Singer Oates visits North Penn High

It may have seemed a little like the early 1980s to John Oates, one half of the pop-soul duo Hall and Oates.

There was an excited audience in the dark waving flickers of light. There were yells and screams as Oates sang "Sara Smile" and one fan asked the singer to autograph a body part.

But yesterday, Oates was visiting North Penn High School, his alma mater. The audience wasn't made up of peers, but of students born long after Oates' biggest hits. The flickers in the dark weren't lighters; they were cell phone cameras.

It was a mash-up of teen audience and veteran singer/songwriter yesterday when Oates, whose partnership has sold millions of records, came home.

"I used to love assemblies because it got me out of class," said Oates, 60, class of 1966. "Now, I'm your excuse."

Oates, who lives on a ranch in Colorado, visited and performed at the school as part of a swing through his old North Wales neighborhood. He was scheduled to perform last night in a solo show at the Sellersville Theater, where he planned to sing the old hits and songs from his new solo album, 1,000 Miles of Life. He is also scheduled to appear at the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneer Awards tonight in Philadelphia and to perform with partner Daryl Hall at a private show this week in Atlantic City.

William Quigley, who owns the Sellersville Theater, suggested the high school performance to district officials.

"I wanted the school involved because he is the most famous alumni," Quigley said. "His parents live about six blocks from me. It was a great combination."

Oates grew up in North Wales when it was what the singer described as a "country town." He showed musical talent at early age and his parents nurtured it, first by buying him an accordion.

"I thought he could do weddings," said Oates' father, Al Oates, 85. But his son's response to the accordion was that the instrument was "too heavy." The reaction was different when Al Oates brought him a $10 guitar at a pawnshop. John Oates loved it.

Next came lessons; listening to records by Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Joan Baez; and writing. Oates' first piece was a seventh-grade composition protesting the Cuban Missile Crisis. His first group - the Soul Continentals - practiced in his garage. Later, came Temple University and stardom with Hall.

Oates' family watched from the front row yesterday: parents Al and Ann Oates, 82; John's wife, Aimee;and son Tanner, 12. A few feet away was Ed Klavon, who coached Oates on the high school wrestling team.

"I flitted between worlds," Oates said in phone interview before the show. "I was a musician and an athlete. I ran with the bad crowd and the good crowd. It was before the social revolution, the last years of that kind of innocent period."

At the show, Oates played acoustic guitar and used the falsetto and throaty rasp of his voice to perform a mix of the old and new.

He talked about the death of record stores and about new technology. (He doesn't have an iPod.) He discussed the creative and business disappointments strewn along his decades-long career and the need to equate self worth with more than a ranking on the music charts.

The students later called out requests for some of his biggest hits.

"Sara Smile" from 1976, shouted Ashley Samuels, 17, who said her grandmother went to school with Oates.

"You'll have to come see Hall and Oates if you want to hear that," Oates said from the stage at first. But eventually, he sang it.