Back in the heyday for Daryl Hall and John Oates, pop chart hit-makers from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, there was probably no place in the United States where they were more popular than Hawaii. Songs like "Sara Smile," "Las Vegas Turnaround (The Stewardess Song)" and "She’s Gone" could have been written with Hawaii pop audiences in mind, and before long local groups were playing their own versions of Hall & Oates songs in Honolulu bars and nightclubs.

Hall & Oates will appear at the Blaisdell Arena on Saturday, after impressing audiences with a triumphant 2011 concert that marked a long-awaited return to Honolulu, after last appearing in 1996. This time around, neither was available for an interview. Hawaii musicians who have interpreted songs by Hall & Oates, however, have vivid memories of the duo’s music.

CECILIO & KAPONO — Cecilio Rodriguez and Henry Kapono Ka’aihue — were such prolific songwriters that their three albums for Columbia Records consisted almost entirely of originals. However, in C&K’s early months they also played songs by other writers. One of them was "Goodnight and Goodmorning," a song they found on Hall & Oates’ relatively obscure 1972 album, "Whole Oats."

"We were writing a lot, but we were doing maybe three or four Hall & Oates songs and three or four Stevie Wonder songs," Kapono said. "We were picking songs that (we) felt we could do and that we could internalize and make it our own."

C&K came up with such a powerful arrangement of "Goodnight and Goodmorning" that many people in Hawaii still associate it with C&K rather than Hall & Oates. Kapono said, though, that the decision to include it on C&K’s second album, "Elua," in 1975 was made by the record label.

"We were at Columbia Records, and every album, they were always asking us to do a cover song. But we had so many originals — we really wanted to just do our songs — that I would take the song that they requested and try to rearrange it and make it feel like we wrote it. Then we would get together and play the song, and Cee would look at me and say, ‘Wow, that’s a cool song.’"

KALAPANA — Malani Bilyeu, Mackey Feary, D.J. Pratt and Kirk Thompson — worked a similar feat of musical magic with a song from Hall & Oates’ second studio album, "Abandoned Luncheonette."

The song was "When the Morning Comes."

Thompson recalled, "From my perspective of leading the band into an acoustic white-soul type of sound that was becoming popular, we started playing a lot of Hall & Oates songs when we were performing at the Toppe Ada Shoppe (a popular nightclub on Kapiolani Boulevard). "We were trying to sound like a mainland band — without sounding like Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young — with our four-part harmonies and music arranged with an acoustic soul canvas."

Like C&K, Kalapana was blessed with talented writers. Bilyeu and Feary split most of the lead vocals between them and wrote most of the group’s originals. Kalapana recorded for an isle record label that wasn’t as concerned about remakes and covers as Columbia. Thompson said they included "When the Morning Comes" on their self-titled debut album "because of (its) sound and popularity."

To this day many Hawaii residents prefer the Kalapana arrangement.

Kalapana wasn’t the only group that played Hall & Oates material at Toppe Ada Shoppe.

Summer, a quartet, inherited the room when Kalapana moved on to bigger things. The band dug deep into Hall & Oates’ fourth album and found a song with Afro-Caribbean rhythms titled "Soldering."

"We were always interested in tropical/world grooves back then, and it intrigued us to hear Hall & Oates recording a song like that," recalled Charles Recaido, founding member of Summer and now a member of acoustic guitar trio Kohala, via email from the Big Island. "It was fresh and with an infectious hook. Had a tropical ambiance."

The Hall & Oates recording was actually a remake of a Jamaican song that had been recorded by a group billed as the Starlites featuring Stanley Beckford. The lyrics proclaim, "Soldering a what the young girl want/Soldering a what the young girl need," and since the term was a euphemism for sex, the Starlites’ record had been banned from Jamaican radio.

"We played H&O’s basic arrangement but added the texture of Summer’s vocal blend," Recaido said. "Kept the instruments minimal: one acoustic guitar, bass, percussion. Eclectic tastes of the band contribute to making a cover song our own."

Summer considered including the song on its second album, "but that never happened."

Greenwood, the popular 1970s-era nightclub band, played "Las Vegas Turnaround" and "When the Morning Comes" frequently in Waikiki, recalled Robin Kimura, Greenwood bandleader and producer of the ’70s Nightclub Reunion shows.

"The early stuff was perfect for the local-style genre, since Kalapana, C&K, Country Comfort (and) Summer were impacting homegrown music," Kimura said.

"Then their later stuff was funky, rockish, soulful, perfect for mainstream Top 40 music. It was harder to do since Daryl Hall’s range is high. What stopped (Greenwood) from playing some of their later danceable stuff was the vocal range (needed) to keep the integrity of the sound intact. Sometimes when you lower the key it just doesn’t sound right."

More than 30 years after the good old days in Waikiki nightclubs, Kimura said Greenwood plans to record its own version of "Las Vegas Turnaround" — with "a little bit more drive, and a full horn section, which their version doesn’t have," Kimura said.

The Greenwood recording will mean more composers’ royalties for John Oates, just as C&K’s take on "Goodnight and Goodmorning," and Kalapana’s version of "When the Morning Comes" meant composers’ royalties for Hall as well.

What do Hall & Oates think of the local remakes of their songs?

"I’m sure they appreciate (the composers’ royalties)," Kapono said, adding that he had never communicated with either.

"I’d love to meet ’em. Maybe I’ll get a chance this time."