The Morning Journal (Lorain, OH)
John Oates organizes virtual festival for Feeding America
About eight years ago, John Oates started the 7908 Aspen Songwriters Festival, holding three shows over two years.
At the urging of friends back in Colorado he decided to do it again this year — but, as befits the pandemic, in a different way. And for a good cause.
Oates and his wife Aimee will present the Oates Song Fest 7908, virtually, on Saturday, March 20. It will feature a packed lineup of his famous musical friends, including longtime bandmate Daryl Hall, with proceeds going to Feeding America and its increased need during the past year of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We were sitting at home watching the news, as all of us have been, and I started really seeing how bad the food insecurity issue has become,” Oates, 72, says by phone from his current home near Nashville. “We had been contributing to Feeding America personally, little by little, and I thought to myself, ‘Y’know, we can do more. Maybe we can tie these two things together.”
The Song Fest certainly won’t be wanting for major names. Among those saying yes to Oates were Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters, Darius Rucker, Keb’ Mo’, Michael McDonald, Sammy Hagar and the Circle, Sara Bareilles, Shawn Colvin and more. Dan + Shay, according to Oates, filmed their hit “I Should Probably Go to Bed,” at a house they rented near Nashville especially for the shoot, while Sheila E. and her band put together a virtual take on “The Glamorous Life.”
Hall, meanwhile, opted for a solo performance of “In a Philly Mood,” a Hall & Oates obscurity that’s one of his favorite songs.
“It was quite humbling and gratifying to see how response everybody was,” Oates says. “I think inadvertently we created a venue and platform for musicians, for these creative friends to do something good for the country and do what they do best.
“The cool thing is nobody phoned it in. Nobody. It’s really been a labor of love. We’re doing it for all the right reasons”
For his part, Oates recorded a new version of the Hall & Oates hit “Maneater” with Saxsquatch, a saxophone player and electronic artist who performs in costume — though Oates cracks that “a lot of his fans think he’s a real sasquatch” — and has become a viral star. Aimee Oates found him via Instagram, and the collaboration evolved from a reggae version of the song that Oates had in mind to the more electronic-flavored treatment that will be part of the Song Fest.
“Listen man...It’s the new world. Anything goes,” Oates says of performing and filming the video with Saxsquatch — which comes out Friday, March 19 — as well as co-hosting the show with the...creature. “We tried to have a nice balance between fun and entertainment and the music and the message.” Oates also wrote and recorded a new song, “Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee,” that he’ll debut during the song fest as well.
Once the streaming benefit airs, meanwhile, Oates plans to go back to his “day job” of writing and recording music for a possible follow-up to his 2018 album “Arkansas.” He’s contributed some songs to a friend’s upcoming feature film, “collaborating with a few different people,” as well as working on materials for his next solo album. Hall & Oates have a tour slated to start during early August that he’s hoping will
happen, though announced plans for recording a new duo album — its first since a 2006 Christmas album — have been put on hold by the pandemic.
“Daryl was talking about recording; He found a producer in Holland, a young guy, he really liked,” Oates says. “And then COVID hit and it was over. The whole thing just came to a grinding
halt. We will resume at some point with some sort of recording project, but how it manifests itself and who we work with and how we work...who knows. We’ll just have to regroup and see how that’s gonna work.”
John Oates’ Oates Song Fest 7908 takes place at 8 p.m. Saturday, March 20, free via nugs.tv. Proceeds go to Feeding America.