Apart from soundtrack work?notably, Peter Fonda’s Outlaw Blues from 1977?John Oates has never recorded a studio album, unlike his partner Daryl Hall, who is onto his fourth. He’s ridiculed for being the original Andrew Ridgeley, and for rocking the moustachioed waiter look (actually, he’s clean-shaven on Phunk Shui’s appalling cheapo sleeve), yet Oates was responsible for some of the best songs on their fabulous mid-’70s records Abandoned Luncheonette, War Babies and Daryl Hall John Oates. This is mostly efficient self-penned funk-lite and acoustic soul, with covers of Curtis Mayfield’s “People Get Ready” and “Electric Ladyland”, wherein Hendrix’s psychedelic edges get smoothed into ersatz oblivion.
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