John Oates

John Oates first married Ford model, Nancy Hunter, in 1983 and they lived together in New York City. However, Nancy was reportedly tired of living in her husband’s shadow so the couple eventually separated in 1988.

Oates then married Aimee Pommier in 1994. In 1996, the couple was blessed with a baby boy whom they named Tanner. Oates lives with his family in either Woody Creek, Colorado or Nashville, Tennessee.

John William Oates was born on April 7, 1948, in New York City to Ann De Palma and Al Oates. His mother was Italian while his father was half-English and half-Gibraltarian.

He was raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where he first started singing and playing the guitar as a little boy.

He attended the North Penn High School and recorded his first single ‘I Need Your Love’ for Crimson Records in 1966. After completing his schooling in the same year, he enrolled himself into Temple University where he met his future bandmate, Daryl Hall.

When Oates and Hall first met at the Adelphi Ballroom in Philadelphia in 1967 Daryl Hall was a senior at the Temple University and they were both leading their separate music groups. Oates band was called the Temptones while Hall’s band was known as the Masters. They first came face to face while in a service elevator that they both had taken to escape a gunfire opened during a band competition.

The two men bonded over music and performed in numerous college bands before they officially paired together as ‘Hall & Oates’, in 1970.

John Oates and Daryl Hall signed up with Atlantic Records in 1972. The duo had difficulty defining their genre of music as they kept trying different genres such as folk, soul, rock and pop.

The early albums ‘Whole Oats’, ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’ and ‘War Babies’ did not get the desired success. But the song ‘She's Gone’ from ‘Abandoned Luncheonette’ became a huge success and stood at number one on R&B charts in 1974.

Together, Hall & Oates have released 21 albums and have sold 80 million records all over the globe, making them the most successful duo in the pop-rock industry.

In 2004, John Oates was officially inducted into the ‘Songwriters Hall of Fame’.

Oates was inducted into the ‘Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’ as a member of Hall & Oates in 2014.

Hall & Oates received their ‘Hollywood Walk of Fame’ star on September 2, 2016.