Although he makes up
one half of the biggest selling pop duo in history, Daryl Hall recently
released his second solo album titled Three Hearts In The Happy Ending
Machine. The first single, "Dreamtime", continued Hall's tradition
of successful chart tunes.
The album is Hall's
first solo lp since 1979's Sacred Songs. Hall produced his
current album with labelmate Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics and Tom "T-Bone"
Wolk. In addition, he wrote all the music (at times assisted by Stewart
and John Beeby) and lyrics (with partial assistance by Sara Allen and Arthur
Baker). Among the guest musicians participating in the recording
were Stewart, Jamie West-Oram from The Fixx, Bob Geldof and Joni Mitchell.
Matching the song title
of that first single, the "Dreamtime" video was a surrealistic affair,
full of dazzling, multi-leveled video effects which suggested the world
of the subconscious. There were multiple exposures, spinning imagery,
cutaway screens, animated bits and electronically manipulated objects which
combined into a novel video collage, with Hall's dream elements fitting
in and out of the patchwork main screen.
Additionally, there
were also bizarre, recurring dream sequences including Hall playing guitar
in an outdoor maze, a mysterious woman walking through a big, fog-covered
room in slow motion, a set full of distorted clocks, and a woodsy scene
full of equally distorted, magically bowed cellos. It is definitely
a video worth watching!
Daryl Hall, the man,
is also worth watching, as his fans well know. He has had an astonishing
career thus far. He has written more of the number one singles in
the '80s than any other artist--seven to be exact. He has sung more
top 40 tunes (15) in this decade than any other man, woman, or child.
In addition, his song
"Everytime You Go Away" was named the most-played song of 1985 by BMI.
This is quite a track record for a man who has probably not even reached
his peak yet!
As for Three Hearts
In The Happy Ending Machine, Hall says, "when I started making this album,
I wanted to get out of New York. I've always felt it was important
to scatter your patterns, to outrage yourself, to keep from settling into
a routine that will obscure the freshness of your feelings, that will turn
what you do from a passion into a habit.
"I'd been taking all
my musical influences out of New York for years," he continued, "and using
the Hall and Oates band. It was time to move outside of all that.
I knew I'd have a different perception of things if I did."
Three Hearts In The
Happy Ending Machine was recorded at Paris' Grand Armee Studio, at
London's Marcus Studio, and at the London church Dave Stewart has converted
into a studio.
Hall wanted to avoid
an overdose of hi-tech keyboards, and concentrated on stringed instruments,
among them, mandolins and guitars.
He also pursued a different
approach to percussion from that which he's usually been associated.
The departure was provided by Michel De La Port, a former French Legionnaire
who had spent his time in Senegal, Algeria and India and had ended up making
his own versions of those countries' instruments--200 of them.
Explains Hall, "We used
tuned drums and water drums--hollowed out gourds you sit in a pot with
water and can tune with the amount of water in the pot. De La Port
brought in Indian and Middle Eastern rhythms...more undulating, rolling
rhythms than the Afro American rhythms I usually use."
Finally, Hall noted
that, "this album is a very personal statement. The lyrics came from
a series of emotional experiences I had this year. They left me with
a desire to feel more, to be less indirect about my feelings, to get away
from cynicism. The songs came from putting away one era of my life
and moving into another."