Oates digs into his roots in new album ‘Arkansas’
John Oates has a song on his new album, “Arkansas,” called “Dig Back Deep,” talking about musical roots that dig back deeper than most people would expect.
The album started as a tribute to his idol, Mississippi John Hurt, a fingerpicking style country blues artist who came on the scene in the ’20s before going back to his life as a farmer.
“I saw him in the early ’60s when he was kind of rediscovered,” says Mr. Oates, who grew up in Philadelphia and co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame duo Hall & Oates in 1970. “He had a recording career in the late ’20s, and then he disappeared. He was rediscovered in the early ‘60s in the folk boom. I saw him perform many times and I became an instant fan. I thought he was unique and there was no one like him. I loved his guitar style and I learned all his songs as a kid.”
And then an even more tangible connection was made.
“I began to take guitar lessons in the mid ‘60s,” he says, “from a guy named Jerry Ricks in Philadelphia, and Jerry used to take Mississippi John Hurt around to all the folk festivals and clubs and things, and when Mississippi John died [in 1966], his guitar was given to Jerry Ricks, who then brought it up to New York so I could play it on the first two Hall & Oates albums. Even crazier, about a month and a half ago, I ended up buying that same guitar from an estate in Colorado, a guy who had had it all these years. So, now it’s back in my hands. Full circle.”
Acquired for about $3,000, it’s a 1964 Guild F-30, the guitar Hurt played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964.
Mr. Oates started recording his fifth solo album as a straight tribute to Hurt, he says, before the efforts of his touring group, The Good Road Band, tweaked the direction.
“These songs that were so associated with just guitar and voice, I began to play them with a full band,” he says, “this incredible band I assembled, and the band just took them to a whole other place. After I recorded a bunch of Mississippi John Hurt songs, I started creating a snapshot of what American popular music was like in the late 1920s and I handpicked songs that were contemporary with him back in the day, and the album ended up being more than that.”
He plucked a song from country pioneer Jimmie Rodgers, one of Hurt’s influences, and another by ragtime-guitarist Blind Blake.
“These songs are also contemporary with the phonograph record and phonograph machine that was first becoming available to the average person. So, here you have an era that is kind of important because you have your first actual hit record, and that was a song called ‘Anytime’ by Emmett Miller, so here again I was trying to create a snapshot of this unique time in American music.”
On his return trip to tiny Club Cafe, fans will hear the whole “Arkansas” album, along with other Oates solo material. Plus, he says, “I throw a couple Hall & Oates songs in there, and I tell a lot of stories and kind of put the songs into context. That’s the beauty of doing these songs in a small venue like ClubCafe.”
It’s a world away from playing PPG Paints Arena as he did last spring with Daryl Hall.
“It kind of keeps you in balance,” he says. “It kind of shows like, ‘Let’s get back to reality here. Let’s get away from the video screens and the giant whizbang arena production, and let’s strip it down to the essentials.’ You’re playing an instrument and you’re singing. That’s it.”
He will be back out with Mr. Hall from May to August, and expects the duo to return to Pittsburgh in the early summer.
“I like doing both,” he says of the two different tours. “If I had to do only one of them, I think I would probably get burned out, so it’s great to have this balance.”