Freezing our butts off in winter at Worthington Minnesota. From left: Jon, Ken, Mick and Paul.
Here is a live soulful rendition of the Hall and Oates classic, “Sara Smile” sung by Ken on lead with Mick, Jon and Paul on backup vocals. If I haven’t said it elsewhere, our drummers, both Kim and Paul, were essential as singers on many of the songs we performed since the music we chose to cover often had 3 part backup harmonies. The first intro to Cheryl was me wishing her a happy birthday, and then I gave a little whistle. That’s Ken you hear in the background with a quick chuckle. The second “to Cheryl” in the deep voice is, of course, Paul (the judge).
The first time we heard of Hall and Oates was at the Ludtke house. While Jon was refining the films and mounting slides for our Beatles Tribute in the family kitchen, Ken put on this album he was very proud of. He was almost always the guy who found the most interesting new music. But Jon and I hated Hall and Oates upon first listen. We thought it sounded like some of the ’60’s soul groups, and we made fun of him for liking it. But Ken got the last laugh as they turned out to be an excellent musical group. I saw them live in San Francisco several years later. My sister, Marjie, got us front row seats!
In this version, Ken throws in a funny line by changing the lyrics near the end… probably trying to get us to crack up. I will give a FREE copy of one of the singles I have left to the FIRST one who can find the line. Just e-mail mick at sfresidence dot com.
Mick Orton
Reblogged this on Silver Laughter and commented:
I was going back through the archives and found this song. Since the Silver Laughter website is essentially about the band and its music, I wanted to bring this clip to the front again. It features Ken on the lead vocal and the rest of us on backups. I think it is an excellent version of the Hall and Oats tune.
Note: Being from the Midwest, when I first heard the name of the band, I thought they were saying “Hauling Oats”.