The Who Biography
 |
In its early days, the The Who was known as the High Numbers and played mostly rhythm and blues. They changed their name to The Who and became the most popular band among the British Mods, a social movement of the early 60s who rejected the older style of music favored by the Rockers.
Biography
From the beginning, The Who drew attention because all three musicians,
guitarist Pete Townshend, bassist John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon
played, in effect, lead parts, yielding music at once more cacophonous and
sophisticated than standard-issue rock tracks. The Who were natural showmen:
Singer Roger Daltrey was a dynamic front man, twirling his microphone on the
end of its cord while Townshend played chords on his guitar with great
windmill -like sweeps of his arms, and the maniacal Moon bashed and crashed
like no drummer ever before him. Through it all, Entwistle stood still,
seemingly bored by the whole thing, and played intricate, innovative bass
lines. At the end of their live performances in their first years, the band
would sometimes smash their instruments and explode smoke bombs, signaling
that they had given the audience all they had. (They were also notorious for
treating their hotel rooms and dressing rooms the same way.)
As the band transitioned into becoming professionals, it crystallized around
Townshend as the lead songwriter (though Entwistle would also make the
occasional contribution). Townshend was therefore at the center of the
band's tensions, as he strove to write challenging and thoughtful music,
while Daltrey preferred energetic and macho material (Daltrey would
occasionally refuse to sing s Townshend composition and Townshend would thus
sing it himself), while Moon was a fan of American surf music.
The Who's first hit single was the Kinks-like "I Can't Explain" in 1965, but
they vaulted to fame with their album, My Generation. The album included
such mod anthems as "The Kids are Alright" and "My Generation", which
contained the famous line, "Hope I die before I get old". Another early
favorite, showing Townshend's way with words, was "Substitute", which
included the line, "I was born with a plastic spoon in my mouth." The hit
single "Pictures Of Lily" was possibly one of the most accomplished of all
European contributions to psychedelic music.
The Who's shows have often had an extraordinary decibel output. For a period
of time during the 1970s, they were listed in the Guinness Book of World
Records as the loudest rock band in the world, though other bands have since
taken the title from them. Popular legend has it that the members of the
band suffered permanent hearing loss and tinnitus from their loud concerts,
though Townshend maintains that the true cause was listening to the music at
high volume through headphones. One story also claims that Townshend's
hearing loss was the result of standing too close to an explosive Moon had
placed in his drum kit and detonated at the conclusion of a performance on
the Smothers Brothers variety show.
Although they had great success as a singles band, the Who, or more properly
their leader Townshend, had their sights set higher, and over the years
their music became more complex and their lyrics more evocative and
involving. Townshend also began wanting to treat the Who's albums as unified
works, rather than collections of unconnected songs. The first sign of this
ambition came in their album The Who Sell Out, which played like an all-Who
play list from an offshore radio station. The Who completed the effect by
adding actual jingles and their own commercials. Tommy, the first
commercially successful rock opera, followed. Meher Baba's spiritual
teachings influenced Peter Townshend's songwriting after about 1968. He is
credited as Avatar on the Tommy album.
Townshend then attempted an even more ambitious concept album, the Lifehouse
project. Although it was never finished, the Who included some of the
project's best songs in Who's Next, which would become their most successful
album. Who's Next was followed by the Who's final rock opera, Quadrophenia
(which was based on the story of the Mods and Rockers, particularly riots
between the two factions at Brighton). Other later albums were more
personal, and Townshend eventually transferred this personal style to his
solo albums.
In 1978 the band released Who Are You, a move away from epic rock opera and
towards a more radio-friendly sound. The release of the album was
overshadowed by the drug overdose death of Keith Moon. Moon was replaced by
Kenney Jones, but the band was never entirely the same. The following year
was nearly as harrowing: On December 3, 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio, a stampede
for seats at Riverfront Coliseum during a Who concert killed eleven fans.
Band members were not made aware of the deaths until after the show, and
they were reportedly devastated.
The band would release two more studio albums in the early 1980s, and in
1980 embarked on the first in a series of farewell tours. The band stopped
recording new material settled into intermittent forays on the nostalgia
tour circuit as Townshend focused on solo projects. Their best-known reunion
tour occurred in 1989.
Just before the outset of a tour in the summer of 2002, John Entwistle was
found dead, like Moon of a drug overdose. After a brief delay, this tour
commenced with bassist Pino Palladino filling in for Entwistle.
The band's original members were:
Roger Daltrey - lead singer
Pete Townshend - lead guitar/main songwriter
John Entwistle - bass guitar
Keith Moon - drummer
Following Moon's death in 1978, he was replaced by Kenney Jones. Following
the band's break-up in the early 1980s, on later tours drums were handled by
Simon Phillips and Zak Starkey.
Following Entwistle's death in 2002, he was replaced on the 2002 tour by
Pino Palladino.
After originally performing as The High Numbers, the band chose to take a
shorter name because concert posters at the time typically ran a list of
band names, devoting one line to each band; They reasoned that even if they
were at the bottom of the bill their name would be printed in larger type
because it was short.
The Who's discography is very messy for several reasons, including the early
use of different labels in Britain and America, the labels' habits of
releasing collected material as if it were a studio album, very long delays
in the release of some material, and remastered CD releases that made
changes far beyond the customary addition of bonus tracks. This discography
is designed to give a fairly detailed overview of The Who's corpus without
excessive distractions. It is something of a simplification despite its
apparent complexity; visit the links for more details on specific albums.
Year Title
1965 My Generation
1966 A Quick One
1967 The Who Sell
1969 Tommy
1971 Who's Next
1973 Quadrophenia
1975 The Who By Numbers
1978 Who Are You
1981 Face Dances
1982 It's Hard