Live from Daryl's House: music and food
March 15, 2013
I've been obsessed with this show since I stumbled upon it a few years back was an internet-only deal. Thankfully Palladia has picked it up on cable, bringing it to your HD TV with ease.
For you youngins, Daryl Hall is a singer-songwriter who has been around for quite some time, who was blessed with an enormous career in the 70s and early 80s. Enormous hits. By any measure, he's a fantastic songwriter and singer. This series illustrates this theory.
With Live from Daryl's House, Daryl invites a band or musician up to his pretty friggin' cool house in New York State, and he and his house band play a few of the visting band's songs, and the band picks a few of Daryl's songs to play. This all comes together over the course of a single day from what I can tell, so you're often seeing these guys work out song parts and figuring out harmonies, and all of the other excellent stuff that goes along with making music.
In addition to the music, they've generally got a chef in there, who does a little cooking with the band members, and then they all sit around and eat and drink wine and bullshit about whatever is on their minds. Everything from music to, well generally music to music. Music and food. Quite frankly, that's a perfect day for someone like me.
Daryl has surrounded himself with some incredible players, and the performances look and sound great. Some of my favorite visiting artists have been Fitz and the Tantrums, Joe Walsh, Cee Lo Green, Minus the Bear, Smokey Robinson, and probably my favorite, Todd Rundgren, where they visited Todd's place in Hawaii. The list goes on and on.
Well worth a looksee, even if you think you don't like his music. It's also a great way to find some music that you may not have heard. Get on it, people.