Ahead of their closing night headline appearance on Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival, international renowned pop duo, Hall and Oates will be filming a television show at a great house in the hills of St Ann in the vicinity of Nine Miles.

The music duo comprising Daryl Hall and John Oates, will have as their guest in the film Jamaica’s international reggae pioneer Toots Hibbert and songstress, pianist, songwriter Suzanne Couch. Another noted Jamaican musician turned broadcaster, Wayne Jobson of Native fame, will be involved in the production of the television show to be filmed on January 26 and 27.

“Daryl (Hall) is especially coming to have Toots as his guest, as he is a huge fan of Toots,” Jobson told the Sunday Observer via email. “It should be magic to have two of the greatest voices on earth together, Toots and Daryl. He is coming to Jamaica to record the TV show just before Hall and Oates headline the closing night of the Jamaica Jazz and Blues Festival,” Jobson added.

Hall and Oates is recognised as one of the most successful duos, with 34 hit singles over a period of 37 years. The duo also has a nomination in this year’s Grammy Award. They first came to Jamaica in 1974 and jammed with the late great Joe Higgs at the old Chela Bay Hotel in Ocho Rios. They liked the Jamaican hit Soldering by the Starlights so much that they later recorded it on their hit album, Daryl Hall and John Oates which contained their signature classic, Sara Smile.

Thirty six years later, the duo — who in the interim visited Jamaica on holidays — is happy to be back on the rock to their first major performance at the Jazz and Blues Festival as well as to film their television show.

The act which achieved its greatest fame in the late 1970s and early to mid-1980s, specialises in a fusion of rock and roll and rhythm and blues styles, which they dubbed rock and soul.

Critics Stephen Thomas Erlewine & J. Scott McClintock wrote, “at their best, (Hall & Oates’) songs were filled with strong hooks and melodies that adhered to soul traditions without being a slave to them by incorporating elements of new wave and hard rock.”

Much of their soul influence came from known African-American soul, and blues artistes who helped develop a significant amount of their music, as well as often touring and performing with them. Their “bluesy” influence can also be attributed to being exposed to early blues, jazz, r&b, and soul genres at an earlier period in their lives.

In 2002, their hit song Out of Touch was used for the soundtrack in the successful video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, playing on the pop radio station Flash FM. In 2006, their song Family Man was used for the soundtrack for its prequel, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories, once again playing on Flash FM.

The song, Rich Girl, was played in an episode of television’s cop series Hunter. In the episode, a ‘rich girl’ commits the ‘perfect crime’ but in the end cannot profit from it because all her family money can only be hers when the ‘killer’ is apprehended. With no options left, she commits suicide eating yogurt and sleeping pills with the song Rich Girl playing.

Rich Girl was also in an episode of the FX series The Shield, sung briefly by one of the characters in Season 2.

According to Daryl Hall, I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do) helped inspire the song Billie Jean.

“Michael Jackson once said directly to me that he hoped I didn’t mind that he copied that groove (from I Can’t Go for That). That’s okay; it’s something we all do. Eddie Van Halen told me that he copied the synth part from Kiss on My List and used it in Jump. I don’t have a problem with that at all.”