The Who: The definitive history

The story of The Who begins with Roger Daltrey (b. Hammersmith Hospital, Acton, London March 1, 1944) who was expelled from Acton County Grammar School in Spring 1959 for refusing to wear his school uniform. Getting a day job in a sheet metal factory, Roger spent his nights playing or rehearsing with his band The Detours. At this point he was the lead guitarist, not the singer, but in any case, he ruled the band with a ready fist.

Needing a bass player in the summer of 1961, Roger approached a former schoolmate who just happened to be carrying a bass guitar he had built (his girlfriend Alison was lugging the amp). He was John Entwistle (b. Hammersmith Hospital, Acton, October 9, 1944) who had been in a number of after-school bands at Acton and played the trumpet and horn.

Early the next year, Roger needed a new rhythm guitarist, so John suggested a mate of his that had played with him in his after-school bands. This was Pete Townshend (b. Nazareth House, Ilseworth, May 19, 1945). Pete came from a show business background with parents who had been entertainers during and after World War II. He was also a student, spending his non-band time learning the latest ideas in art, then trekking back to his student flat to listen to blues records.

Pete's mom got them some local bookings through her contacts. Meanwhile departing members and the influence of then hit band Johnny Kidd and The Pirates led Roger to drop the guitar and become lead vocalist, leaving The Detours minus the second guitar that almost all bands then used. To fill the sound, John began picking up some of the guitar part, playing lead guitar on the bass.

Having only two guitarists and a drummer also meant The Detours had to play louder to make as big an impression. Pete, stronger as a rhythm guitarist than as a lead, began experimenting with his instrument. Until then electric guitars had been played like acoustic guitars (only amplified), but Pete started doing things an acoustic guitar could never do, switching the pickups rapidly to make a machine gun sound, blasting power chords and extending his sustain by causing the guitar to deliberately feedback.

While this was happening, the English musical world exploded with the arrival of Beatlemania in mid-1963. Before The Detours could join the moptops in pop stardom, some changes were necessary.

1964

The first thing to change was their name, since another group also called The Detours had turned up on national television. At a meeting at Pete's student flat in February Pete, the band members and his flatmate Richard Barnes threw around suggestions. Pete requested a very generic name so Barnes came up with "The Who." It fulfilled the generic quality, was short and looked great on posters and, as the newly christened The Who soon found out, could be used by the press to make clever punning headlines.

The next thing to change was the drummer. Doug Sandom had been The Detours' drummer for a year and a half but after the band failed an audition for Fontana Records on April 9, Sandom was asked to turn in his sticks. At the end of April the drummer for The Beachcombers auditioned and after battering the kit into submission, was brought into the group. This was Keith Moon (b. Central Middlesex Hospital, Willsden, London, August 23, 1946) and even at seventeen he was like no other drummer they'd ever heard. Given only a smattering of training by Screaming Lord Sutch's drummer Carlo Little, Keith did not play drums as much as throw himself at them, arms flailing, supplying fills and washes of cymbals but with only a semblance of a steady beat. In any other band he would have been impossible to play with. In a group with as quirky a musical construction as The Who, however, he fit in perfectly, competing with John to be the lead instrument and competing with Pete and Roger for the audience's attention.

Keith's attention grabbing spurred Pete to greater heights of theatricality. He started using spectacular motions on stage like spreading his arms wide while his guitar howled feedback (a stance that earned him the nickname "birdman") and swinging his arm at his guitar, smashing his hand into the strings (and often drawing blood), a move called the "windmill." His most spectacular bit, however, started soon after Keith joined the group. Whether by accident (a low ceiling) or by design (witnessing auto-destructive artist Gustav Metzger at art college), Pete began smashing his guitar at the end of his act. Keith, never to be upstaged, started kicking his drums over. The Who were now the loudest and most visually exciting band in England.

Time then for an image change. Peter Meaden, a former employee of The Rolling Stones' young manager Andrew Loog Oldham, got himself hired as an adviser by The Who's then manager, Helmut Gorden. Meaden was a member of the cultish British youth movement the Mods that had recently become nationally notorious after a series of seaside riots with their enemies the Rockers. With more money in their pockets than their parents had ever had, the Mods spent their pounds on four things: the latest fashions, motor scooters, R&B records imported from America and speed pills smuggled from France. It was the latter that filled Meaden's head along with the idea to remake The Who into the quintessential Mod band. The Who had their hair cut short, bought the trendiest clothes and copied the latest dances. Meaden also changed their name to The High Numbers.

Despite their counterfeit origins, The High Numbers were accepted by the Mods who gave the band a sizeable and loyal audience. Meaden got the band a one-shot recording deal at Fontana where, in June 1964, they recorded their first single, "Zoot Suit"/"I'm The Face." The lyrics were Meaden's, the melodies were borrowed and the single went nowhere.

It was while they were The High Numbers that the band met the team that brought them to stardom. A pair of low-level workers in the British movie industry, Kit Lambert and his partner Chris Stamp, had been looking for an unknown group to be the subject for a movie of their own. Lambert, the posher of the pair, was from the well-to-do Lambert family and his father was the classical composer Constant Lambert. Stamp's background was working class but his family ties were just as famous as Kit's thanks to his brother, then super-hot actor Terence Stamp. Lambert was the first to happen upon The High Numbers, attending a show at the Railway Hotel in mid-July.

After he received word from Lambert, Stamp left Ireland, where he was working on the movie Young Cassidy and saw this band for himself. Equally impressed by the High Numbers' potential, he and Lambert soon began maneuvers to take over the band's management. Nullifying Gorden's contract -- he had signed the band members before they were of legal age -- these two cocky novices made themselves overnight into the new Brian Epsteins, filming a show at the Railway Hotel, getting the band a support position on a national tour and setting up auditions for a record label.

The auditions consistently failed, mostly because of a lack of original material. Since Pete was the art student and had already written a couple of songs for The Detours as part of a class assignment, Lambert and Stamp loaded up Townshend with a Nagra tape machine and told him to compose some songs. Pete, a whiz with electronics, quickly mastered multi-tracking, allowing him to make demos of himself playing all the instruments. No one in rock was then using this technique. Until that point pop composers had usually auditioned their songs by playing them live on piano or guitar. Pete's demo technique provided The Who with a blueprint for the finished recording while giving him greater control over how his songs were to be performed.

His first two compositions using home-recorded demos were "Call Me Lightning" and "I Can't Explain," the latter a copy of the new sound The Kinks had introduced with their hit "You Really Got Me." It was a deliberate steal since Lambert and Stamp meant to use the demos to get the interest of The Kinks' producer, Shel Talmy. Talmy signed the band to a multi-year recording contract.

In November 1964, their name having reverted back to The Who, the group entered IBC Studios (or Pye according to Talmy) to record their first single under that name, "I Can't Explain." On November 24th, the band landed a career-launching gig on Tuesday nights at the Marquee Club in London. Pete's friend Richard Barnes designed posters to promote the shows, jet black with the image in white of a windmilling Pete, The Who with arrows coming out of the letters, and the words "Maximum R&B." It became the band's most iconic image.

"I Can't Explain" was released in the U.K. January 15 but took three months of heavy lifting by The Who and their management before it reached its #8 peak in the charts. Meanwhile all of trendy London trekked to the Marquee on Tuesdays, leaving drenched in sweat and shouting to each other over the ringing in their ears about this incredibly loud, incredibly exciting band.

Some of that wildness made it into their next single, "Anyway Anyhow Anywhere" released May 21 with a middle instrumental section filled with runaway drums and piercing guitar feedback. The Who switched from being a Mod band to being a Pop-art band, wearing T-shirts with medals and Royal Air Force insignia and, most famously, a jacket made from the British flag. Pete, meanwhile, gave interview after interview making outrageous statements, his already existing tendency to verbosity egged on by managers Lambert and Stamp. From this point on The Who and particularly Pete were seen by the music press as a perpetual source for good copy.

On September 26 Roger and Keith got into a brawl over Keith's pill use after a show in Denmark. Roger was fired after the group's return to England but was allowed back in until a suitable replacement could be found. For the next year the music press was filled with reports of The Who at each other's throats, reports that were often true as Roger remained on probation and Keith and John auditioned for other bands, desperate to find a way out.

Pete channeled his anger into The Who's third single, inspired when the Queen Mother had his car towed from its spot in front of his managers' offices because it offended her sensibilities during her morning drive. "My Generation," released October 29, was the Sixties' most searing condemnation of the older generation. Its most quoted line, "hope I die before I get old," became the band's signature lyric. The Who's first album, also titled My Generation, followed on December 3.


1966

Desperate for money, suffering under the terms of their contract with producer Shel Talmy and ignored by their American label Decca, The Who's managers decided to break the contract and, in January, signed The Who to Atlantic in the U.S. and Robert Stigwood's new label Polydor through the rest of the world. Talmy countered with a lawsuit that hampered the band throughout the year until it was settled in October with The Who remaining on Polydor but returning to Decca in the U.S.

Pete handled the production of the Who's new single, "Substitute," himself. Released March 4, it marked a switch from the wild feedback-laden sound of 1965 to a hard-driving pop music Pete dubbed "power pop."

Another innovation followed May 10 when Pete presented his manager Kit Lambert with a homemade parody track he referred to as a "rock opera." Lambert, with his family training in classical music, leapt upon the idea and encouraged Pete to start writing a real rock opera. Pete's first attempt became The Who's next single, "I'm A Boy," released August 26. The bizarre tale of a boy raised as a girl was a fragment of an opera called "Quads" that remained unfinished as Pete explored other concepts. "I'm A Boy" was The Who's biggest hit single in Britain, reaching #1 on the Melody Maker chart.

The year ended with The Who's second LP, A Quick One, featuring songs written by all the members of The Who as part of a money-raising publishing scheme devised by their managers. The album, released December 3, marked the emergence of John Entwistle as another writer in The Who stable. His darkly humorous style was evident in the album's track "Boris The Spider" that became his signature song. Also of note was the album's concluding track, "A Quick One While He's Away," a nine-minute long "mini-opera."

1967

On March 16, The Who's managers launched a label of their own, Track Records, not only to publish The Who's records in Britain, but other artists as well. The label's first act signed was The Jimi Hendrix Experience and Track's success spurred other major British acts to consider starting their own labels.

The Who's sixth official single, "Happy Jack," was held back in America to coincide with the band's arrival there, playing two songs five times a day at the Murray The K extravaganza in New York March 25 - April 3. Each performance ended with smoke bombs and smashed instruments that shocked jaded New York audiences, gaining the band an immediate cult following. "Happy Jack" became the first Who single to reach the U.S. Top Forty.

The Who returned to the U.S. June 18 to play at the prestigious Monterey Pop Festival where the band had a tussle with fellow Polydor performer Jimi Hendrix who intended to use The Who's same instrument-smashing conclusion. The Who won a coin toss and went first. On his way home from the festival Pete popped a new psychedelic, STP, that provoked a lengthy trip Pete would later describe as "painful." Pete swore off drugs and began to look for other paths to higher consciousness.

The Who were back a month later to begin their first lengthy tour of North America opening for the teeny-bopper band Herman's Hermits. They ended up spending more than they made. The expenses of the instrument-smashing conclusion to their act were part of the reason but some of the cost came from destruction that was done offstage as Keith began his secondary career as a wild man. He may not have actually driven a car into a swimming pool at a Holiday Inn (Roger says yes, everyone else there says no) but he did more than enough damage to other hotels along the route, blowing up toilets and doors off hinges after he purchased firecrackers during the tour's Southern leg. From this point on, Keith would leave hotel rooms in shambles wherever The Who toured.

One of his wildest moments of mayhem came after the premiere of The Who's new single "I Can See For Miles" on the U.S. variety show The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour September 15. Following with "My Generation," The Who's performance ended when Keith blew his drum set apart with explosives. The publicity propelled "I Can See For Miles" to #9 in the U.S. Billboard charts, their highest position for a single in the U.S. In the U.K., however, the band were dubbed old hat along with many other groups from the 1963-1965 period and the single barely squeaked into the Top Ten. The single's disappointing showing caused Pete to have a crisis of confidence. Feeling he could no longer write hit singles for The Who, he turned his full attention to completing a rock opera.

A cast-off of his latest attempt, "Rael," climaxed the band's third album The Who Sell Out, released December15. With its comical cover and imitation of a broadcast on recently outlawed pirate radio, the album did not match the chart success of their previous LP's but became, in time, a critical favorite.
Troubles and tribulations marked 1968 beginning with The Who's tour of Australia and New Zealand in January. Accompanied by fellow Mod band The Small Faces, The Who became the objects of hatred for Australia's right-wing press who derided them as drunken louts. The Who escaped with Pete vowing never to return (he finally did return, 36 years later)

The trip did mark one important milestone. Reading literature given him by Small Faces member Ronnie Lane, Pete became a disciple of the Indian avatar Meher Baba. His influence soon led to a new idea for a rock opera, an "amazing journey" for a young English boy who discovers a new spiritual level after being rendered "deaf, dumb and blind" by a childhood trauma.

By April Pete was writing the opera and its composition stretched into the next year as the necessity for more singles and further touring interrupted him. The new singles, "Call Me Lightning" in the U.S., "Dogs" in the U.K. and "Magic Bus" in both countries, flopped, adding more pressure to the writing and recording of the new opera. However, the live act became the band's one dependable success as they toured North America, presenting exciting shows that left them by year's end the U.S.'s fourth most-popular pop and rock act.

During the summer tour, Pete gave a long interview to the fledgling music magazine Rolling Stone, discussing in depth his plans for his new opera and the meaning of rock in general. Printed over two issues, the interview presented Pete as one of the only performers of rock music who could speak at length on the intellectual meaning of the medium. The many interviews that would follow over the next few years established his reputation as rock's leading intellectual and the standard bearer for the hopes his generation placed in popular music.

Meanwhile, other bands were breathing down Pete's neck, working on their own album-length rock operas (The Pretty Things released one, S.F. Sorrow, in December but it passed practically unnoticed at the time). As the release date passed from Christmas into sometime in the new year, time began to run out.

1969

Tommy, as the rock opera was finally dubbed, first appeared as an advance single, "Pinball Wizard," released March 7 and became The Who's first Top Ten single hit in a year and a half. The album followed on. May 17. Arriving in a three-section gatefold sleeve with an illustrated libretto, Tommy was hailed as a masterpiece by many rock critics and became The Who's first giant-selling album. When the money began to roll in, The Who were within weeks of declaring bankruptcy.

Tommy turned out to be more than just a hit album; it was a triumph in live performance as well, a fact proven when The Who took the opera onstage at the Woodstock Festival August 17. Despite an interruption in the middle of the piece when Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman came on stage to make a political announcement and was knocked off by Pete, Tommy wowed the festival's gigantic crowd in a performance captured on film and later featured in the hit movie Woodstock. Roger with his curly hair and open, fringed jacket and a boiler-suited Pete banging his guitar into the stage became iconic images for their generation. Now the whole world wanted to see them perform.

Manager Kit Lambert created strategies to make that happen. The first came in the form of a $2 million deal with Universal Pictures in America to make two movies, one of Tommy, the other a concert film. The second was for a grand tour of the world's great opera houses, beginning with the Netherlands' Concertgebouw September 29 and London's Coliseum Theatre December 14.

1970

The year began with a tragedy when Keith and his friends were trapped in their car outside a club by skinheads. Keith's chauffeur got out to confront them and Keith, in a panic, slid behind the wheel and drove his friends to safety, only to discover he had run over his chauffeur, dragging his body under the car. The death was ultimately judged accidental but it haunted Keith for years afterwards.

The big project of 1970 was to find some way to buy time until Pete could devise a fitting follow-up to Tommy. Rejecting tapes from their American tour, The Who recorded two shows at the University of Leeds on February 14 and the University of Hull February 15. The former show, running almost two hours, was edited down to less than 40 minutes and released that May as Live At Leeds. This stopgap between projects became one of The Who's biggest hits and is considered by many the best live rock album of all time.

For studio recordings, The Who presented a new single, "The Seeker," released March 20. An extended-play single recorded that spring was cancelled. This left The Who to play Tommy over and over around the world, most notably in two performances at New York's Metropolitan Opera June 7.

Pete did not devise the next big project until that summer, coming from a combination of the 1969 movie deal, the arrival of a new musical instrument and a method of transportation. During the summer, Pete was presented with a musical synthesizer which he put in his home studio and began toying with, running guitar and organ through sequencers, creating loops of musical notes after the manner of the American minimalist composer Terry Riley. Meanwhile, in order to travel in comfort from one rock show to another, Pete bought a large American van. While driving along in air-conditioned comfort, he began imagining a future where the air was too polluted to breathe.

All this came together with the second part of the movie deal, the Who concert movie. Why not give the concert movie a plot? Something set in the future involving pollution, synthesizer loops and The Who saving the world?

1971

Pete's new project was unveiled January 13 at the Young Vic Theatre in south London. He called it "Lifehouse" and it was set in the future at a months-long rock concert where all but the attendees would be connected via a kind of virtual reality within "experience suits." Those at the concert would have special music composed for each of them by a computer fed with their personal statistics. All of it would lead to "The Note" that would make everyone disappear. The Who would set up at the Young Vic and the project would begin.

The band was confused. Would they get to go home? Did Pete really think they were all going to disappear? Pete couldn't get his ideas across to the band so they decamped for New York where manager Kit Lambert, who had straightened out the story of Tommy, would explain Pete's idea to the band. However, when they got there, Pete discovered Kit was sabotaging Lifehouse behind his back, afraid Pete's new project would threaten Kit's ability to become writer and director of the Tommy movie. The betrayal caused Pete to have a nervous breakdown. He abandoned the project, flew back to England and presented his demos for Lifehouse to producer Glyn Johns.

Johns recorded The Who performing the songs, threw out the plot and pieced the tracks together into one killer album, Who's Next, released in August. It was soon declared The Who's masterpiece and provided three Who tracks, "Baba O'Riley," "Behind Blue Eyes," and "Won't Get Fooled Again," that became the group's best-known songs.

Meanwhile, John Entwistle, writing song after song and having no outlet for them, released the first Who solo album, Smash Your Head Against The Wall on May 14. It was the beginning of a sideline that would take up more of the Who's members' time as the group's albums became less frequent.

1972

After 1971, The Who began to slow down. An attempt to turn Lifehouse into an ordinary movie collapsed. A May 1972 album, again with Glyn Johns, was abandoned and a couple of the tracks were released as the singles "Join Together" (June 16) and "Relay" (November 25). For the first time since 1967, The Who did not launch an American tour. John released a 2nd solo album, Whistle Rymes [sic] November 3rd and Pete gathered some demos and tracks from the Meher Baba devotional albums he had worked on to release an album under his name, Who Came First, September 29th.

The year ended with an orchestral production of Tommy by the London Symphony Orchestra. As a lark, The Who were involved as vocalists. The success of the venture led the producers of the orchestral recording to start a push to get a film made of the opera.

1973

Roger jumped on the solo bandwagon in the new year with the self-titled Daltrey, released April 20. Managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp belittled Roger's album, leading the singer to wonder what the two were doing to earn their percentage. He initiated an audit of their books.

Pete, meanwhile, was working on a new piece. Originally a musical history of the band, the project turned into the story of a Mod fan of the Who in 1964 who undergoes a crisis of identity. Recording of the new work, Quadrophenia, began that May with Pete handling the production after Kit Lambert proved unequal to the task. The massive and complex work was recorded in quadraphonic sound in a brand-new, half-completed studio built for the band.

Additional pressures began to take their toll on The Who. Keith Moon's stormy marriage collapsed right after the album's completion and his wild lifestyle quickly escalated into self-destructive excesses. At the same time, Roger struck right at the heart of the organization that had made them all rock stars, presenting the band with evidence of malfeasance by their managers and demanding they be replaced. Pete, who still felt loyal to Lambert and Stamp, did everything he could to slow Roger down and tension began to build between the two.

Additional antagonism was caused by the new album, released October 26. Since MCA's quadraphonic format was poor, Quadrophenia was reduced to stereo and Roger hated the result, feeling Pete had buried his voice under thick layers of synthesizers. Rehearsals for the tour turned violent as a drunken Pete got into a fight with Roger and was promptly knocked out by him. Nothing worked better once the band made it onto the road. The new work, performed onstage with elaborate backing tapes, proved unwieldy and songs were dropped with almost every concert. Then on the first show of the U.S. tour November 20, Keith passed out from PCP he had taken. A substitute from the audience, Scott Halpin, was brought up to play drums for the rest of the show. To top it off, the entire band was thrown into jail in Montreal after Keith and Pete destroyed a hotel room.


1974

As soon as Pete returned from the tour, he had to begin work on the soundtrack for the movie of Tommy. Direction had been handed over to the radical English director Ken Russell who imposed his strong and often outrageous style on the opera. The problems mounted swiftly. Keith was not available for most of the soundtrack sessions as he was acting in another movie, so Pete had to bring in replacement drummers, most notably former Faces member Kenney Jones. Then, at the insistence of the director and studio, actors who couldn't sing, like Oliver Reed and Jack Nicholson, were given roles and Pete had to coach them through their vocal performances. Once the production was finished, Russell demanded re-writes and re-recording of sections of the opera to fit changes in editing. It was enough to drive Pete to drink.

And drink he did, suffering memory blackouts by that summer. John and Keith were not far behind in booze consumption and it began to affect the quality of The Who's live performances as was sometimes evident at their May 18 show at Charlton Football Stadium. The combination of alcohol and stress caused Pete to suffer a mini-breakdown during the first night of a four-night stand at Madison Square Garden June 10. For the first time, he felt he was just going through the motions onstage and began to wonder whether The Who had reached the end.

Looking back at what The Who had been was also the subject of that year's Who album, Odds and Sods, a collection of Who outtakes assembled by John. Released October 4, it would be the last Who disc on Lambert and Stamp's Track Records label.

1975-1976

Tommy: The Movie premiered March 18, 1975. The rock critics who had championed The Who from the mid 1960's loathed the new movie version but the public loved it. It was a box-office smash, sent the soundtrack album higher up the U.S. charts than the original and made The Who, and especially singer, now actor, Roger, international stars.

Despite all the success, Pete was in a state of depression. Reaching the then-dreaded age of 30, an avant-guardist fully accepted into the mainstream, head of a band that had turned into a multi-million dollar enterprise, Pete ached for a new music revolution that would stop the juggernaut. The songs he wrote for the next album, The Who By Numbers, were mostly a savage destruction of himself and the meaning of the music he had championed.

The vitriol spilled over into an interview which led to sniping between Pete and Roger in the press. However, it seemed to clear the air and, starting October 4, 1975, The Who began a full year of on-and-off touring that yielded some of the best performances of the band's career. Fans noticed, however, that very little of the new album was performed with show after show concentrating mostly on old hits. The touring ended October 21, 1976 in Toronto. No one could have guessed it would be the last public concert by the original Who.

1977-1978

While The Who were away, Pete's long-awaited rock revolution occurred in England. A new style, punk rock, came into fashion with the rise of The Sex Pistols and a hundred more bands came in their wake, all with a sound not unlike that of the early Who. Nevertheless, these bands were dedicated to throwing out all the old bands of the 1960's, declaring them to be jet-setting, pretentious decadents.

Pete ran into two members of the Sex Pistols after spending a day negotiating the end of his publishing contracts with his former managers and receiving a big cheque for his troubles. Convinced that all for which the Who had fought boiled down to nothing but money, a drunken Pete harangued the Pistols about how the Who were now washed up and The Pistols had to carry the banner from here on. From this, a new song emerged, "Who Are You," that would become the title track for a new album.

The Who regrouped that July, not only to discuss the album, but to film sequences for a new Who documentary, The Kids Are Alright, being shot by American Who fan Jeff Stein. Keith returned from tax exile in California bloated and sluggish, obviously deteriorating from his runaway lifestyle.

A performance was staged for the film in Kilburn December 14, 1977 that was so poor it could not be used. Pete threatened Keith that if he did not clean up and improve, he would be out of the band. A chastened Keith promised to try. A better take of the concert was shot at Shepperton Studios in London May 25, 1978. It would be the last performance anywhere by The Who with Keith Moon.

The new album, Who Are You, came out August 18 and was a hit despite an elaborate style far removed from the spare sounds of punk rock. Luck, however, ran out for the band when Keith Moon died September 7, the cause an overdose of Hemineverin, a medicine prescribed to treat his addictions.

Twenty-four hours after Keith's death, Pete announced that he and the other members of the band had decided to continue with a new drummer.

1979

Kenney Jones won the coveted seat. A former member of The Small Faces and The Faces and a bona fide Mod, he had the history to connect with the band on top of his successful audition during the recording of the Tommy soundtrack.

Also joining this new Who on stage was American keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick and a brass section, all included not just to recreate more of The Who's extensive catalog live, but also to reduce the band's volume level that was irritating Pete's tinnitus from which he'd suffered for the last few years.

Ecstatic notices from fans and most critics greeted the new Who at their first performance at the Rainbow Theatre, London May 2. Shortly afterwards The Who premiered two new movies at the Cannes Film Festival, The Kids Are Alright and a dramatization of Quadrophenia. Neither film did well at the box office but garnered good reviews and the latter became a cult movie thanks to a revival of Mod in England.

A five-night stand at Madison Square Garden in September led to a triumphant North American tour starting November 30. However, bad luck struck again December 3 when a crowd shoving into Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati crushed and suffocated those near the two doors that were open. Eleven fans died and many more were left injured. The Who were not told until after the show and, despite being in shock, the band decided to go on with the tour.

1980-1981

By the beginning of the year Pete was a mess, separated from his wife, living it up in London, drinking heavily and acquiring a cocaine habit. Nevertheless, he had one of his greatest triumphs with his solo album, Empty Glass, released April 4, 1980, containing the hit "Let My Love Open The Door" that matched The Who's highest U.S. success on the singles chart at #9. Just before that album came out, he presented The Who with his demos for their next album, songs that were as quirky and personal as the ones he had just recorded, only to see them get a cool reception.

Roger, who had continued with his acting career, released the movie McVicar that May as part of Who Films. It did not make much money and The Who decided to end their effort as movie producers. Once again, a planned Lifehouse movie was cancelled.

The new album, Face Dances, was launched March 6, 1981 to heavy publicity by The Who's new record label Warner Brothers but tepid reviews from the press. The band came to agree that the material did not fit the Who.

It was during the British Face Dances tour that Pete began to unravel. After drinking four pints of brandy, he launched into a political rant during The Who's February 4 show at the Rainbow Theatre. Roger began to believe that if The Who continued touring, Pete would soon join Keith Moon in death.

That nearly happened in September when Pete, who had progressed from cocaine to heroin, took one speedball too many at London's Club For Heroes and nearly died. Work on his next solo album came to a halt.

Stardom was also taking its toll on the other members as well. John's marriage came to a bitter conclusion after he began dating a Hollywood wardrobe set designer while working on a solo album and Kenney's marriage was collapsing as well.

Finally, in December, Pete's parents convinced him to seek help. He moved back in with his wife and left for California for addiction treatment.

1982

Pete returned from California clean if a bit shaky to find The Who already rehearsing and ready to record another album. Since he had been unable to write any new songs for it, Pete asked the band to decide on the approach; what were they concerned about/interested in now? The answer was the current political climate, then in a buzz over the combination of the recent war over the Falklands, riots in Brixton and President Reagan's decision to place U.S. nuclear missiles in Europe.

The result was It's Hard, the most political of The Who's albums, recorded that June with producer Glyn Johns. Publicly the band was united behind the album but privately Roger loathed the new songs and tried and failed to get the album stopped. Released September 3, the new LP got a rave review in Rolling Stone but was panned, often viciously, by most other rock writers. Also flattened by reviews was Pete's new solo album, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes released that June. From this point until the mid-1990's, almost everything from The Who would receive rote dismissal by the rock press.

The Who started their new tour September 10 to stadium-filling sales but more cries of betrayal from the rock press. Following the lead of The Rolling Stones who had their 1981 tour sponsored by Jovan, The Who supplemented their gate with commercial sponsorship by Schlitz Beer. Critics who had long championed The Who turned on them for what they saw as The Who selling-out their integrity and making a hypocritical choice of sponsor right after Pete's revelation of his alcoholism and drug addiction. Pete answered the band's critics roughly in public statements but changed few minds.

Tensions between Pete and Roger were invisible on stage but were in full evidence to reporters backstage as the two got into loud arguments or kept out of each other's way. One thing they agreed on was that this would be The Who's last tour. John and Kenney had no interest in stopping but their opinion was ignored as publicity declared it to be "The Who's Farewell Tour." The run concluded December 17 at the Toronto Maple Leaf Garden with a widely shown but rather tired final performance.

1983

The Who's contract with Warner Brothers still called for another studio album, so Pete began composing new songs for a concept album to be called Siege, but he quickly gave up, afraid of presenting the band with another failing batch of songs.

Meanwhile Pete and Roger got on with their lives, Pete releasing a collection of his old demos as the double-LP Scoop and getting his first day job as a book editor for Faber & Faber Publishers. Roger worked on a new solo album and took acting roles on the BBC in The Beggar's Opera and The Comedy of Errors.

That summer Pete gathered the band to break the news that he could no longer write songs for The Who and he wanted out. Assuming he would come around as he had done so often in the past, the other members of The Who began looking for alternative composers, perhaps an album with people like Bruce Springsteen writing for The Who?

Pete was serious, however, and went to Warner Brothers begging for a release from The Who's contract. He got it and on December 16 held a press conference to state he was out of the band and would have nothing further to do with The Who. Roger, John and Kenney had no say in it and denounced Pete's decision.

1984-1988

Roger released his next solo album February 17, 1984 with the ironic title Parting Should Be Painless. Pete continued with his book publishing, recording demos and also starting an anti-heroin campaign in October 1984. Around the same time, he began writing a new film/album concept based on London's White City housing complex.

John worked on a double LP live set that The Who were contractually required to deliver to MCA. His mix and track selection were rejected in favor of a hastily assembled selection of weak performances from the 1982 tour. Released November 10, 1984, Who's Last received the worst notices of The Who's career.

The break-up of The Who lasted just nineteen months. On July 13, 1985, The Who were reunited through a skilful use of blackmail by Bob Geldof for his worldwide charity broadcast Live Aid. Pete wrote a new song for the event, "After The Fire," but tensions in the former band were so great that they could not be assembled to rehearse it. A sloppy four-song set was mercifully curtailed by a satellite blackout.

Roger used the new song on his last popular solo album, Under A Raging Moon, and went on a solo tour of the United States. Otherwise, over the next few years he tended his trout farm and acted in the occasional movie.

Pete released his White City film and accompanying album November 29, 1985. It was preceded by the publication of a collection of short fiction written by Pete called Horse's Neck (May 27) with stories that often seemed to be adapted from his own life. He also formed a short-lived solo band, Deep End, which featured horns, backup singers, extra percussion and an electric guitarist while Pete played acoustic guitar, all in an effort to protect his hearing.

John spent his time compiling additional Odds and Sods-type Who albums Who's Missing (released November 30, 1985) and Two's Missing (released April 11, 1987), selling off memorabilia to pay his taxes and recording a new solo album, The Rock, that through bad luck and lack of interest was not released at the time. This solo group would feature Zak Starkey, Ringo Starr's son, on drums.

On February 8, 1988 The Who with Kenney Jones reunited one last time to play two songs after receiving the BPI Lifetime Achievement Award. The performance was cut off by the television network before it finished because the show was running over.

1989

In early 1989, pressure was put on Pete to tour again with The Who, primarily to get John out from under a massive tax bill. After much hesitation, he finally agreed. However, it would not be The Who of old.

The band would bear a close resemblance to Pete's 1985 Deep End setup with horns, backup singers and Pete on acoustic guitar. At one point, Pete even toyed with the idea of playing the entire tour in a soundproof booth. Roger agreed to go along with this on one condition: that they replace Kenney Jones. Roger had grown to hate the sound of The Who with Kenney on drums and Pete, although he felt loyal to his decision to bring Kenney into the band, reluctantly agreed. Simon Phillips, again from Pete's 1985 Deep End band, took the drum chair.

The tour officially began where The Who had left off, in Toronto, June 23. Each show featured a full performance of the rock opera Tommy followed by a selection of Who hits, rarities and Pete solo songs. Critics again howled, both at the big band line up and the return of a beer company's sponsorship. However, the tour not only paid The Who's bills, but also raised a great amount of money for children's charities.

Concurrent with the tour, Pete released a new solo album, a children's musical of Ted Hughes' book The Iron Man that featured The Who performing on two tracks. The CD was released July 15 to middling sales despite the publicity of The Who tour.

1990-1995

After the 1989 reunion, The Who again dissolved. In November 1990, Pete made news after a quote from an interview he had given in 1989 was taken out of context by British tabloids as an admittance that he was gay. Pete did not correct the impression until 1999, not wanting to imply that being thought gay was something that should be quickly denied.

In July 1991, Pete, Roger and John reunited for one last studio recording, "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting," for an Elton John tribute CD. It would be the last released studio recording by The Who with John.

On September 13, 1991, Pete badly broke his right wrist in a bicycle accident. Told he might never play the guitar again, he began work on an autobiography and while questioning his relatives, discovered that he had been the victim of childhood abuse that he had mentally repressed. Years after having made it part of the subject of Tommy, Pete began to take an active interest in combating child abuse. The research into his past influenced his next project, a musical adaptation of Tommy that opened on Broadway April 22, 1993. The play was a smash hit and earned Pete both a Tony and an Olivier Award. He began to speak of leaving rock to write for the theatre.

Soon after Tommy's Broadway run started, Pete released his last solo album to date of new music. Psychoderelict (June 4, 1993) was a combination radio play/musical based on one of Pete's short stories about a 60's rocker named Ray High whose career is revived by accusations of involvement with an underage girl. The album flopped, pointing Pete even more strongly toward a career outside traditional rock music.

On February 23 and 24, 1994, Roger brought the members of The Who together for a couple of all-star performances of Pete's music accompanied by full orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Backstage, Pete refused to be a part of a subsequent tour and told Roger he had his permission to tour with John and call it The Who. Pete's dismissal of The Who in interviews at this time again drove relations between him and Roger to frosty levels.

For the band assembled for what was billed as a Daltrey solo tour, Roger replaced Pete with his brother Simon, Zak Starkey on drums and John, never one to miss a tour, on bass. As they set out that summer, a boxset of remixed and re-mastered Who tracks, 30 Years of Maximum R&B, was released July 4, 1994. It was the beginning of a complete overhaul of The Who's recordings that would stretch into the next decade. Roger's tour was a financial failure but did end with a private performance at a Who fan convention in London September 16, 1995. Word spread about the convention via a fanbase talking to one another in Who chatrooms on the Internet.

1996-1998

At the beginning of 1996, a planned staging of Quadrophenia in Italy for Vespa led Pete to approach Roger about the idea. Roger had disapproved of the style of the Tommy musical and thought it would be better to play it as a stage piece with a live rock band. On June 29 at Hyde Park Roger, Pete and John, accompanied by a band similar to the one from 1989, performed the work as part of that year's Prince's Trust Concert. Roger had his eye socket broken the day before the concert when guest Gary Glitter smacked him while twirling a microphone stand. Roger performed the show through the pain, wearing a "mod" eyepatch.

Quadrophenia live crossed the Atlantic for six nights at New York's Madison Square Garden July 16-22, 1996. A North American tour started that October. By this time, at promoter's insistence, the band agreed to call themselves "The Who." There was one new member, drummer Zak Starkey, who was hailed by Roger and the fans as a worthy successor to Keith Moon. Concerts featured a backing film directed by Roger and guest stars such as Gary Glitter as The Godfather and Billy Idol as The Bell Boy. Pete started off the tour playing mostly acoustic guitar with his brother Simon on electric but, as the tour went on into 1997, Pete began to play more and more electric guitar.

That tendency continued after the Quadrophenia tours in 1998 as Pete performed a short solo tour using a modified amplifier setup that allowed him to play electric guitar while preserving his hearing. John, meanwhile, stayed on the road with his solo band while Roger kept his voice in tune touring with the British Rock Symphony.

Pete and Roger finally got in tune themselves after an emotional meeting May 1998 where Roger confronted Pete with a list of his grievances over Pete's neglect and dismissal of The Who since 1982. Pete was reduced to tears and Roger's honesty sparked a friendship between the singer and the guitarist.

With the decrease of the "Classic Rock" radio format in the United States, Pete took a controversial step September 1998 to keep his catalog alive. He sent out a three CD sample of his work solo and with The Who to advertising agencies. Soon Who tunes began to pop up in everything from movie trailers to ads for automobiles and computers. Again music writers and some Who fans were appalled.

1999

In early 1999, Pete was invited by the BBC to revisit his Lifehouse project, this time as a radio play, for the coming millennial celebrations. Working with radio playwright Jeff Young, Pete turned his 1970-71 work into a tragic story of a man who searches for his runaway daughter and gets lost in his memories of post-war Britain.

During a short tour to promote a live solo CD, Pete announced July 28 that he would return with The Who to perform at the House of Blues in Chicago. Fans expecting another appearance by the big-band Who were shocked and delighted during the first preliminary date October 29 in Las Vegas when the Who emerged as a five-piece band with Zak Starkey on drums, John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards and Pete on loud, electric guitar.

Also on October 29, Pete opened a website, www.petetownshend.co.uk making him one of the first major rock artists with his own personally controlled Internet site. The site featured Pete's personal musings, a chat-room and a store for sale of Internet-only CD's.

That December, shortly before the premiere of his Lifehouse radio play, Pete revealed in interviews that he was currently in a relationship with a younger musician with a pop and classical background, Rachel Fuller. He also spoke of his fear of abuse of the Internet, particularly the spread of child pornography.

At the end of the year, John was voted by Total Guitar magazine as "Bass Player of the Millennium."

2000-2002

On February 24, 2000, Pete released his first major private work on his website, the massive six-CD Lifehouse Chronicles, in league with two performances of the music at Sadlers Wells in London. The Lifehouse ideas would continue to appear in much of Pete's activities with and without The Who in this decade.

The new five-man Who kicked off their first major tour June 25, 2000 and became an active band once again, never ceasing touring for more than a couple of years from this point on. The many rave reviews for their live sound sparked talk of an album of new material. Roger pushed Pete as hard as he could to make a new Who album a reality.

Pete's efforts to get more use of Who music in soundtracks paid off in a big way when a CBS-TV program, C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation, selected "Who Are You" as its theme song. The show, premiering October 6, 2000, became a success around the world and spawned two spin-offs, both using Who songs as the main theme.

The Who had one of its finest hours after the terrorist attack on New York when they performed at an all-star benefit for police and firefighters at Madison Square Garden October 20, 2001. The concert was televised around the world. Unlike their fellow artists who presented sets restrained by the solemnity of the occasion, The Who blasted out with a fury, turning the musical wake into a fist-pumping spectacle of rage and solidarity.

Meanwhile, Roger took up the cause of Britain's Teenage Cancer Trust, staging annual benefit concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. The first of what became a popular yearly concert event featured two nights of his own band, The Who, performing on February 7th and 8th, 2002.

Unfortunately, these shows were the last with John. On June 27, 2002, John died in his sleep at the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas of a heart attack induced by cocaine. The Who were one day away from beginning a heavily publicized North American tour.

Who fans, already in grief, were doubly shocked the next day when Pete announced that the band would continue the tour without John. Session bassist Pino Palladino was flown in to replace him. Music writers and many Who fans damned the decision as another example of The Who putting money before everything. Pete and Roger later explained that too many people other than themselves had their livelihoods dependent on the tour. In any case, the band, dubbed "The Two" by fans, played blistering sets that proved their entertainment power undiminished.

2003-present

The sadness of 2002 continued into the next year. On January 11, 2003 Pete admitted that he was the "famous British rock star" named in an international child pornography sting. He explained that he had used his credit card to access a site advertising child porn, then reported his findings to anti-child pornography agencies. He was questioned by police and his computers were seized as press around the world branded Pete a pedophile and mocked his "research" excuse.

Roger spoke out, calling the investigation a "witch hunt." Four months after it began, the thorough police examination confirmed every detail of Pete's story. He was not charged but was given a "caution" and placed on a mandatory "sexual offenders" list for five years based solely on what he had admitted in his initial statement. Pete decided not to fight the result.

After a year of wondering whether he still had a career, Pete returned with Roger, Pino, Zak and Rabbit as The Who to the cheers of fans at the Kentish Town Forum March 24, 2004. On March 30, another Who best-of, Then and Now! 1964-2004 was released with the first newly recorded Who studio tracks in thirteen years, "Real Good Looking Boy" and "Old Red Wine." The latter song was a tribute to John.

The 2004 tour that followed the release had The Who giving their first performance in Japan and their first in Australia in thirty-six years. Honours for Roger began 2005 as he received a CBE from Queen Elizabeth II February 9 for his charity work with the Teenage Cancer Trust.

On September 24, 2005, Pete started a blog to serialize a new novella, The Boy Who Heard Music. Written in 2000, this sequel to Psychoderelict formed the spine to many of the songs Pete was then writing for the new Who album.

After premiering some of the new songs on Rachel Fuller's webcast show In The Attic, Pete joined Roger and the rest of The Who to launch a world tour featuring old and new music by returning to Leeds University's Refectory June 17, 2006 where the band had recorded their famous live album over thirty-six years before. The new album, Endless Wire, a combination of acoustic and rock numbers with a mini-opera based on The Boy Who Heard Music, was released October 31, 2006.