Flashback: Hall & Oates’ 'Abandoned Luncheonette'

A quick look back at the duo’s 2nd record as it turns 50.

Good Morning!

Today as it turns 50, we’re taking a look at “Abandoned Luncheonette” by Hall & Oates

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You can’t listen to any “hot hits of the 80s, 90s, and today!” station for more than an hour without hearing a song by Hall & Oates.

Inescapable during their heyday, they’re perhaps even more so now. There’s a huge appetite for their brand of upbeat but anodyne music. It’ll always have a home in dentist offices and workplaces (at mine, we often joke about which song of theirs we’ll hear first.).

But their sound wasn’t always like this.

Before shifting to the pop-rock sound we’re all familiar with, they made very different records.

Records that were a mix of soft rock and soul. Think James Taylor meets the Philly Sound. Indeed Daryl Hall had worked with Gamble & Huff, famed architects of that distinctive brand of R & B. They would take both elements and make them their own on their early records.

Records like Abandoned Luncheonette.

If you’ve only heard the band’s later work, you’re in for a surprise.

A few of them, actually. The first is that John Oates wrote several of the songs here. After being reduced to a sidekick in their later videos, it’s interesting to see him having a much larger hand in the production here.

Oates penned no less than three of the tracks here, including “Las Vegas Turnaround”- about a flight attendant named Sara…maybe a precursor to “Sara Smile?”

The other is the sound.

For this record, the duo left their Philly homebase for New York City, where a lineup solid session musicians helped hone their disparate influences. Album opener “When The Morning Comes” is a lovely (sorta) reggae song, with some mellotron by Chris Bond. On drum, no less than Bernard Purdie (yes, that Bernard Purdie) keeps things moving along mnicely.

For a record turning 50 today, this album has held up well.

Still, it’s light years away from H2O or Big Bam Boom, and if those are all you know, the kinder, gentler sound of Abandoned Luncheonette will throw you for a loop. The sound is much closer to folk rock or easy-listening acts of the day than the more uptempo rock tracks that dominated the charts in the 80s.

You’ll likely recognize “She’s Gone,” but the rest of the tracks are worth exploring.

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Listen:

Hall & Oates | Abandoned Luncheonette, 1973

What are your thoughts on this record? Do you have any favorite tracks or memories associated with it? At 50, does it still hold up? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Thanks for being here,

Kevin—

An earlier version of this first appeared here.