Hall & Oates and Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band were among the artists inducted Thursday night into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame — a long-awaited honor for the two 1980s acts that recognized their lasting cultural contributions during a musical era known and even mocked for its prevalence of one-hit wonders.
Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner called Daryl Hall and John Oates a “duo who found the sweet spot between pop and soul, and had 29 top 40 hits,” the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
“Tonight Show” bandleader Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson, drummer for Philadelphia-based hip-hop band The Roots, called the duo a singing sensation that long suffered under an industry ignorance of the challenge of making good pop music.
“Hall & Oates have the kind of success that’s easy to take for granted,” Mr. Thompson told the Inquirer. “One of the hardest things to do is write a simple three-minute pop song. That can be harder to write than a long, complicated piece of music, like Stravinsky’s ’Rite of Spring’ … [and] there’s not a single person here who didn’t sing along to the radio to their songs.”
Mr. Hall said onstage that “we’re the only homegrown Philadelphia band that has ever gone into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” the reported.
Meanwhile, Mr. Springsteen, who was inducted as a solo act in 1999, gave full credit to his E Street Band mates while giving their induction speech.
“The hallmark of a great rock and roll band is that the narrative you tell together is bigger than the one you could tell on your own,” he said.
Others inducted included Kiss, Nirvana, Peter Gabriel, Cat Stevens and Linda Rondstadt.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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