One traveling art show that we're not likely to see anytime soon is a collection of paintings that Cy Twombly did back in the Seventh Grade. It sounds fun, though. Similarly, it might be fun, and maybe even a little enlightening to see Marlon Brando performing in a school play at the Shattuck Military Academy, or to hear Aretha Franklin as a 14-year-old singing with her church choir. It would be fun to see and hear these things, if only to satisfy a tiny little bit of curiosity we have about the artists in question, a tiny little bit of curiosity we probably weren’t even aware of until the possibility of satisfying that curiosity presented itself. For instance: did I care, before I decided to browse Varese Sarabande Records’ on-line catalogue one day last fall, what Daryl Hall & John Oates were doing musically at the end of the 60s, years before they would have their first sizable hit with the Abandoned Luncheonette album; before they were even necessarily a duo, rather than just a couple of guys who’d jammed a couple times together on some demos. Not really.

But now I know.

Seems the good folks at Warner Brothers Studios pulled some recordings Daryl Hall and John Oates made (together and separately) with producer John Madara between 1968 and 1971 (including both sides of Hall's 1969 solo single "A Lonely Girl") out of the duo's discographical attic and remastered them (such as they could), resulting in the 2006 compilation The Philadelphia Years. The collection is something akin to a line of embryonic stem cells on the group – at this point in their careers, they could have become anything, or nothing at all. Who might have known, hearing Hall singing his maudlin piano ballad "I Ain't Afraid of the Cold", or the cornball overproduced pop of "Girl Don’t Make Me Wait", that 20 years later, he'd be considered one of the greatest pop vocalists of his time; or that he and John would eventually become the most commercially successful duo of the rock era?

There are hints, here and there, of things to come, and even a few (really) unpolished gems to be found amongst these tracks, most of which have never seen any kind of official release until now. Songs like the easygoing opener "Fall in Philadelphia" and "If That’s What Makes You Happy" offer suggestions of Hall’s future blue-eyed soul greatness. "Good Night and Good Morning" is a charming little folk number on the joys of cohabitation that showcases the duo's harmonies; and Oates takes a sharp bluesy storytelling turn on the delicate, acoustic-guitar driven "I'll Be By". But, for the most part, these performances are most interesting when approached from the context of the career(s) that followed. In and of themselves, the songs are often pleasantly slight (though rarely embarrassing), the performances spare and rough, and the sound throughout (despite the best efforts of digital restorer Joe Sidore) spotty. It's a well-assembled, but ultimately trivial collection.



Recommended: Yes