Mark Doyle

Arif produced this as well. I remember vividly getting the call: I was in a rehearsal hall in New York rehearsing with Benny Mardones, who I had just met. Arif somehow tracked me down and called the pay phone there to get me to come down to the session. I remember that I had to say no because we were still rehearsing. When we finally finished, the phone miraculously rang again and it was Arif, saying they were still there and asking if I could come right down. They had been in the studio all night with their guitarist, who I guess had sort of frozen up and wasn’t coming up with anything useable.

The studio (Atlantic) was under armed guard because Hall & Oates were signed to RCA at the time. What they were doing with Arif was working on two unreleased cuts as bonus tracks for a greatest hits package. RCA would’ve freaked out if they ever found out – it was highly illegal, what they were doing. So it was a tense scene.

I waltzed in with Andy’s road manager, Jon Rosbrook, who had asked if he could pretend he was my roadie so he could eavesdrop in the studio for me while I was playing.

Hall & Oates and Arif were all exhausted. I tried cracking jokes but they were in no mood. I asked to hear the song and instead they started the tape right in the middle where the solo needed to be. I scrambled to absorb the changes, went in and plugged my black Les Paul into a Fender Deluxe and starting playing. Gene Paul was engineering (Les Paul’s son), and when they heard what I was playing Daryl exclaimed (according to my spy, Jon) , “That guitar sounds like the BEATLES!! That sounds amazing!!!” The solo was done in a take or two. The song was called “I Want To Know You For A Long Time”, great song.

We then went on to add a solo to the next song, “Uncanny”. This was a bit more difficult because the song was between keys and it was hard to get in tune. Also the solo was long and I had to think in a very broad sense. But we finally got it.
Hall & Oates went on to ask me to join their band and, being young and dumb and committed to my producing career, I turned them down – three times! As the song goes once again, “Regrets. . .I’ve had a few.”