannot bear children. On a whim, Jim enlists with the Marines for four years, and goes drinking. After returning home and quarreling again with Sarah, he disappears with their young son Bobby, intending to sell him to the Ashmores. The heartbroken Sarah is given a job singing with an itinerant musician, Cyril Belloc.

Two years later, Cyril and Sarah perform for WWI veterans in a hospital. As she goes among the beds of the wounded soldiers, she finds Jim there, near death. He begs forgiveness for his actions, and tells her about giving her son to the Ashmores. When she pleads with John Ashmore to let her see if their son is hers, Ashmore refuses, threatening to have her committed; their attorney, Howard Vanning, who is also Ashmore's brother-in-law, takes pity on her and says he will try to help, but also believes her delusional. Sarah leaves America for Germany to pursue her singing career. Years later, Sarah has become an internationally famous opera singer, and returns to New York to perform. She reconnects with Vanning, declares she is no longer afraid of any threats the Ashmores can levy against her, and again demands to meet the boy, saying a birthmark will prove her is her son. Meanwhile, Bobby is now 13, and unhappy with the too-protective Ashmores, confiding to his uncle Howard that he fears being incapable of being a self-sufficient man. Still refusing to agree to a meeting, Mrs. Ashmore presents in his stead the deaf mute son of one of their servants, hoping this will convince Sarah he is not her son. Bobby, unbeknownst to his adoptive parents, runs away to the summer house of his uncle Howard. Howard, who is now fully in love with Sarah, brings her to the house unaware of Bobby's presence, and finally engineers an encounter between them.

Cast

 * Ruth Chatterton as Sarah Storm
 * Fredric March as Howard Vanning
 * Fuller Mellish Jr. as Jim Grey (Mellish died on February 8, 1930, shortly before the movie's release )
 * Gilbert Emery as John Ashmore
 * Doris Lloyd as Mrs. Ashmore (Vanning's sister)
 * William Stack as Cyril Belloc
 * Philippe De Lacy as Bobby

Reception
The New York Times praised the performances and most of the screenplay, faulting only some aspects of plot development. It offered as praise: "Sarah and Son is one of the few audible pictures which are really good enough to warrant criticism of the development of the story, and no matter what are its minor shortcomings, it is an emphatically ingratiating entertainment."

Awards

 * Ruth Chatterton was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Sarah and Son. Her character's evolution from an immigrant with a strong Austrian accent to a successful celebrity with just a trace of an accent appeared alongside Greta Garbo's heavily accented performance in her first talkie.

title: Sarah and Son


text:
Hall & Oates

Daryl Hall & John Oates, commonly known as Hall & Oates, were an American rock duo formed in Philadelphia in 1970. Daryl Hall was generally the lead vocalist; John Oates primarily played the electric guitar and provided backing vocals. The two wrote most of the songs they performed, either separately or in collaboration. They achieved their greatest fame from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s with a fusion of rock and roll, soul music, and rhythm and blues.

Though they are commonly referred to as Hall & Oates, both members have been adamant about the duo being called Daryl Hall & John Oates – its official name. They have been credited on albums as Daryl Hall & John Oates (or Daryl Hall John Oates) on all of their US releases. The duo reached the US Top 40 with 29 of their 33 singles charting on Billboard's Hot 100 between 1974 and 1991. Six of these peaked at number one: "Rich Girl" (1977), "Kiss on My List" (1980), the two 1981 releases "Private Eyes", and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" (also a Hot Soul No. 1), "Maneater" (1982) and "Out of Touch" (1984). Their overall 16 US Top Tens also include "She's Gone", "Sara Smile", "You Make My Dreams", "Family Man", "Say It Isn't So", and "Method of Modern Love". Seven of their albums have been RIAA-certified platinum and six of them gold. In the United Kingdom, they have achieved success with two Top Ten albums and six Top 40 singles, two of which – "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" and "Maneater" – reached the Top Ten. The duo have spent 120 weeks in the UK Top 75 albums chart and 84 weeks in the UK Top 75 singles chart.

While the duo had employed a wide variety of session musicians on their recordings, several in particular appear on many of their works and have toured with them, including guitarist G.E. Smith, bassist Tom "T-Bone" Wolk, drummer Mickey Curry and multi-instrumentalist Charles DeChant. In addition, they collaborated with sisters Sara Allen and Janna Allen on songwriting and composing.

In 2003, Hall & Oates were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. In August 2018, in a 60th-anniversary celebration of Billboard's Hot 100, the duo ranked 18 in a list of the top Hot 100 artists of all time and six in a list of the Hot 100's top duos/groups. They remain the most successful duo of all time, ahead of the Carpenters, the Everly Brothers, and Simon & Garfunkel. In September 2010, VH1 ranked the duo 99th among the 100 greatest artists of all time. In April 2014, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and on September 2, 2016, they received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In April 2024, Oates indicated that the duo would no longer perform together amidst a legal battle between each other.

1967–1972: Formation and early years
Daryl Franklin Hohl (born in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, on October 11, 1946) and John William Oates (born in New York City on April 7, 1948) first met at the Adelphi Ballroom in Philadelphia in 1967. Each was heading his own musical group, Hall with The Temptones and Oates with The Masters. They were attending a band competition, when they discovered that they were interested in the same music and both were attending Temple University. They started spending time together and eventually shared a number of apartments in the city. One of the apartments they shared had "Hall & Oates" on the mailbox, which became the duo's common nickname. It took them another two years to form a musical duo, and three years after that, they signed to Atlantic Records and released their debut album. The two did not start working together seriously until 1970 after Oates returned from an extended stay in Europe.

1972–1974: First albums
Early in their recording careers, Hall and Oates had trouble clearly defining their sound, alternating among folk, soul, rock and pop. None of their early albums—Whole Oats, Abandoned Luncheonette, and War Babies—were very successful. Despite being produced by such big-name producers as Arif Mardin and Todd Rundgren, they had no hit singles. But after "She's Gone" off Abandoned Luncheonette was covered by Lou Rawls and Tavares, the latter version reached Number One on the R&B chart in 1974''. '' Written for Hall's first wife, Bryna Lublin (Hall), the song was inspired by Oates's being stood up on a date on New Year's Eve. Another Abandoned Luncheonette single, "Las Vegas Turnaround", was written about (and mentioned by first name) Hall's girlfriend, flight attendant and future song-writing collaborator Sara Allen.

1975–1977: First hits
After the release of War Babies in 1974, Hall and Oates left Atlantic Records to join RCA Records. Their first album for RCA, Daryl Hall & John Oates (often referred to by their fans as the silver album because of the silver foil material on the original album cover), was issued in 1975 and was their first notable success. The album contained the ballad "Sara Smile", a song Hall wrote for Sara Allen. The album cover depicted Hall and Oates, overly made up with cosmetic blush to the point where they looked feminine, especially the long-haired and clean-shaven Hall. Hall later said in an interview for VH1's Behind the Music that he looked like "the girl I always wanted to go out with" on the album cover. This cover was designed by Pierre LaRoche, who created the cover for Ziggy Stardust for David Bowie. "Sara Smile" became Hall and Oates' first Top 10 hit, reaching No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in June 1976. Atlantic subsequently re-released "She's Gone", which reached No. 7 in October 1976, and Abandoned Luncheonette, which reached #33 on the album charts on November 20, 1976, and staying on for 38 weeks.

Hall and Oates followed those hits with the more pop-oriented album Bigger Than Both of Us later that year. Although the album's first single—the Philadelphia soul-oriented ballad "Do What You Want, Be What You Are"—barely made the Top 40, their second single, "Rich Girl", was a smash. The song was Hall and Oates's first No. 1 hit, reaching the top spot for the week ending March 26, 1977.

1977–1978: Leaner years and Sacred Songs
After this small run of hits, Hall and Oates still encountered difficulty getting radio play. Despite touring constantly and recording albums with efficiency, the duo could not find any pop success for a number of reasons, mainly because of the popularity of the disco genre. By the time they released the rock-oriented albums Beauty on a Back Street in 1977 and Along the Red Ledge in 1978, disco music was trendy and taking most of the spots in popular music.

They did release a few hit singles during this period: the follow-up to "Rich Girl," "Back Together Again," hit the Top 40, and "It's A Laugh" (from Along The Red Ledge) hit the top 20 in 1978. In 1977, RCA attempted to push Hall to the fore with his first solo effort Sacred Songs. However, after being presented with the highly experimental recording, produced by Robert Fripp of King Crimson, RCA became unwilling to release what was, in their view, a non-commercial album. Sacred Songs was eventually released in 1980.

1979–1981: X-Static and Voices
In late 1979, Hall and Oates released X-Static - produced by David Foster, which combined rock with disco. The album did not fare well, although "Wait for Me" did hit the top 20. The 1980s brought changes for Hall and Oates. The pair felt that the biggest hindrance to their success was that their music was being filtered through outside producers, and that studio musicians were not familiar with their own tastes and thoughts. In 1979, they hired G. E. Smith (who had worked with Dan Hartman and David Bowie) as lead guitarist, Mickey Curry as drummer, and Tom "T-Bone" Wolk joined as bassist in 1981. They also enlisted Hall's girlfriend Sara Allen (and her younger sister Janna) to help write songs, and began working with Neil Kernon, an engineer on Voices who worked as co-producer on their succeeding two albums.

The band also wished to capture the sound of New York City which, by then, had become their home. As a result, instead of recording in Los Angeles, as they had done previously, they decided to record at Electric Lady Studios in New York City, just five minutes away from their apartments, and began producing their own recordings with their touring band backing them in the studio.

The resulting album, Voices, was written, produced and arranged by Hall and Oates in one month, according to their authorized biography Dangerous Dances (by Nick Tosches). The first two singles from the album charted fairly well, with "How Does It Feel to Be Back" charting at Number 30. The well-received cover of The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'", just missed the Top 10, peaking at Number 12, but spent 14 weeks in the Top 40. After the release of that song, Oates's contribution as the lead vocalist diminished on future releases. The third single "Kiss on My List" hit Number 1 in April 1981 and remained there for three weeks. The follow-up single "You Make My Dreams" reached Number 5 in July of that year.

The other well-known song from Voices is the emotive ballad "Everytime You Go Away", with powerful lead vocals by Hall, who wrote it. British singer Paul Young had a Billboard Number 1 hit with a cover of the song in 1985. Though the Hall and Oates original (recorded in a Memphis-soul style) was never released as a single, it remains a fan favorite on the duo's greatest hits albums, and was featured on their Apollo Theater album in 1985, and is frequently featured in their live set to this day.

1981–1982: Private Eyes
By the time "You Make My Dreams" was falling off the charts, Hall and Oates had already released their follow-up album Private Eyes. Having worked in the studio while Voices was at its peak in popularity, the two had already recorded most of their material and perfected a fusion of their doo-wop and soul roots with New Wave energy and hard rock grit. The result was a pop classic that is often considered one of the greatest albums of the 1980s, and was the first Hall and Oates album to reach the Top 10 on the Billboard 200 album chart, while four singles from Private Eyes all reached the Top 40.

The title track and "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" were both Number 1 hits, separated only by the ten-week stay at Number 1 by "Physical" by Olivia Newton-John. "I Can't Go for That (No Can Do)" was one of the few songs ever recorded by a white act to reach Number One on both the R&B and the pop charts. "Did It in a Minute" reached Number 9 in the spring of 1982, and "Your Imagination" peaked at No. 33.

1982–1983: H2O and band changes
Their next album, H2O, a very polished, synth-heavy effort, became the duo's most successful album, with US sales eventually approaching four million copies. H2O reached No. 3 on the Billboard charts (where it held for 15 weeks) and spawned three Top 10 singles. "Maneater", the biggest hit of their career, reached No. 1 on December 18, 1982, and stayed there for four weeks.

The soulful ballad "One on One" and a cover of Mike Oldfield's "Family Man" reached No. 7 and No. 6 in March and June 1983, respectively. We try and take chances. Our new single "Maneater" isn't something that sounds like anything else on the radio. The idea is to make things better. Daryl Hall – NME – November 1982

According to Oates, they recorded approximately twenty songs for the album, of which nine did not make the final cut. He went on to say they usually had five or six tracks left over per album.

For the H2O album, Hall and Oates made some permanent changes to their current band. Drummer Mickey Curry, who had appeared on some Private Eyes tracks, including the title song, replaced Jerry Marotta full-time. Bassist Tom Wolk, who had mimed John Siegler's bass line in the "Private Eyes" video, replaced Siegler full-time. These two joined the band's holdovers—lead guitar player G.E. Smith, and saxophonist Charles DeChant. Wolk continued to perform with the duo until his death in early 2010, while Curry returned for the Do It for Love and Laughing Down Crying sessions.

1983–1984: Rock 'n Soul Part 1
By the fall of 1983, Hall and Oates were one of the biggest pop music acts in the United States. They had five Number 1 singles to their credit, two consecutive Top 10 albums and were one of the biggest names on MTV. Two covers of the 1957 Bobby Helms classic "Jingle Bell Rock" were recorded—one with Hall on lead vocals, and the other with Oates on lead vocals—and released in time for Christmas 1983, complete with a humorous video of the band, that received extensive airplay on MTV. In 1983, they released their first greatest hits album entitled Rock 'n Soul Part 1. The album peaked at Number 7, and the two new songs that were written and recorded for that LP also became Top 10 hits as well.

The first single released from this album, "Say It Isn't So", battled six weeks for the Number 1 spot with Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson's "Say Say Say" at the peak of Thriller mania. "Say It Isn't So" remained at No. 2 for four weeks from December 1983 to January 1984.

Hall and Oates's follow-up single "Adult Education" received heavy airplay at both pop and black (urban contemporary) radio, and reached Number 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in April 1984. It was accompanied by a dark, New York City-oriented music video set in a cave. Oates later told VH1 that the clip resembled the Survivor TV show on acid.

1984–1985: Big Bam Boom
Hall and Oates returned to the studio in 1984 after a rest period to begin work on the Big Bam Boom album. This album had even more of an electronic, urban feel to it than H2O, combining their song structure and vocalization with the latest technical advances in recording and playing. The album employed some of the most sophisticated equipment ever used in the recording industry at the time (most notably the Synclavier II, one of the first computerized synthesizer workstations, as well as the Fairlight CMI). Noted remix and hip-hop icon Arthur Baker worked very closely with the duo as a consultant, and produced dance remixes of four of the album's singles.

Released in late 1984, the first single from the LP, "Out of Touch", became the group's sixth number 1 hit on December 8, 1984. "Method of Modern Love", which debuted on the pop charts while "Out of Touch" was at number 1, reached number 5 in February 1985. "Some Things Are Better Left Unsaid" reached number 18, and "Possession Obsession" (a song in which Oates sings lead) reached number 30 in 1985 as well. The group's "Live Thru '85" tour to promote the album began in November 1984, sponsored by Pontiac's latest sports car, the Fiero. In addition, Pontiac allowed Oates, a skilled amateur racer, to drive in Pontiac's factory IMSA GTU race car in Camel GT pro races. In April 1984, the Recording Industry Association of America named Hall & Oates the most successful duo in rock history.

1985–1988: Live at the Apollo and other projects
Hall and Oates almost always toured extensively for each album release. But in 1985, the duo took a break after the release of their Live at the Apollo album with David Ruffin and Eddie Kendricks—voices of The Temptations and two of their heroes. This was RCA's second attempt at a live Hall and Oates album, following the 1978 release Livetime. Live at the Apollo was released primarily to fulfill the duo's contract with RCA, and contained a Top 20 Grammy-nominated hit with a medley of "The Way You Do the Things You Do" and "My Girl"; Ruffin and Kendrick had originally recorded both songs with the Temptations in 1964.

Hall and Oates had collaborated on the USA for Africa "We Are the World" project, with the former as one of the soloists and the latter as a chorus member, and performed at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, with Ruffin and Kendrick. The Hall and Oates band also backed up Mick Jagger's performance at this show.

Hall, Oates, Ruffin and Kendrick performed again at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York later that year, complete with an Apollo Theater-style marquee descending on the stage during their performance.

In May 1985, Hall and Oates performed at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. Just prior to Live Aid, on July 4, they participated in Liberty Concert, an outdoor benefit concert at Liberty State Park in Jersey City, New Jersey for the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, which was filmed for HBO. It became a major music event, drawing an estimated crowd of over 60,000 people.

In 1986, Hall scored a Top 5 US hit with "Dreamtime", from his solo album Three Hearts in the Happy Ending Machine. That album also included the Top 40 hit "Foolish Pride" and the Top 100 hit "Someone Like You", later performed by the duo live on their "Behind the Music" set. Although Oates did not have a solo hit as a singer, he did contribute a solo track to the film About Last Night and co-wrote (with Iva Davies) and performed backing vocals on the 1987 Icehouse top 10 US hit "Electric Blue". Oates also worked as producer, co-songwriter and co-lead vocalist of the single "Love Is Fire" by The Parachute Club, which was a top 40 hit in Canada in 1987.

1988–1990: Arista years
Hall and Oates signed with Arista Records, their third record company, in 1987, shortly before the string of Top 10 hits ended, in Tommy Mottola's effort to keep them under contract when their RCA obligation ran out. Their first album for the label, Ooh Yeah!, included the hits "Everything Your Heart Desires" (Number 3 in May 1988—their last to make the Top 10), "Missed Opportunity", and "Downtown Life". Beginning with Ooh Yeah!, album and single releases were credited as Daryl Hall John Oates, with the '&' or 'and' missing between the duo's names. It was the last Hall and Oates album, other than greatest hits packages, to enjoy platinum success. They recorded one more album for Arista called Change of Season. The album's first single "So Close" (co-produced by Jon Bon Jovi) reached Number 11 and was Hall & Oates's last major hit.

Another song from the album, "Don't Hold Back Your Love", was named by SOCAN as the second-most performed song in Canada for 1992; it became a hit for Australian Sherbet front man, Daryl Braithwaite, in his solo years, and has become a Hall and Oates staple in concert. Change of Season was a more mainstream rock album than their previous work. Despite the fact that Ooh Yeah! and Change of Season reached platinum and gold status respectively, they were perceived as disappointments. In 1989, they covered and performed their own version of the O'Jays song "Love Train" for the film Earth Girls Are Easy.

1991–2006: Do It for Love and Christmas album
The duo's occasional song-writing collaborator Janna Allen died of leukemia in 1993. Hall and Oates released the Marigold Sky album in 1997 (their first all-new studio album in seven years), which included an Adult Contemporary hit "Promise Ain't Enough". They also released a "VH1 Behind the Music" Greatest Hits package shortly after appearing on the show in 2002. Hall and Oates released the Do It for Love album in 2003, whose title track was a number one Adult Contemporary hit. They also released the Hall & Oates Live DVD from an A&E Live by Request special. This album was the first release (and first success) for their newest joint venture U-Watch Records. Hall has also released the solo albums Soul Alone (1993) and Can't Stop Dreaming (originally released in Japan in 1996), and a live two-disc solo album titled Live in Philadelphia (2004).

Hall and Oates covered Elton John's "Philadelphia Freedom" on the 1991 John/Taupin tribute album "Two Rooms", saying in the booklet: "We chose 'Philadelphia Freedom' because the music is so close to our hearts, and the lyrics represent the way we feel about Philadelphia." Oates released his own solo album in 2002 entitled Phunk Shui and a companion live concert DVD. Hall and Oates also released their first CD of (mostly) covers, Our Kind of Soul, in 2004. It includes some of their favorite R&B songs, such as "I'll Be Around" (their first Hot 100 entry in over a decade), "Love T.K.O.", and Dan Hartman's "I Can Dream About You", among others. Hall and Oates remained on the touring circuit, traveling nearly as much as they did in years past. In addition, a DVD of live performances of the songs from Our Kind of Soul was released in November 2005.

Hall and Oates released a Christmas album, Home for Christmas, on October 3, 2006, which contained two Christmas originals and covers, including a version of "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear", which became their second number one Adult Contemporary hit.

2007–2013: Solo projects and hiatus
In September 2007, representatives of Montreal-based band Chromeo stated in a press release, "Indeed, Chromeo's idols Hall and Oates have asked them to collaborate with them on their upcoming record! Needless to say, the gentlemen are giddy like schoolchildren to be given this opportunity", as reported by Pitchfork Media. This collaboration with Chromeo was expected to be released in late 2008/early 2009, and was released as Live from Daryl's House. On May 20, 2008, Hall and Oates were honored as BMI Icons at the 56th annual BMI Pop Awards. As of 2008, their song-writing has collected 24 BMI Pop Awards and 14 BMI Million-Air awards.

There were two notable nationally televised appearances for the duo in late 2008. On October 27, Oates sang the national anthem before Game 5 of the 2008 World Series at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia (Hall had taken sick, and the game was called on account of rain after the top of the 6th inning, but resumed on October 29, and the Phillies won, claiming their first World Series Championship in 28 years). (Though born in New York, Oates was raised in a suburb of Philadelphia and attended Temple University. ) Then, on December 11, both Hall and Oates appeared on the year's last episode of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. They sang a satirical tribute to Alan Colmes, as he was leaving the show Hannity & Colmes on Fox News a month later. On March 24, 2009, Hall and Oates performed together on the American television show Dancing with the Stars. During 2009, the duo recorded a cameo for the movie You Again, performing "Kiss On My List" for the final scene and closing credits.

On May 22 and 23, 2008, they performed at the Troubadour, 35 years after first performing there as an opening act. They played many popular selections, including "Cab Driver" from Hall's solo album as well as several songs from the Abandoned Luncheonette album, including "Had I Known You Better Then" which had never been performed live before. The performance was recorded as a concert film and later released in the US as a double CD set with DVD/Blu-ray Combo on November 25, 2008. In 2009 the live performances of "Sara Smile" from this album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals, an incredible 33 years after the original song was released. Concerning the nomination, Hall considered it truly a surprise. This made it the third time that the band was nominated for a Grammy Award; the other two times were in 1981 for "Private Eyes" and 1983 for "Maneater".

On October 13, 2009, a 4-CD box set was released, titled Do What You Want, Be What You Are: The Music of Daryl Hall and John Oates. This set represents the most comprehensive hits collection by the duo as it includes songs from various labels. Also included are three songs recorded by Hall and Oates with their earlier bands prior to their forming Hall and Oates as a duo. The boxed set sold 5,000 copies the first hour and, in total, it has sold 15,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan, peaking at No. 89 on the Billboard 200 on October 23, 2009. In one of the last concerts at the Wachovia Spectrum, Hall and Oates and Philadelphia-area musicians The Hooters and Todd Rundgren headlined a concert titled "Last Call". In 2010, Hall and Oates embarked on their "Do What You Want, Be What You Are" tour in the United States. They appeared on the American Idol season finale on May 26, 2010, performing "You Make My Dreams". Also in 2010, Hall and Oates announced they would join a growing artists' boycott of the state of Arizona over the state's recently passed anti-illegal immigrant laws.

On May 8, 2012, the two performed on the NBC reality singing competition The Voice.

2013–2023: Hall of Fame induction and aborted 19th album
On October 16, 2013, Hall and Oates were announced as 2014 nominees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They were announced as inductees for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's Class of 2014 on December 16, 2013.

Hall started his monthly web series Live from Daryl's House in 2007 after having the idea of "playing with my friends and putting it up on the Internet". The series features him jamming with various guest musicians in his house in the woods. Guest artists on the show have run the gamut of musical styles and influences, including artists such as Smokey Robinson, Robby Krieger from The Doors, Rumer, Nick Lowe, CeeLo Green, KT Tunstall, Todd Rundgren, Darius Rucker, and Chromeo. In 2010, Live From Daryl's House won a Webby Award in the Variety category.

In May 2014, Hall's home renovation program, Daryl's Restoration Over-Hall, premiered on the DIY Network. On July 15, 2014, Hall and Oates performed in Ireland as a duo for the very first time (they each performed independently as solo acts before) at the Olympia Theatre, Dublin. The event was recorded, packaged as a two CD/DVD set and released as Live in Dublin in Germany March 27, 2015, and in the US on March 30, 2015. Hall and Oates indicated that the recorded concert was also being released in movie theaters nationwide for one day only.

The duo made a cameo in the 2015 Happy Madison film Pixels. On September 2, 2016, Hall and Oates received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their work in the music industry, located at 6752 Hollywood Boulevard.

In March 2017, it was announced that they would be touring the US from May to July 2017. The 29-date arena tour was with co-headliner Tears for Fears. This included the HoagieNation festival in Philadelphia, created by Hall & Oates. A "celebration of everything Philly", the event was held again in 2018 and 2021. Hall & Oates also headlined the BluesFest 2017 at the London O2 arena on October 28, 2017, supported by Chris Isaak. They played a Dublin concert the following night.

Between May and June 2019 they made their first tour of Latin America, visiting Argentina, Chile and Brazil. Later they performed for the first time in Spain.

In January 2020, Hall said that he was working on songs for the duo's next album. However, in a 2021 interview, Hall said that while progress initially was not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, work eventually stalled as he did not want to release anything that would become "irrelevant". By the time of the interview, he was uncertain about the prospect of a new album, stating that "things have changed". When asked by the Los Angeles Times about the possibility of a new album in a March 2022 interview, Hall was still uncertain, simply stating "time will tell".

On April 17, 2023, longtime keyboardist Eliot Lewis took to social media to announce that he would be departing the Hall & Oates band, Daryl Hall solo band, and the Live from Daryl's House band to "focus on [his] own music."

Hall & Oates were inducted into the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame Class of 2023.

2023–present: Lawsuit and split
In November 2023, Hall filed a lawsuit against Oates and his trust due to contractual and financial disputes; the details of the case were initially confidential. Hall additionally issued a restraining order against Oates in the wake of the charges. The following week, Hall filed a declaration accusing Oates of "the ultimate partnership betrayal" for planning to sell Oates' share of the duo's publishing to Primary Wave Music. Oates responded that Hall's statements were "inflammatory, outlandish, and inaccurate".

In April 2024, Oates said in an interview with Rolling Stone that he had "moved on" from Hall and Oates and that the duo would never perform together again, with Hall confirming the same a month later in an interview with Variety.

Songwriting
In an interview in a 1983 issue of Juke Magazine, Oates was asked about whether conflicts arose. He replied that "we have our creative differences but we reconcile them." He said that if they both came up with a different way of doing something, they'd try it both ways and whatever sounded the better of the two they would use.

In a September 2022 interview for Club Random with Bill Maher, Hall referred to Oates solely as his business partner, not his creative partner, and then listed some Hall & Oates songs he actually recorded solo.

Name
The duo never liked to be referred to as "Hall & Oates". In an interview with Esquire, Oates said, "There isn't one album that says Hall and Oates. It's always Daryl Hall and John Oates, from the very beginning. People never note that. The idea of 'Hall and Oates', this two-headed monster, this thing, is not anything we've ever wanted or liked." In a 2015 interview, Oates said that "it's a horrible name" and that "it was a totally conscious decision" not to be known as "Hall & Oates". "We didn't want to be the Everly Brothers, or Loggins & Messina, or whatever."

In a 2017 interview with The Mercury News, Hall explained that "the reason we've always insisted on our full names is because we consider ourselves to be two individual artists. We're not really a classic duo in that respect." Despite their stated dislike for the name Hall & Oates, the group sued a Brooklyn-based granola company in 2015 for naming one of their products "Haulin' Oats", claiming it was a "well-known mark" of the group.

Musical duo

 * Daryl Hall – vocals, guitars, keyboards, mandolin, vibraphone
 * John Oates – guitars, vocals, keyboards

Backing musicians

 * Johnny Ripp – guitars (1972) (as Whole Oats)
 * Mike McCarthy – bass (1972) (as Whole Oats)
 * Jim Helmer – drums (1972) (as Whole Oats)
 * Bill Keith – pedal steel (1972)
 * Neal Rosengarden – saxophone (1972–1973)
 * Leland Sklar – bass (1973, 1976–1977) (studio)
 * Paul Ians – guitars (1973)
 * Kenny Aaronson – bass (1973–1974)
 * Willie Wilcox – drums (1973–1974)
 * Rick Laird – bass (1974)
 * Eddie Zyne – drums (December 1974 – July 1977)
 * David Kent – keyboards (1975–1978)
 * Todd Sharp – guitars, backing vocals (1975 – June 1977)
 * Stephen Dees – bass, backing vocals (1976 – February 1977)
 * Charles DeChant – saxophone, flute, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (1976–1985, 1986, 1990–2024)
 * Caleb Quaye – guitars (1977–1979)
 * Kenny Passarelli – bass (June 1977 – September 1980)
 * Roger Pope – drums (1977–1979)
 * Jeff Porcaro – drums (1977) (studio)
 * G. E. Smith – lead guitars, keyboards, backing vocals (1979–1980, 1981–1985, 1986)
 * Jerry Marotta – drums (1979 – February 1980)
 * Chuck Burgi – drums (1980)
 * Jeff Southworth – guitars (1980)
 * John Siegler – bass (1979 – December 1981)
 * Larry Fast – synthesizers, programming (1980–1982)
 * Tom "T-Bone" Wolk – bass, guitar, backing vocals, keyboards, mandolin, harmonica, accordion, musical director (1981–2010; his death)
 * Mickey Curry – drums (1981–1985, 1986)
 * Mike Klvana – keyboards, synthesizers (1983–1990)
 * Keith Merritt – percussion (1985)
 * Robbie Kilgore – keyboards (1985)
 * Wells Christy – keyboards, synclavier (1985)
 * Jimmy Maelen – percussion (1985)
 * Lenny Pickett – tenor saxophone (1985)
 * Steve Elson – baritone saxophone (1985)
 * Mac Gollehon – trumpet (1985)
 * "Hollywood" Paul Litteral – trumpet (1985)
 * Ray Anderson – trombone (1985)
 * Tony Beard – drums (1986, 1988–1989)
 * Pat Buchanan – guitars (1988)
 * Bob Mayo – keyboards, guitars, backing vocals (1988–1994, 1996–1998)
 * Mark Rivera – saxophone, percussion, keyboards, backing vocals (1988–1989)
 * Mike Braun – drums (1989 – September 2010)
 * Larry Tagg – bass, backing vocals (1990)
 * Jimmy Rip – guitars (1990)
 * Kasim Sulton – bass, keyboards, backing vocals (1991–1992)
 * Lisa Haney – cello (1991–1992)
 * Eileen Ivers – violin (1991–1992)
 * Susie Davis – keyboards, backing vocals (1993–1994) (Daryl Hall 'Soul Alone' tour)
 * Alan Gorrie – bass, backing vocals (1993–1994) (Daryl Hall 'Soul Alone' tour)
 * Rocky Bryant – drums (1993–1994) (Daryl Hall 'Soul Alone' tour)
 * Bill White – guitars (1993–1994) (Daryl Hall 'Soul Alone' tour)
 * Norman Hedman – percussion, backing vocals (1993–1994) (Daryl Hall 'Soul Alone' tour)
 * Kia Jeffries – backing vocals (1993–1994) (Daryl Hall 'Soul Alone' tour)
 * Jeff Levine – keyboards (Japan tour 1995, 1999–2001)
 * Everett Bradley – percussion, backing vocals (1996, 2006–2010)
 * Paul Pesco – guitar (1997–2001, 2010–2013)
 * Jeff Catania – guitars (2001–2006)
 * John Korba – keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (2002–2003)
 * Eliot Lewis – keyboards, backing vocals (2003–2023)
 * Zev Katz – bass (2006–2011)
 * Jim Gordon – drums
 * Brad Fiedel – keyboards
 * Pat Colins – bass (Temptones)
 * Brian Dunne – drums, percussion (2009–2024)
 * Klyde Jones – bass guitar, backing vocals (2011–2024)
 * Porter Carroll – percussion, backing vocals (2011–2024)
 * Shane Theriot – guitars, backing vocals (2013–2024)

Discography

 * Whole Oats (1972)
 * Abandoned Luncheonette (1973)
 * War Babies (1974)
 * Daryl Hall & John Oates (1975)
 * Bigger Than Both of Us (1976)
 * Beauty on a Back Street (1977)
 * Along the Red Ledge (1978)
 * X-Static (1979)
 * Voices (1980)
 * Private Eyes (1981)
 * H2O (1982)
 * Big Bam Boom (1984)
 * Ooh Yeah! (1988)
 * Change of Season (1990)
 * Marigold Sky (1997)
 * Do It for Love (2003)
 * Our Kind of Soul (2004)
 * Home for Christmas (2006)

title: Hall & Oates