This week, Philadelphia will host a homecoming for two local musicians.
The harmony-driven rock crew Dr. Dog —who retired from live music until now — and Pottstown’s soul man Daryl Hall, who in 2024, left his longtime partner and Philly neighbor John Oates for a solo career, are now back, and will hit the stage for a special hometown show.
This week, both Hall and Dr. Dog release self-titled new albums – respectively, ‘D’ and ‘Dr. Dog’ – and play Philadelphia with Daryl Hall’s double bill with Elvis Costello at the Mann on July 10, and Dr. Dog’s first show back at live gigs at the Mann on July 13. Actually, Dr. Dog is only returning to live shows this week, with an earlier gig at Wilmington’s The Queen on July 11.
Both Hall and Oates, separately, have made solo albums away from their famed duo recordings. But, after having platinum hits (‘Sara Smile,’ ‘I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do’), organizing local outdoor concerts and staying together since 1970, Daryl Hall and John Oates officially split this May when Oates attempted to sell his half of the duo’s jointly owned company, Whole Oats Enterprises — something Oates cannot do without Hall’s consent.
“It hit me by surprise,” Hall told Variety in May. “All I can say is people change and sometimes you don’t really know someone like you thought you did.”
With that, Hall ended the pair’s five decades-plus relationship and finished off a solo album, ‘D’, that he had been recording with the Eurythmics Dave Stewart since earlier in 2024.
With the release of that new solo album, Hall fans hitting the Mann this Wednesday can expect the new school R&B rock sounds that fill ‘D’, along with a smattering of many of his Philly soul-inspired songs with Oates such as ‘Rich Girl’ and ‘Every Time You Go Away.’
Meanwhile, Dr. Dog’s founders Toby Leaman and Scott McMicken wrote and played their own music together since eighth grade, formed bands at West Chester University such as Raccoon, and self-recorded and self-released their first album as Dr. Dog, ‘The Psychedelic Swamp’, in 2001.
Since that start, Dr. Dog has been the toast of shaggy jam band music fans, Beatles freaks, stoners, country rockers and art lovers — Philly-bound and worldwide — with its uniquely elastic, highly individualized brand of psych-pop.
Even though they stopped touring — but never quit as a band — in 2021 with McMicken moving to Asheville, North Carolina, and drummer Eric Slick recording a handful of solo albums, Dr. Dog’s welcome return to music making comes around again with a refined, but still homegrown, version of the sounds they grew up with.
Welcome home, gentlemen.
For more information and to purchase tickets, visit manncenter.org
