The title track is available now
John Oates is thrilled to announce his new album Reunion to be released on May 17th. As a preview, he has released the title track “Reunion” which is out now.
“The idea for writing a song about a Reunion came to me when I began to think about the true definition of the word,” Oates shares. “It came together when my 100-year-old father told me that he was making ready to be together with my mother, who had passed away some time ago. I wanted to write about the idea of reconnecting with the most essential part of our soul and our spirit. I brought the idea to a co-writing session with a newfound friend, AJ Croce, a man with songwriting in his DNA and who is both an amazing piano player and someone who I sensed would relate to this idea. The song flowed out in a few hours. Then I took it home and translated it into a style that I could perform on guitar. We recorded it in Nashville with some of my best friends and were able to capture the truth as I envisioned it to be. I hope it means as much to you as it does to me, and if that is so, then this is my personal definition of a ‘hit’.”
In support of his new music, Oates will be touring throughout the rest of the year and all next year.
Although many people know John Oates as the co-creator of the pop group Hall & Oates, this versatile artist’s musical roots run deep. As a young child in the early 1950s Oates’ life and influences parallel the evolution of American rock and roll. Playing and singing from the age of five he was born into a life of music. “I am old enough to remember music before the birth of rock and roll so when it hit, I was aware that something new and groundbreaking had happened”. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Everly Brothers, and Elvis laid the foundation and the regional sounds crackling out of the AM radio from labels like Stax Volt/ Specialty/Sun/Chess were Oates’ sonic pallet from which to draw inspiration.
In the early 1960s, when the folk revival swept the college campuses, Oates immersed himself in songs he heard from all the newly rediscovered artists, many of whom traced their careers back to the 1920s and 30s at the beginning of phonograph recordings. Living in Philadelphia at that time Oates haunted the coffee houses and festivals to hear folks like Mississippi John Hurt, Doc Watson, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee and spent many a Saturday night at the fabled Uptown Theater to experience R&B greats like Sam and Dave, Otis Redding, the Temptations, Curtis Mayfield and James Brown.
These early influences made John Oates become the musician he is today. A keeper of the flame, an Americana amalgamation of all that he heard and all that has come before him. For his music in the duo Hall & Oates, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Songwriters Hall of Fame, sold 80 million records globally, had ten No. 1 albums, over 20 Top 30 hits, and toured the world for decades.
Working and moving to Nashville in the early 2000s Oates was embraced by the burgeoning Americana music community and surrounded by kindred spirits and with their help he began to tap back into his earliest musical DNA to establish and redefine himself. The results of this have been seven solo albums, multiple singles, and many classic collaborations. Now this body of work has manifested itself in his most recent and perhaps his most focused project…a collection of songs and an album called: Reunion. The sound and style are uniquely personal and pay homage to his earliest influences, but looks forward with the maturity and perspective of who he is today.
Supported by an all-star lineup of musical friends and guests like Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Bella Fleck, and Sierra Hull as well as a cast of some of Music City’s finest players like Guthrie Trapp, Tom Bukovac, Russ Pahl, Paul Franklin, Steve Mackey, Marc Rogers, David Kalmusky, Greg Morrow, Josh Day and Nathaniel Smith…Reunion tells a tale of love, loss, and personal rediscovery framed in a sonic palate of lush acoustic production.
