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Music Man It was the shave heard 'round the world. John Oates, of pop sensation duo Hall and Oates, has not had his signature mustache since 1990, even if an Internet search of it still brings up a million results. "It has a life of its own," says Oates from the road where he and Daryl Hall are still entertaining loyal fans (the two are still friends and still tour together). "People to this day ask me about that damn mustache," Oates says. "Let's put it this way: I haven't had the mustache longer than I had it." S SOMething elSe he'S had? a rOck- solid place as one-half of one of the best-selling duos in music history. Together, with their unique brand of blueeyed soul, Hall and Oates dominated radio stations, Billboard charts, and school dances across the country from the mid-1970s through the mid-'80s. Oates, who was always the dark, mysterious silent one to Hall's tall, blueeyed, blond extrovert, is exceedingly normal, given his megastar résumé. "Does being famous equate to being unsociable?" he asks. Not in his case. Not at all. There are no handlers. His direct phone number, something that Person of Interest 88 John Oates Solo artist since 2002 Tempus-Magazine.com . Spring 2013 would have been the Holy Grail for fans during their heyday, is the number he gives for an interview. His e-mail address, in part, comes from the name of the pet donkey his wife once gave him. There is no pretension. If there was, like the mustache, he left it back in his other life. That other life began on the East Coast, growing up outside of Philadelphia, skiing in the little hills of the Poconos, trapping raccoons, and always playing guitar. At seventeen, he met Hall at a band competition in West Philly, and a shared love of old blues, R&B;, even folk and roots music, led them to hone their own brand of pop "rock and soul." Five years later, they would be signed to Atlantic Records and didn't stop touring or recording for the next ffteen years. The catalogue of Hall and Oates songs, including "Rich Girl," "Kiss on My List," and "Maneater," is like a Cadillac, Las Vegas, or the Internet— an indelible part of the fabric of our American consciousness. The pair's twenty-one albums have sold over eighty million units (thus the distinction of the most successful duo), ten number one records, and over twenty Top 40 hits. Oates released his frst solo record in 2002, his most recent, Mississippi Mile, in 2011, and this year, to keep current within this universal mode of cherry-picking singles to be downloaded, he's trying something new, he says, and will release a song a month for a year. And, of course, he will continue to tour with his lifelong friend a few times a year. That they're still touring at all is not only a testament to their songs, but also to the life Oates has now, and the calm, centered place from which he resonates. That life includes alpacas, llamas, and at one time that aforementioned donkey, on a farm in Aspen, Colorado, with his wife, Aimee. The couple have a seventeen-year-old son, Tanner, who Oates, now sixty-three, says, "could not be completely further from the tree. He wants to be in nuclear engineering. He's very science orientated." They also live part of the time in Nashville, where Oates can be found playing with bluegrass and country cohorts Jim Lauderdale and Rosanne Cash, producing records and mentoring up-and-comers in a city where egos can be as loud as the honky-tonks' jukeboxes. If there's any nostalgia for his past, it's not evident—apart from the love of the songs he and Hall created, "She's Gone," for example. "I never play a show without playing this song," Oates offers. "The show feels incomplete unless I play that song." The best things, it seems, stick around. Mississippi Mile Success Story Wild West His latest album, released in 2011 Hall and Oates had 10 No. 1 records He makes his home in Aspen with wife, Aimee photograph by Joel Maus the quiet half of a famous music duo, John Oates plays on while living the life of an unpretentious music star