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This is Later with Lee Matthews,
The Lee Matthews Podcast more what You Hear

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weekday afternoons on the Drive. He's
best known as the member of the duo

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Hall and Oates. But I bet
you didn't know just how musically diverse John

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Oates is who's proving it once again
with his newest release, Reunion and John,

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this is you getting back in touch
with your roots of when you were

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starting to perform and started to get
into music and the coffeehouse scene. Am

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I correct? It's really yes,
it is. I mean, you know,

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I had a whole musical life before
I met Daryl Hall. You know,

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I was playing guitar and from the
time I was five and six met

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him, you know, when I
was nineteen or twenty, and so you

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know, the music that I was
making was very much part of the American

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folk tradition, the early R and
B blues, Delta blues, things like

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that, and all that stuff was
you know, kind of combined with Daryl

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and I got together, combined our
individual influences and made something totally unique and

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different and new and original. But
over the years, you know, and

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it never left me. The you
know, the memories and the and the

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musical DNA of what made me who
I am, and really this album is

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getting back to that. Reunion is
the album and one of the things that

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struck me is that you recorded it
live. So I gather there were no

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oh wait, let's do that again. You were at the Franklin Theater,

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the classic Franklin Theater in Franklin,
Tennessee. Well, there was some there

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was some videos recorded live at the
Franklin Theater, but the album was actually

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done in a recording studio. But
it was recorded live. I mean,

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the players were there, we played
together. It just wasn't an audience.

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Well, and that's the best way
to do it too, I mean,

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that's way this Americana music, that's
it's meant to be performed live. Absolutely,

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It's all about the interaction and the
and the skill of amazing players.

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And fortunately being in Nashville, you
know, you have this incredible selection of

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some of the greatest player on the
planet. So it's really it's it's a

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it's an amazing It's really changed my
whole approach to music. John Oates Reunion

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Live at the Franklin Theater is the
new album that is out. He's also

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on tour with it. We'll get
into some of those dates coming up in

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just a minute. But you mentioned
some of the incredible artists that you have

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with you. Sam Bush, fantastic
guitar, Jerry Douglas. Is there a

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better dough Borough player. I don't
think so there isn't. Wellam, and

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uh, I'm sorry. Well,
I said simple as that, there's nobody

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better than Jerry Douglas. H Bella
Bella, Belle La Fleck on banjo,

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and then Sierra Hall. I don't
know a lot of people know what a

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mandolin savant she is. Sierra Hall
is fantastically She's an amazing person, great

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artist, singer, songwriter in her
own and her mandolin playing is just absolutely

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unbelievable. In fact, I asked
Sam Bush if he could play on a

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track near the finishing up the album
and he wasn't available, and he said,

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you should call Sierra Hall, and
I said, yeah, I'd love

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to call Sierra Hall. I don't
have her number. He goes, well,

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I don't want to give you a
number because if you ever call her,

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you're never gonna call me again.
Well, Sierra, I saw her

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by accident. I don't remember where
it was, maybe Austin City Limits and

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I think she was playing with Nickel
Creek. She was about twelve, and

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I thought, this girl is gonna
go places. Oh, yes, she's

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a force. She's incredible. Yeah, and she gets together with John Oates

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in reunion. Tell me about some
of the titles on the album or the

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all original. Yes, everything's original
on the album except for one track,

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which is a cover of a John
Prime song called Long Monday. In fact,

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that was the second single we released
just recently. Long Monday came about

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because I was invited to a celebration
of John's what would have been his seventy

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seventh birthday, and that's where I
met Aj Crochi, who I collaborated with

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as well. And the song,
Yeah, the song I chose to record

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was Long Monday, and after I
did it, I came up with my

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own arrangement for it, and John's
widow came up to me and said she'd

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really loved my approach and take on
that song, and I thought, well,

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you know what, that's that's a
good endorsement right there, so I'm

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going to record it. So I
recorded that, But everything else is original.

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There's a song called This Field Is
Mine, which was inspired by my

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wife's father who has a family farm
in Illinois, and that I wrote with

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Sam Bush and Jeff Black. And
there's a there's a song called All I

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Am, which I wrote with a
young guy named Adam Ezra, and you

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know All I Ask of You,
which is a song I wrote when my

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son was born. It was just
a reflection on how I'd like people to

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maybe think about me one day.
So really personal. This is very very

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This is the most personal album I've
ever done. John Oates is with us.

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You know him from Hall and Oates, but again underscoring your versatility.

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John. A lot of this album, Reunion is I guess the genre could

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be classified as Americana, And if
you don't know Americana, it really is

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a mixture of if you will,
folk, some bluegrass, some country,

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maybe some gospel, all kind of
mixed in one big blender. Yeah.

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That's what I love about the Americana
family of musicians in the genre. It's

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so open ended. You know,
you can do anything. You can do

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blues, you can do bluegrass,
you can do you know anything, really,

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and that's what I love about it
because I'm really eclectic. There's all

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sorts of music in me, and
yeah, all sorts of music that I

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love and I like to be able
to explore it. So if you can

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think of Alison Krause, nickel Creek
already mentioned Nancy Griffith was kind of an

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Americana artist, and it's a lot
of a lot of American culture in it

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too. Yeah, it's an amalgamation
of all this great American popular music that

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started, you know, way back. Most of it started in the deep

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set ealth, but in you know, in the East coast, in the

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mountains of Appalachia, and then in
the big cities as well, you know.

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So it's really just this this mixing
together of this great American music tradition.

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And you will hear it on his
new album Reunion, John Oates.

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And one of the things about the
genre I'm enjoying too, John, is

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that I'm starting to hear a lot
of artists take classic rock songs and do

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Americana versions of them, and it's
really good. It's good stuff. Well,

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a good song is a good song. Yeah, it doesn't you can

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do it in a lot of time. Yeah. You mentioned some of the

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songs that you have written for this
album Reunion by John Oates, and where

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do you mostly draw your inspiration when
it comes to composition. You know,

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a songwriter, I think the difference
between a songwriter and maybe someone else's a

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songwriter seems to always always have their
ears to the ground, or ears to

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the sky, or ears to the
cosmos in terms of just picking up on

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things that maybe a lot of people
might let just pass by. A turner

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phrase, a certain emotional thing.
But it's really how what a songwriter is

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able to do is somehow take these
things that might just pass the average person

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by and turn them into something that
all of a sudden speaks to people.

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And it's really like magic. It's
like drawing something out of the air.

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I think it was Mozart's definition of
music is sound that stirs the soul.

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Got to wrap. But I've always
enjoyed that. But John Oates the album

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is Reunion, and you will reunite
with John Oates and this fantastic music.

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Thanks for joining us, Thank you
for having me. I appreciate it.

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Thanks Lead, Thanks for listening to
Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews

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Podcast, and remember to listen to
The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to

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seven and Iheartsmedia presentation