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Toppermost of the Poppermost - UK Number Ones : part 2 - The 1960s

Started by daf, June 12, 2019, 01:55:00 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Johnboy

When did that awful notion that Yellow Submarine is a duff track on an otherwise brilliant album begin - it's essential, such a key Beatles song

new page - 'ey up!

DrGreggles

'Yellow Submarine' is exactly what they set it out to be, and it's perfect for Ringo.
The Beatles did plenty of silly/novelty/throwaway songs and none of them work as well as 'Yellow Submarine'.

As Jesus once said, "One 'Yellow Submarine' is worth a million 'Maxwell's Silver Hammer's, you cunt."

Yellow Submarine is better than Good Day Sunshine or Dr Robert. Middle 8 is great fun, and I love how Ringo sings "live a life of ease".



daf

Are you all sitty comftybold two-square on your botty? Then I'll begin, it's . . .

223.  The Small Faces - All Or Nothing



From : 11 – 17 September 1966
Weeks : 1
Flip side : Understanding
Bonus : Live TV performance

The Story So Far, and Further : 
QuoteBy 1966, the band had developed a notable fan-base in the United Kingdom and mainland Europe. In a notable incident, fans of the band had, after a performance at the Boundary Park stadium, attempted breaking into the band's vehicle, even climbing on top of it.

Ian McLagan : "The pitch was already soggy and fans started to surround the car in their hundreds. Kids were climbing on the roof. "The ground was pretty soft and the car just wouldn't move. It was right in the middle of the pitch and it just started to go down and down and down. The four of us and the driver were getting the real horrors. The kids' faces were getting mashed up against the windows and I remember seeing one little kid being pushed down and her head disappearing out of sight. We were shouting "Look out for that kid" and then the roof of the car started to bow inward under the sheer weight of the kids on top. We were holding the roof up which was really starting to cave in and there wasn't much air in the car 'cos we couldn't open the windows which really set a panic in."

 

The Small Faces popularity peaked in September 1966, when "All or Nothing", their fifth single, hit the top of the UK charts. On the back of this success, the band were set to tour America with the Lovin' Spoonful and the Mamas & the Papas; however, these plans had to be shelved by Don Arden after details of Ian McLagan's recent drug conviction were leaked.

Recordings for a follow up album to their debut commenced by August 1966 when tracks such as "Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow"  and "That Man" were taped at IBC Studios.

Their affiliation with Don Arden and Decca Records became strained, due to the fact that the band received barely any royalties from their records, and that a song from the album sessions "My Mind's Eye" (b/w "I Can't Dance With You") had been released without consent by the band. Despite their protests, it reached #4 in the UK charts in November 1966.

After a messy confrontation with Don Arden who tried to face down the boys' parents by claiming that the whole band were using drugs, they cut their ties with Arden and Decca.

   

They were immediately offered a deal with the newly established Immediate label, formed by ex-Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham. Given a virtual open account at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London, the band progressed rapidly, working closely with engineer Glyn Johns.

While the band were busy recording for their new record company, the old one, Decca, stuck out a couple of singles : "I Can't Make It" (b/w "Just Passing") which became a Top 26 hit in March, and "Patterns" in May 1967, which failed to trouble the charts.

 

Their first Immediate single was the daring "Here Come the Nice" (b/w "Talk To You"), which was clearly influenced by their drug use, and managed to escape censorship despite the fact that it openly referred to the dealer who sold drugs. It floated dreamily up on a cloud of pot to #12 in the UK charts in June 1967.

 

Demand for a new album had increased towards the end of the year, and by late 1966, the Small Faces had slowly started to abandon their rhythm and blues roots, in favour for more psychedelic direction. The Beatles manager Brian Epstein held a party at the small faces 'pad', and [allegedly?] introduced them to LSD for the first time after serving them spiked orange pieces served on the plate.

In December 1966 the band recorded "Get Yourself Together" and "Green Circles" at IBC studios, with work continuing in at Olympic Studios, with engineer Glyn Johns.  The group recorded "All Our Yesterdays" and "Things Are Going to Get Better"  in January 1967, followed by "Become Like You", "Something I Want to Tell You", "Feeling Lonely" and "Eddie's Dreaming" completed the following month.

Most tracks on the album were written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane, with Ian McLagan contibuting his first solo-song for the band, titled "Up The Wooden Hills To Bedfordshire"

Kenney Jones : "During the Decca period most of the self-penned stuff was 99% Steve. It wasn't until Immediate that Ronnie became more involved. The first Immediate album is made up of 50% Steve's songs and 50% of Ronnie's. They didn't collaborate as much as people thought. In fact, when they did, they often ended up arguing and fighting."

The album was released on 23 June 1967 in the UK. Even though it was a success, it failed to break into the Top 10, peaking at number 12 on the UK Album Chart.

 
 
Three weeks before the album's release, their old label, Decca, released the album From The Beginning, combining old hits with a number of previously unreleased recordings. It included earlier versions of songs they re-recorded for Immediate, including "My Way of Giving", which they had demoed for Chris Farlowe, and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?", which they had given to Apostolic Intervention. The album also featured their stage favourite "Baby Don't You Do It", featuring Jimmy Winston on lead vocals and guitar.

The band's following single "Itchycoo Park" (b/w "I'm Only Dreaming"), released on 11 August 1967, was the first of the band's two charting singles in the United States, reaching #16 in January 1968. The single was a bigger hit in Britain, peaking at #3. Noted as the first British single to use flanging - which was applied by Olympic Studios engineer George Chkiantz.




Their next single, "Tin Soldier" (b/w "I Feel Much Better"), reached #9 in December 1967. It was written by Marriott and features American singer P. P. Arnold on backing vocals.

 


The next single "Lazy Sunday" (b/w "Rollin' Over"), was an East End music-hall style song released by Immediate against the band's wishes. It was written by Marriott inspired by the feuds with his neighbours and recorded as a joke. Once again, despite the band's objections, the single reached #2 in the UK charts in April 1968.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

At home in England, their career reached an all-time high after the release of their classic psychedelia-influenced album 'Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake' on 24 May 1968.

The two-act concept album consisted of six original songs on side one including the psychedelic instrumental masterpiece, "Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake" /  "Afterglow"  /  Ian McLagan's "Long Agos and Worlds Apart"  / "Rene"   /  "Song of a Baker" and "Lazy Sunday"

Side Two consisted of a whimsical psychedelic fairy tale relating the adventures of "Happiness Stan" and his need to find out where the moon went when it waned.

After original plans to have Spike Milligan narrate the album went awry when he turned them down, it was narrated by Stanley Unwin, in his own unique 'Unwinese' language. The songs included : "Rollin' Over"  /  "The Hungry Intruder"  /  "The Journey"  /  "Mad John"     and concluded  with "HappyDaysToyTown"

Critics were enthusiastic, and the album sold well, but the band were confronted by the practical problem that they had created a studio masterpiece which was virtually impossible to recreate on the road. Ogdens' was performed as a whole just once, and memorably, live in the studio on the BBC television programme Colour Me Pop.

The recording of Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake spanned over approximately five months, with most of its work done in the spring of 1968 at Olympic Studios in Barnes, London. The earliest recording aimed at an album release was the track "Call It Something Nice", which was recorded on 21 October 1967 at Olympic, making this the earliest session for this particular album. This track, however, did not end up on its release, later being issued for the first time on the compilation The Autumn Stone in 1969.

The album was originally released on vinyl in a circular novelty package of a metal replica of a giant tobacco tin, inside which was a poster created with five connected paper circles with pictures of the band members. This proved too expensive and not successful as the tins tended to roll off of shelves, and was soon replaced by a paper/card replica with a gatefold cover.

 

To promote the album, Immediate Records issued an advertisement that parodied the Lord's Prayer. This caused an uproar in the British press, and outraged readers wrote in to voice their anger.

 

Steve Marriott : "We didn't know a thing about the ad until we saw it in the music papers. And frankly we got the horrors at first. We realize that it could be taken as a serious knock against religion. But on thinking it over, we don't feel it is particularly good or bad. It's just another form of advertising. We're not all that concerned about it. We're more concerned in writing our music and producing our records."

The album stayed at No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart for six weeks, but reached only No. 159 in the US.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The final official single during the band's career was the folksy sounding "The Universal", which claimed the "unlucky" #16 position in July 1968. The song was recorded by adding studio overdubs to a basic track that Marriott had cut live in his back garden in Essex with an acoustic guitar. Taped on a home cassette recorder, Marriott's recording included his dogs' barking in the background. The single's comparative lack of success in the charts disappointed Marriott, who then stopped writing music.

   

Marriott officially quit the band at the end of 1968, walking off stage during a live New Year's Eve gig yelling "I quit". Citing frustration at their failure to break out of their pop image and their inability to reproduce the more sophisticated material properly on stage, Marriott was already looking ahead to a new band, Humble Pie, with Peter Frampton.

Kenney Jones : "I wish we had been a little bit more grown up at the time. If we had have [sic] played Ogdens' live it would have boosted our confidence so much. We were labelled as a pop band, which definitely got up Steve's nose more than we realised. I wish we had been more like The Who in the fact that when they have problems they stick together until they've overcome them. Steve just thought well how do we top Ogdens' and he was off. Ogdens' was a masterpiece if we had played it live we would have gone to even greater things. I reckon we were on the verge of crossing the great divide and becoming a heavier band."

A posthumous album, The Autumn Stone, was released later in 1969, and included the major Immediate recordings, a rare live concert performance, and a number of previously unreleased tracks recorded for their intended fourth LP, '1862', including the instrumentals "Wide Eyed Girl on the Wall" and "Collibosher"; plus the Tim Hardin covers "If I Were A Carpenter" and "Red Balloon".

 

The final single, "Afterglow (Of Your Love)" (b/w "Wham Bam Thank You Man"), was released in March 1969 after the band had disbanded and reached No. 36 in the UK Singles Charts. 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

After Small Faces split, Lane, Jones and McLagan joined forces with two former members of The Jeff Beck Group, singer Rod Stewart and guitarist Ronnie Wood, along with Art Wood and Kim Gardner to form Quiet Melon. A few songs were recorded including "Diamond Joe"  and "Engine 4444" before the lineup minus Art and Kim, became The Faces.

Two Faces singles were released in 1970 : "Flying" (b/w "Three Button Hand Me Down")  and "Had Me A Real Good Time" (b/w "Rear Wheel Skid").

John Peel : "I met the Faces backstage at a gig in Newcastle City Hall. They had a dressing room and I was sitting in that thinking beautiful thoughts, and they came and flung the door open and said, "Hello, John, mate, how's it going, squire?" You know, "Come on, let's have a drink." And I didn't drink at the time at all. And as they went away, my first reaction was, "Dear, oh dear, what dreadful rowdy people." And then I saw them disappear into their dressing room that was full of scantily clad women and so forth and the sound of breaking glass and curries being flung against walls and so on, and I thought to myself, "Actually, these people are having a much better time than I am," you know."

They secured their first chart entry in December 1971 with The Top 6 smash "Stay With Me" (b/w "Debris").

 

Their next single, "Cindy Incidentally" (b/w "Skewiff (Mend The Fuse)") did even better - climbing to the coveted #2 position in February 1973. The closed the year with "Pool Hall Richard" (b/w "I Wish It Would Rain (With A Trumpet)") which potted the #8 ball in December 1973.

John Peel : "The Faces for me recaptured the kind of feelings I'd had when I first Little Richard and people like that and Jerry Lee Lewis, in the same way as the Undertones were to a few years later."

Their final single was the outrageously titled : "You Can Make Me Dance, Sing Or Anything (even take the dog for a walk, mend a fuse, fold away the ironing board, or any other domestic short comings)" / (b/w "As Long As You Tell Him") - it reached #12 in December 1974, and the band packed it in.

John Peel : "The Faces were my all-time favourite live band. There may have been better bands, but there was never a band to make you feel so good ... And to give you and indication how highly I esteemed the members ... they were the only band who were actually invited to my wedding, and their roadies, and they all came, too."

Ronnie Lane had left the group a few years earlier to form Slim Chance, Lane then released several singles and albums from 1973–1976, including the #11 UK hit "How Come" in January 1974, and "The Poacher" - which came back empty handed at #36 in June 1974.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Steve Marriott's first post-Small Faces venture was with the rock group Humble Pie, formed with the former Herd member Peter Frampton.

They started on a high - hitting the Top 4 spot with "Natural Born Bugie" (b/w "Wrist Job") in August 1969, but failed to trouble the chart with their subsequent singles, including : "Big Black Dog"  in September 1970 and  "Shine On" in May 1971.

 

In 1971 Humble Pie released a live album recorded at the Fillmore East in New York entitled Performance Rockin' the Fillmore. The album reached No. 21 in the US, and  "I Don't Need No Doctor" peaked at #73 on the Billboard Hot 100. By the time the album was released, Peter Frampton had left the band and was replaced by Clem Clempson.

Humble Pie moved towards a harder sound emphasising Marriott's blues and soul roots. Their first record with Clempson, "Smokin", was released in 1972, along with two singles "Hot 'n' Nasty" and "30 Days in the Hole". Humble Pie eventually split in 1975 due to lack of later chart success, and Marriott went solo - releasing his first solo album, Marriott, in 1976 and moving back to Britain. The money from Humble Pie's farewell tour soon ran out, and Marriott was reduced to stealing vegetables from a field next to his home.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Following the breakup of Faces in 1975, the original Small Faces line-up reformed briefly due to the success of re-released singles "Itchycoo Park" and "Lazy Sunday" in 1975 and 1976. The group tried recording together again but Lane left after the first rehearsal due to an argument. Unknown to the others, he was just beginning to show the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, and his behaviour was misinterpreted by Marriott and the others as a drunken tantrum. Rick Wills took the place of Lane, and the band recorded the album, Playmates in 1977.

 

Guitarist Jimmy McCulloch also briefly joined this line-up after leaving Wings. When McCulloch phoned Paul McCartney, who had found him increasingly difficult to work with, to announce he was joining Marriott, McCartney reportedly said "I was a little put out at first, but, well, what can you say to that?" McCulloch's tenure with the band lasted only for a few months in late 1977. He recorded only one album, 78 in the Shade in 1978 with the band. The reunion albums were both critical and commercial failures, and Small Faces broke up again in 1978.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Kenney Jones became the drummer of The Who after Keith Moon's death in 1978 and continued to work with The Who through the late 1980s.

Ian McLagan went on to perform with artists such as Bonnie Raitt, Bob Dylan and Billy Bragg. He lived in a small town of Manor outside Austin, Texas, and was bandleader to his own "Bump Band". He died from a massive stroke on 3 December 2014.

Steve Marriott recorded with a revived line-up of Humble Pie from 1980 to 1982. Along with Ronnie Lane, he formed a new band called the Majik Mijits in 1981, recording one album Together Again - which remained unreleased until 2000.

On Saturday, 20 April 1991, Steve Marriott died in his sleep when a fire, caused by a cigarette, swept through his home in Essex.

Ronnie Lane's recording career was curtailed by the effects of multiple sclerosis, though he issued collaborative albums with Pete Townshend and Ronnie Wood in the late 1970s. Lane died at his home in Trinidad, Colorado on 4 June 1997, after battling MS for nearly 20 years.

The Single :
Quote"All or Nothing" was written by Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane and performed by the Small Faces.



The song reached number one on the UK Singles Chart on 15 September 1966.

The song was also a major hit in both the Netherlands, where it reached number two and Ireland, where it reached number three. It was also the first song by the Small Faces to chart in the Republic of Ireland.

According to Kay Marriott, Steve's mother, Steve wrote this song about his split with ex-fiancee Sue Oliver, though first wife Jenny Rylance states that Marriott told her he wrote the song for her as a result of her split with Rod Stewart. Both statements are said to be correct.

The song was recorded at IBC Studios in Portland Place, London. It appeared on the Decca album From the Beginning.

Other Versions include :   Teddy Robin & The Playboys (1967)  /  Ronnie Lane (1976)  /  Little Bob Story (1977)  /  The Hypstrz (1980)  /  Tygers of Pan Tang (1981)  /  The Crack (1983)  /  Spectrum (1985)  /  X (1985)  /  The Dogs d'Amour (1993)  /  Starsailor (2002)  /  the inevitable Ocean Colour Scene (2010)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)

On This Day  :
Quote11 September :
September : France performs nuclear test at Mururoa atoll
12 September : Ben Folds, (Ben Folds Five), born Benjamin Scott Folds in Winston-Salem, North Carolina
12 September : "The Monkees" premieres on NBC-TV
12 September : Gemini XI launched with Charles "Pete" Conrad and Richard F. Gordon aboard for 71-hour flight
15 September : First British nuclear ballistic missile submarine HMS Resolution launched
17 September : Doug E. Fresh, American rapper, born Douglas Davis in Christ Church, Barbados

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote               


Small Faces had possibly the best run of singles by anybody in 1966-1968. Gem after gem. Marriott sadly made the error of thinking the band was all about him so if he buggered off he'd still do well. Lane was the key songwriter but McLagan and Jones were also essential to the sound, as they were to The Faces. Jones not playing on Maggie May is odd.

daf

Quote from: Satchmo Distel on January 15, 2020, 02:22:26 PM
Jones not playing on Maggie May is odd.

Think that one came out as by Rod Stewart - so I'm keeping my p. d. on that one!

(still adding to this one - just found Des O'Connor's review of Tin Soldier!)

purlieu

Quote from: daf on January 15, 2020, 02:00:00 PM

If you combine all four of them in this image you get Mark Hollis.

Good song, not my favourite Small Faces one but enjoyable.

The Culture Bunker

Wondering what the last #1 (excluding solo singers, obv) before this was where the whole act is dead?

It's a great song, though I'd have been much happier if it had 'Tin Soldier' at the top, which I feel is a stronger band performance.

DrGreggles

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on January 15, 2020, 02:29:57 PM
It's a great song, though I'd have been much happier if it had 'Tin Soldier' at the top, which I feel is a stronger band performance.

It certainly is, and the PP Arnold collaboration works brilliantly.
Possibly even better here: https://youtu.be/rKoOL9bmDp4

daf

Didn't have time to give that a final polish & managed to miss out a couple of links - which I'll add here :
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Quote from: Baby Don't You Do ItThe album also featured their stage favourite "Baby Don't You Do It", featuring Jimmy Winston on lead vocals and guitar.
Quote from: Donkey Rides, a Penny a GlassThe final official single during the band's career was the folksy sounding "The Universal" (b/w "Donkey Rides, a Penny a Glass")
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
bonus Extra! :
Quote 
 
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

(OK, that's probably it for this week - I'm late for a deadline, so the next one will be monday . . . hopefully!)

kalowski

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on January 15, 2020, 02:29:57 PM
Wondering what the last #1 (excluding solo singers, obv) before this was where the whole act is dead?

It's a great song, though I'd have been much happier if it had 'Tin Soldier' at the top, which I feel is a stronger band performance.
Weep for Kenney Jones

The Culture Bunker

Quote from: kalowski on January 16, 2020, 06:04:12 AM
Weep for Kenney Jones
I've no idea why I thought he was dead. Just as well I took today and tomorrow off work - I clearly need a rest.

Drummers seem to have good survival rates - T Rex 1970-73 only survivor is the drummer. Ringo survived longer than John or George.

All dead - Jimi Hendrix Experience

75% dead - Badfinger, T Rex

Just found out that the Tremeloes rejected two future No. 1s that were offered to them - If Paradise Is Half As Nice by Amen Corner and Yellow River by Christie.

daf

He's Dead, Jim!, it's . . .

224.  Jim Reeves - Distant Drums



From : 18 September – 22 October 1966
Weeks : 5
Flip side : Old Tige

The Story So Far : 
QuoteJim Reeves was born James Travis Reeves on 20 August 20, 1923 in Galloway, Texas, a small rural community near Carthage. The youngest of eight children, he was known as Travis during his childhood years.

Jim Reeves : "The first time I ever saw a guitar, I remember it so well, I was about five years old. That was in Logansport, Louisiana. I saw this man sitting on a curb playing a guitar, and I said to myself 'I don't know what that is, but I want myself one of them.' It looked so beautiful. I went home and tried to make me a guitar out of cigar boxes and rubber bands."

Winning an athletic scholarship to the University of Texas, he enrolled to study speech and drama but quit after only six weeks to work in the shipyards in Houston.

Uncertain as to whether he would be drafted into the military as World War II enveloped the United States, he failed the exam due to a heart irregularity, and on 4 August 1943 an official letter declared his 4-F draft status - Result!!

Reeves began to work as a radio announcer, and sang live between songs.  Influenced by such Western swing-music artists as Jimmie Rodgers and Moon Mullican, as well as popular singers Bing Crosby, Eddy Arnold and Frank Sinatra, it was not long before he was a member of Moon Mullican's band, and made some recordings in the late 1940s to the early 1950s, including "Each Beat of my Heart" and "My Heart's Like a Welcome Mat"

He eventually obtained a job as an announcer for KWKH-AM in Shreveport, Louisiana, then the home of the popular radio program Louisiana Hayride, and had his big break as a singer when Sleepy LaBeef was late for a performance, and Reeves was asked to substitute.

Signed to Abbott records, Jim Reeves had success early on in his career with hits such as "I Love You" (a duet with Ginny Wright), "Mexican Joe", and "Bimbo" which reached Number 1 on the U.S. Country Charts in 1954.  The following year,  Jim signed a 10 year contract with RCA Victor, kicking off with "Yonder Comes A Sucker", released in July 1955.

 

From his earliest recordings with RCA, Reeves relied on the loud, east Texas style which was considered standard for country and western performers of that time. However, he developed a new style of singing over the course of his career : decreasing his volume and used the lower registers of his singing voice with his lips nearly touching the microphone. Reeves used this new style in a 1957 recording titled "Four Walls", which reached #11 on the US National pop charts.

Reeves scored his greatest success with the Joe Allison composition "He'll Have to Go", his first hit in the UK - reaching a #12 in March 1960. He followed this with "Whispering Hope" which reached #50 in the UK in March 1961  /  "You're the Only Good Thing (That's Happened to Me)" - #17 in November 1961  /  "Adios Amigo"  - #23 in July 1962  /  and "I'm Gonna Change Everything" - #42 in November 1962.

During the early 1960s, Reeves was more popular in South Africa than Elvis Presley and recorded several albums in the Afrikaans language. In 1963, he toured there and was featured in a South African film, Kimberley Jim.

 

Jim Reeves and the Blue Boys toured in Ireland from May 30 to June 19, 1963. They performed in most counties in Ireland, though Reeves occasionally abbreviated performances because he was unhappy with the often shonky quality of the available pianos at concert venues - the outrageous fusspot!

In June 1963, he reached the Top 6 with "Welcome to My World", followed by "Guilty" - #29 in October 1963. His tender tribute to portly equines, "I Love You Because", reached the coveted Top 5 position in February 1964, while "I Won't Forget You" went two better - claiming the even more coveted Top 3 position in July of that year.

 

Reeves' last recording session for RCA Victor had produced the spookily prescient trio of "Make the World Go Away", "Missing You", and "Is It Really Over?" When the session ended with some time remaining on the schedule, Reeves suggested that he should record one more song. He taped "I Can't Stop Loving You", in what was to be his final RCA recording.

He made one later recording, however, at the little studio in his home. In late July 1964, a few days before his death, Reeves recorded "I'm a Hit Again", using just an acoustic guitar as accompaniment.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On Friday, July 31, 1964, Reeves and his manager Dean Manuel (who was also the pianist in Reeves' backing group, The Blue Boys) left Batesville, Arkansas, en route to Nashville in a single-engine Beechcraft Debonair aircraft N8972M, with Reeves at the controls.

While flying over Brentwood, Tennessee, they encountered a violent thunderstorm. A subsequent investigation showed that the small airplane had become caught in the storm and Reeves suffered spatial disorientation. Reeves' friend, the musician Marty Robbins, recalled hearing the wreck happen and alerting authorities to which direction he heard the impact. According to the tower tape, Reeves ran into the heavy rain at 4:51 p.m. and crashed only a minute later, at 4:52 p.m. The crash site was in a wooded area north-northeast of Brentwood, southwest of Nashville International Airport where Reeves planned to land.

On the morning of August 2, 1964, after an intense search, the bodies of the singer and Dean Manuel were found in the wreckage of the aircraft and, at 1:00 p.m. local time, radio stations across the United States began to announce Reeves' death formally. Thousands of people traveled to pay their last respects at his funeral two days later. The coffin, draped in flowers from fans, was driven through the streets of Nashville and then to Reeves' final resting place near Carthage, Texas.

 

Once the mourning was over, his widow, Mary Reeves proved herself to be a tough, determined cookie. Following a plan that Jim himself had laid out, Mary shrewdly rationed her husband's backlog of unreleased studio masters, demos and homemade tapes, and unissued tracks were regularly released by RCA as singles and on "new" albums for many years.

Mary Reeves : "Jim Reeves my husband is gone; Jim Reeves the artist lives on."

Tributes to Reeves were composed following his death - "A Tribute to Jim Reeves", written by Eddie Masterson and recorded by Larry Cunningham and the Mighty Avons, went Top Ten in Ireland in 1965, where Reeves was absolutely massive; and  "We'll Remember You" was written by Geoff Goddard and recorded by Houston Wells but it remained unreleased until 2008.

Houston : "Unfortunately before the record was released, Geoff and my recording engineer Joe Meek fell out. Hence the record was never finalized, mores the pity. If it had been released at that time, there is no doubt in my mind it would have put me on the top of the heap."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Aside from still being dead, Reeves had a tremendous 1965 - with five singles haunting the UK charts : "It Hurts So Much (To See You Go)" - #8 in February  /  "Not Until the Next Time"  - #13 in April  /  "How Long Has it Been" - #45 in May  /   "This World is Not My Home" - #22 in July  /  and "Is It Really Over?" - #17 in November 1965.

Despite only having one UK chart entry in 1966, like a Draclea, he made it count - sending "Distant Drums" flapping to Number 1 for an inexplicable 5 weeks - to the bemusement and consternation of many pop crazed youngsters, and Kinks bass players alike.



Three singles charted in 1967 : "I Won't Come In While He's There" - #12 in February  /  "Trying to Forget" -  #33 in August  /  and  "I Heard a Heart Break Last Night" - #38 in November 1967.

"That's When I See the Blues (In Your Pretty Brown Eyes)" was next, claiming the all-important #33 position in April 1968, and in the month that man walked on the moon, "When Two Worlds Collide", planted it's suspiciously rigid flag on the #17 crater in July 1969. He rounded off the space-year with the sappy "But You Love Me, Daddy" which splashed down at #15 in December 1969.

His first two singles of 1970 both reached #32 in the UK chart : "Nobody's Fool" in March, and "Angels Don't Lie" in September 1970.

His final UK chart entry was "You're Free to Go" - #48 in February 1972, but Jim continued to release new songs from beyond the grave, and it was only in the mid-80's that the supply of unreleased songs finally dried up.



In 1969 Mary Reeves married a Baptist preacher, Terry Davis. She established a museum devoted to her first husband's life and often spent time talking to his fans. Many assumed he was still alive and she said in 1992, "People often call in for his autograph and ask about his itinerary.".

In 1996, she was living with 200 cats on a dilapidated farm, and after she moved to a rest home, her husband Terry Davis, twirling two moustaches, sold her rights to market Jim Reeves's name for $7 million dollars to fairground operator, Ed Gregory. She died Nashville, Tennessee 11 November 1999.

The Single :
Quote"Distant Drums" was written by Cindy Walker, and recorded as a demo for her by Jim Reeves for her private use only. It had originally been dismissed by both the RCA record company and Chet Atkins as unsuitable for wider public release.



Although Roy Orbison had recorded the song in 1963, it was Jim Reeves' version of "Distant Drums" that became the hit following his death. The track was overdubbed with an orchestral backing and released to the public as the version that later climbed up the music charts in both the United States and the UK.

Perhaps because of the timing of the song's release during the summer of 1966, "Distant Drums" attracted attention to the continuation of hostilities in the Vietnam War and an increased public awareness of the difficult conditions faced by U.S. armed personnel fighting in that conflict. The lyrics recount the wishes of a soldier who wants to marry his sweetheart before he answers the call of battle in some far away land; the "distant drums" which make up the song's title. However, as the UK weren't fighting in Vietnam (thanks, Harold!), this theory doesn't account for it's huge UK success, which must forever remain a complete baffling mystery.

"Distant Drums" first entered the UK Singles Chart during the summer of 1966, before reaching the No. 1 position on 22 September, where it remained for five weeks.

It was named the UK's "song of the year" (by lunatics!!) and Reeves became the first overseas, and presumably dead, performer to receive this special award.

Other Versions include :   The Wolves (1966)  /  The Blue Boys  (1966)  /  Charley Pride (1966)  /  Jimmie Rodgers (1966)  /  "Vzdálené bubny" by Jiří Grossmann (1967)  /  "Fjerne trommer" by Erik Bachmann (1967)  /  Vic Dana (1967)  /  Bill Quinn (1968)  /  Henson Cargill (1968)  /  The Anita Kerr Singers (1972)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)  /  Dave Monk (2012)

On This Day  :
Quote20 September : Nuno Bettencourt, (Extreme), born Nuno Duarte Gil Mendes Bettencourt in Praia da Vitória, Portugal
21 September : Jimmy Hendrix changes spelling of his name to Jimi
22 September : Surveyor 2 crashes on Moon
25 September : Dmitri Shostakovich's 2nd Cello Concert premieres in Moscow
26 September : Helen Kane, actress & the inspiration for Betty Boop, dies of cancer at 62
28 September : André Breton, French poet & founder of Surrealism, dies at 70
30 September : Bechuanaland gains independence from Britain & becomes Botswana
4 October : Lesotho (Basutoland) gains independence from Britain (National Day)
6 October : LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) is first declared illegal in state of California - spoilsports!
7 October : Johnny Kidd [Frederick Albert Heath], (Johnny Kidd & Pirates), dies at 26 in a car crash

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote           


gilbertharding

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on January 15, 2020, 02:29:57 PM
Wondering what the last #1 (excluding solo singers, obv) before this was where the whole act is dead?


Windsor Davies and Don Estelle are both dead, if that helps.

purlieu

How the fuck did this even get in the charts in 1966, let alone number one?!

The Culture Bunker

Sure someone explained to me once that this kind of tat is huge in Western Scotland and other random places. I suppose if the entire population of Ayr bought a copy from a chart return shop, it would push it high up the charts?

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

Quote from: The Culture Bunker on January 20, 2020, 08:21:57 PM
Sure someone explained to me once that this kind of tat is huge in Western Scotland and other random places. I suppose if the entire population of Ayr bought a copy from a chart return shop, it would push it high up the charts?

Pretty much, yeah. Soporific MOR country singer snuffs it, boring old fans of soporific MOR country singer buy his record in tribute.

It really is bizarre, though, hearing this dribbly MOR shite in the middle of the thrilling '60s pop explosion. But that's why this thread is so interesting, it serves as a reminder of the days when the charts weren't always dominated by stuff that the pop-crazed youngsters were buying. If older folk went collectively mad for a record like this, it would climb to the toppermost of the poppermost.



daf

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 20, 2020, 08:36:13 PM
the charts weren't always dominated by stuff that the pop-crazed youngsters were buying.

Or John Dalton from the Kinks, god bless him!

Good one coming up next that'll blow the cobwebs off this muck - but I may be slightly late, as I've got 172 Music papers to comb though!

I've only got one crack at this lot (he says mysteriously) so I want to give them the proper Lewisohn treatment.

gilbertharding

Quote from: Ballad of Ballard Berkley on January 20, 2020, 08:36:13 PM
It really is bizarre, though, hearing this dribbly MOR shite in the middle of the thrilling '60s pop explosion. But that's why this thread is so interesting, it serves as a reminder of the days when the charts weren't always dominated by stuff that the pop-crazed youngsters were buying. If older folk went collectively mad for a record like this, it would climb to the toppermost of the poppermost.

Your mileage may vary, of course, but there's a veritable tidal wave of awful guff coming our way over the next 12 months.

purlieu

Given that 'The Millennium Prayer' got to number one in 1999, I suppose out-of-date cloying nonsense is potentially on the cards for a long time yet.

I think it's two issues

1) No Radio 1 exists yet so whatever pop the BBC was playing would be granny friendly.

2) The sample of shops this chart was using was very conservative when you compare it to the one the NME used.

Of course we know from the podcast that TOTP was a light entertainment programme up to at least 1980 and people like Cilla, Lulu and Lena Zavaroni got on there with shit that had no chance of charting, just to plug a BBC2 show with the same producer.

daf

Lovely Buttocks!, it's . . .

224b. (MM 172.)  The Who - I'm a Boy



From :  8 - 21 October 1966
Weeks : 2
Flip side : In the City
Bonus : TV Performance

The Story So Far : The 1960's
QuotePete Townshend was born Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend on 19 May 1945, in Chiswick, west London.  His father, Cliff, was a professional alto saxophonist in the Royal Air Force's dance band the Squadronaires and his mother, Betty, was a singer with the Sydney Torch and Les Douglass Orchestras. The Townshends had a volatile marriage, as both drank heavily and possessed fiery tempers. Cliff Townshend was often away from his family touring with his band while Betty carried on affairs with other men. The two split when Townshend was a toddler and he was sent to live with his maternal grandmother Emma Dennis, whom Pete later described as "clinically insane".

Townshend says he did not have many friends growing up, so he spent much of his boyhood reading adventure novels like Gulliver's Travels and Treasure Island. He enjoyed his family's frequent excursions to the seaside and the Isle of Man. It was on one of these trips in the summer of 1956 that he repeatedly watched the 1956 film Rock Around the Clock, sparking his fascination with American rock and roll. Not long thereafter, he went to see Bill Haley perform in London, Townshend's first concert.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

John Entwistle was born John Alec Entwistle on 9 October 1944 in Chiswick, London. He was an only child. His father, Herbert, played the trumpet and his mother, Maud played the piano. His parents' marriage failed soon after he was born, and he was mostly raised by his mother at his grandparents' house in South Acton. His musical career began aged seven, when he started taking piano lessons. He did not enjoy the experience and after joining Acton County Grammar School aged 11, switched to the trumpet, moving to the French horn when he joined the Middlesex Schools Symphony Orchestra. Townshend and Entwistle became friends in their second year of Acton County, and formed a trad jazz group. Roger Daltrey, who was in the year above, had moved to Acton from Shepherd's Bush.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Roger Daltrey was born Roger Harry Daltrey on 1 March 1944, in East Acton, west London. One of three children of Harry and Irene Daltrey. Daltrey made his first guitar from a block of wood in 1957, a cherry red Stratocaster replica, and joined a skiffle band called The Detours, who were in need of a lead singer. They told him that he had to bring a guitar, and within a few weeks he showed up with it. When his father bought him an Epiphone guitar in 1959, he became the lead guitarist for the band; soon afterwards he was expelled from school for tobacco smoking. Daltrey spotted Entwistle by chance on the street carrying a bass and recruited him into his band.

In mid-1961, Entwistle suggested Townshend as a guitarist. As well as Daltrey on lead guitar and Entwistle on bass, The Detours included Harry Wilson on drums, and Colin Dawson on vocals. Wilson was fired in mid-1962 and replaced by Doug Sandom. Dawson left after frequently arguing with Daltrey and after being briefly replaced by Gabby Connolly, Daltrey moved to lead vocals. Through Townshend's mother, the group obtained a management contract with local promoter Robert Druce, who started booking the band as a support act.

In February 1964, the Detours became aware of the group Johnny Devlin and the Detours and changed their name. Townshend and his room-mate Richard Barnes spent a night considering names, focusing on a theme of joke announcements, including "No One" and "The Group". Townshend preferred "The Hair", and Barnes liked "The Who" because it "had a pop punch". Daltrey agreed, and the next morning The Detours became "The Who".

By the time The Detours had become The Who, they had replaced Druce as manager with Helmut Gorden, with whom they secured an audition with Chris Parmeinter for Fontana Records. Parmeinter found problems with the drumming. Townshend turned on Doug Sandom and threatened to fire him if his playing did not immediately improve. Sandom left in disgust, but was persuaded to lend his kit to any potential stand-ins or replacements.



Keith Moon was born Keith John Moon on 23 August 1946 at Central Middlesex Hospital in northwest London, and grew up in Wembley. He was hyperactive as a boy, with a restless imagination and a particular fondness for The Goon Show and music. Moon joined his local Sea Cadet Corps band at the age of twelve on the bugle, but found the instrument too difficult to learn and decided to take up drums instead.

He left school at age fourteen, around Easter in 1961. Moon then enrolled at Harrow Technical College; this led to a job as a radio repairman, enabling him to buy his first drum kit. Moon took lessons from one of the loudest contemporary drummers, Screaming Lord Sutch's Carlo Little, at 10 shillings per lesson. Moon's early style was influenced by jazz, American surf music and rhythm and blues.

Following a stint in The Escorts, in December 1962 he joined The Beachcombers, a semi-professional London cover band playing hits by groups such as the Shadows. During his time in the group Moon incorporated theatrical tricks into his act, including "shooting" the group's lead singer with a starter pistol.

In April 1964, aged 17, Moon appeared at a show by The Who shortly after Sandom's departure, where a session drummer was used. Dressed in ginger clothes and with his hair dyed ginger he claimed that he could play better. He played in the set's second half, nearly demolishing the drum kit in the process.

Keith Moon : "they said go ahead, and I got behind this other guy's drums and did one song-'Road Runner.' I'd several drinks to get me courage up and when I got onstage I went arrgggGhhhh on the drums, broke the bass drum pedal and two skins, and got off. I figured that was it. I was scared to death. Afterwards I was sitting at the bar and Pete came over. He said: 'You ... come 'ere.' I said, mild as you please: 'Yes, yes?' And Roger, who was the spokesman then, said: 'What are you doing next Monday?' I said: 'Nothing.' I was working during the day, selling plaster. He said: 'You'll have to give up work ... there's this gig on Monday. If you want to come, we'll pick you up in the van.' I said: 'Right.' And that was it."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Moon's arrival in the Who changed the dynamics of the group, and because of Moon's temperament the group now had four members frequently in conflict. Entwistle initially found Moon's lack of conventional timekeeping problematic.

Keith : "We used to fight regularly. John and I used to have fights – it wasn't very serious, it was more of an emotional spur-of-the moment thing."

The Who changed managers to Peter Meaden. He decided that the group would be ideal to represent the growing mod movement in Britain. He renamed the group The High Numbers, dressed them up in mod clothes, secured a second, more favourable audition with Fontana and wrote the lyrics for both sides of their single "Zoot Suit" / "I'm the Face". The tune for "Zoot Suit" was stolen from "Misery" by The Dynamics, while "I'm the Face" borrowed from Slim Harpo's "I Got Love If You Want It".

   

The the single, it failed to reach the top 50,  and the band reverted to calling themselves The Who. Meaden was replaced as manager by two filmmakers, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, who were looking for a young, unsigned rock group that they could make a film about. Lambert related to Townshend and his art school background, and encouraged him to write songs. The band changed their set towards soul, rhythm and blues and Motown covers, and created the slogan "Maximum R&B".

 

In June 1964, during a performance at the Railway, Townshend accidentally broke the head of his guitar on the low ceiling of the stage. Angered by the audience's laughter, he smashed the instrument on the stage, then picked up another guitar and continued the show. The following week, the audience were keen to see a repeat of the event. Moon obliged by kicking his drum kit over, and auto-destructive art became a feature of the Who's live set.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By late 1964, the Who were becoming popular in London's Marquee Club, and a rave review of their live act appeared in Melody Maker. Lambert and Stamp attracted the attention of the American producer Shel Talmy, who had produced the Kinks, and Townshend had written a song, "I Can't Explain", that deliberately sounded like the Kinks to attract Talmy's attention. After Talmy saw the group in rehearsals he signed them to his production company, and sold the recording to the US arm of Decca Records, which meant that the group's early singles were released in Britain on Brunswick Records.

 

"I Can't Explain" was recorded in early November 1964 at Pye Studios in Marble Arch with The Ivy League on backing vocals, and Jimmy Page played fuzz guitar on the the Talmy penned B-side, "Bald Headed Woman".  It reached #8 in the UK charts in February 1965.



The follow-up single, "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" (b/w "Daddy Rolling Stone"), featured guitar noises such as pick sliding, toggle switching and feedback, that were so unconventional that it was initially rejected by the US arm of Decca. The single reached #10 in June 1965, and was used as one of the theme songs to Ready Steady Go!.

 


The transition to a hit-making band with original material, encouraged by Lambert, did not sit well with Daltrey, and a recording session of R&B covers went unreleased. The Who were not close friends either, apart from Moon and Entwistle, who enjoyed visiting nightclubs together in the West End of London. The group experienced a difficult time when touring Denmark in September, which culminated in Daltrey throwing Moon's amphetamines down the toilet and assaulting him. Immediately on returning to Britain, Daltrey was sacked, but was reinstated on the condition that the group became a democracy without his dominant leadership.
   
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The next single, "My Generation" (b/w "Shout And Shimmy"), followed in October 1965. Townshend had written it as a slow blues, but after several abortive attempts, it was turned into a more powerful song with a bass solo from Entwistle. The song used gimmicks such as a vocal stutter to simulate the speech of a mod on amphetamines, and two key changes.  Townshend insisted in interviews that the lyrics "Hope I die before I get old" were not meant to be taken literally.




The single reached #2 in November 1965, and was included on their debut album 'My Generation', along with several other Townshend originals, such as "Out in the Street"  /  "La-La-La-Lies"  /  and "It's Not True", plus the group written instrumental "The Ox" - which was John Entwistle's nickname. Also included were two James Brown covers - "I Don't Mind" and "Please, Please, Please" - from the R&B session taped earlier that year.

 


Soon after the release of the album, The Who fell out with Shell Talmy, which meant an abrupt end to their recording contract. The resulting legal acrimony resulted in Talmy holding the rights to the master tapes.

 

The Who were then signed to Robert Stigwood's label, Reaction, and released "Substitute". It was Talmy took legal action over the B-sides, "Instant Party" (aka "Circles"), and the single was withdrawn.

 

A new B-side, "Waltz for a Pig", was recorded by the Graham Bond Organisation under the pseudonym "the Who Orchestra". The single reached #5 in March 1966.

 


Brunswick simultaneously released their own Who single - "A Legal Matter" - which featured the disputed "Instant Party" on the B-side. The single reached #32 in the charts in March 1966.

   

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

On 20 May, Moon and Entwistle were late to a gig having been on the Ready Steady Go! set with The Beach Boys' Bruce Johnston. During "My Generation", Townshend attacked Moon with his guitar; Moon suffered a black eye and bruises, and he and Entwistle left the band, but changed their minds and rejoined a week later.



Moon kept looking for other work, and Jeff Beck had him play drums on his song "Beck's Bolero" - which also featured Jimmy Page on guitar, and John Paul Jones & Ringo on bass.

Their next Reaction single - "I'm a Boy" was also released in August, and charted at #1 in the Melody Maker chart for two weeks in September 1965. However, as it failed to reach the top spot on the obscure Record Retailer "granny chart", it apparently doesn't count.




Again, hoping to spoil the party, the same month, their old record company Brunswick released another single - "The Kids Are Alright" - despite being an absolute classic, it only reached #41 in September 1966.

   

Released in November 1966, The Ready Steady Who EP featured two original songs by Pete Townshend :  "Disguises" and a new version of "Circles", as well as covers of the theme from the "Batman" TV series and Jan and Dean's "Bucket T". Also included is a cover of The Regents' "Barbara Ann", based on the arrangement by The Beach Boys - one of Keith Moon's favourite bands.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Their next single, "Happy Jack" (b/w "I've Been Away") features Roger Daltrey on lead vocals with John Entwistle singing the first verse, making it one of the few songs composed by Pete Townshend to feature Entwistle on lead vocals. Townshend can be heard shouting "I saw you!"; it is said that he had noticed Keith Moon trying to join in surreptitiously to add his voice to the recording, something the rest of the band would try to prevent, as he had a habit of making the other members laugh, and spoil the takes.

It reached the Top 3 in the UK in December 1966, and though released the same month, it was not included on their second album.




The Who's second studio album, recorded at IBC Studios, Pye Studios, and Regent Sound in 1966 and produced by by Kit Lambert, departs from the R&B emphasis of the first. Part of the marketing push for the album was a requirement that each band member should write at least two of the songs on it, though Roger Daltrey only managed to squeeze out one : "See My Way".

"Whiskey man" and "Boris the Spider" were written by John Entwistle after he had been out boozing with the Rolling Stones' bass guitarist Bill Wyman.

Keith Moon wrote "Cobwebs and Strange" and "I Need You". Moon thought the Beatles spoke in a secret language behind his back, the soppy sod, and this song was his way of getting back at them. Although Moon denied that a vocal part in the song was a John Lennon imitation, Entwistle said that, in fact, it was.

Pete Townshend contributed "Run Run Run", "Don't Look Away", "So Sad About Us", plus the 9 minute song suite, "A Quick One, While He's Away" - which was a taste of things to come.

In the US, the album was re-packaged to include the top 30 single "Happy Jack" - removing the motown cover "Heat Wave.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Lambert and Stamp formed a record label, Track Records, with distribution by Polydor. As well as signing Hendrix, Track became the imprint for all the Who's UK output until the mid-1970s. The Who's first Track Records single, "Pictures Of Lily" (b/w "Doctor, Doctor"), flopped in the US, but managed beat off stiff competition to reach the Top 4 in the UK in May 1967.

 

Pete Townshend : "the idea was inspired by a picture my girlfriend had on her wall of an old Vaudeville star – Lily Bayliss. It was an old 1920s postcard and someone had written on it 'Here's another picture of Lily – hope you haven't got this one.' It made me think that everyone has a pin-up period."




However, the Lily in question is more liklely to have been Lillie Langtry, the music hall star and mistress of Edward VII - who died in 1929 as mentioned in the lyrics of the tune. Lilian Baylis, was a theatre manager who died in 1937.

 

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In the Summer of 1967, after the imprisonment of Mick Jagger and Keith Richard on drugs charges, the Who recorded "The Last Time" and "Under My Thumb" as a single. The intention was to help Jagger and Richard make bail. As John Entwistle was away on his honeymoon he authorised the Who to do the record without him and bass parts were overdubbed by Townshend.

 

The songs were rush recorded and the record appeared in shops the following week. Unfortunately, by the time the single was made available, the ungrateful bastards had already been released from clink, and the single only managed to reach #44 on the UK Singles Chart in August 1967.



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By 1967, The Who found themselves in competition on the London circuit with groups including Cream, the Jimi Hendrix Experience and The Brumbeats. Lambert and Stamp realised that commercial success in the US was paramount to the group's future, and arranged a deal with promoter Frank Barsalona for a short package tour in New York. The group's performances, which still involved smashing guitars and kicking over drums, were well received, and led to their first major US appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival

The group followed Monterey with a US tour supporting Herman's Hermits who enjoyed drugs and practical jokes. They bonded with Moon, who was excited to learn that cherry bombs were legal to purchase in Alabama. Moon acquired a reputation of destroying hotel rooms while on tour, with a particular interest in blowing up toilets. Keith : "All that porcelain flying through the air was quite unforgettable. I never realised dynamite was so powerful."

After a gig in Flint, Michigan on Moon's 21st birthday on 23 August 1967, the entourage caused $24,000 of damage at the hotel, and Moon knocked out one of his front teeth.

     

The group toured the US again with Eric Burdon and the Animals, including an appearance on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Moon bribed a stage hand to put explosives in his drum kit, who loaded it with ten times the expected quantity. The resulting detonation threw Moon off his drum riser and his arm was cut by flying cymbal shrapnel. Townshend's hair was singed and his left ear left ringing, and a camera and studio monitor were destroyed.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Initially, the band's follow-up to A Quick One was to be titled Who's Lily after their recent single "Pictures of Lily", but the group's managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp suggested the band could create a concept album based on pirate radio and structure it in the same manner as that, or a typical US AM radio station. As pirate radio had been influential to mods, it was felt particularly appropriate to pay tribute to it as the era came to an end - at midnight on 14 August 1967, the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act came into effect - outlawing all pirate stations.

 

Structured as a collection of unrelated songs interspersed with fake commercials, public service announcements and and jingles, the album purports to be a broadcast by pirate radio station Radio London. The reference to "selling out" was an intended irony, as the Who had been making real commercials during that period of their career.

The group returned to the UK on 16 September to start recording. The first song to be written specifically for the concept was "Jaguar", paying tribute to the car, quickly followed by an instrumental the group had recorded for Coca-Cola - which like the cover of "Summertime Blues", and the instrumental "Sodding About," showed the influence of Track Records label-mate Jimi Hendrix on Townshend's guitar playing.

The first song to be completed was the single, "I Can See for Miles", released in October 1967, backed with "Someone's Coming". Townshend had written the song in 1966 but had avoided recording it until he was sure it could be produced well. Townshend called it "the ultimate Who record", and was disappointed it reached only #10 in the UK, though it did become their best selling single in the US, reaching #9.

Bizarrely, there seems to be absolutely no bass guitar audible on the record. John Entwistle would later add a bass overdub to the US Decca single and a different version recorded for a BBC Session.




By October, the group had also completed "Armenia (City in the Sky)" - written by a friend of the band, John "Speedy" Keen, the brilliant Daltrey track "Early Morning Cold Taxi" and Entwistle and Moon's "Girl's Eyes".

"Heinz Baked Beans", "Odorono" and "Top Gear" had been completed mid-month, along with a series of linking adverts and jingles mostly recorded by Entwistle and Moon. "Tattoo" and "Rael" were completed by 20 October, while most of the remainder of the album was recorded in between live shows at the end of the month. "Sunrise", a solo Townshend piece, was the last piece to be recorded on 2 November.

The tape for "Rael" was accidentally chucked in the bin by a cleaner, and cigarette ash damaged a section - resulting in THE WORST TAPE EDIT IN RECORDED HUMAN HISTORY. An undamaged copy of an early mono mix was later found, and included as a bonus track on some CD re-issues.

The mono and Stereo version of the album have several differences, including the mono "Our Love Was" which has a completely different guitar solo to the stereo version.

Original vinyl copies of Sell Out ended with an audio oddity - a vocal jingle for the Who's UK label Track Records - that repeats into a locked groove (In response to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band).
. . . Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click)-Track Records-(click) . . .
The album was released in the UK on 15 December 1967. It reached number 13 in the charts. The original release date of 17 November had been pushed back due to arguments about the running order. It was released in the US on 6 January 1968, reaching number 48.

The cover is divided into panels featuring Pete Townshend applying Odorono, Roger Daltrey sitting in a bathtub full of Heinz baked beans, Keith Moon applying Medac spot cream, and John Entwistle in a leopard-skin Tarzan suit, as an ad for the Charles Atlas course.

 

A free poster - initially intended as the LP cover - was included inside the first 1000 copies (500 stereo and 500 mono), and came with a sticker on the front cover stating 'Free Psychedelic Poster Inside'.

   

The album's release was reportedly followed by lawsuits due to the mention of real-world commercial interests in the faux commercials and on the album covers, and by PAMS Productions of Dallas for the use of the real Radio London jingles.

In 2005, the entire album was covered in an entirely a cappella interpretation by Petra Haden.

Pete Townshend : "I was a little embarrassed to realize I was enjoying my own music so much, for in a way it was like hearing it for the first time. What Petra does with her voice, which is not so easy to do, is challenge the entire rock framework ... When she does depart from the original music she does it purely to bring a little piece of herself -- and when she appears she is so very welcome. I felt like I'd received something better than a Grammy."

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The group started 1968 by touring Australia and New Zealand with the Small Faces. The groups had trouble with the local authorities and the New Zealand Truth called them "unwashed, foul-smelling, booze-swilling no-hopers". After an incident that took place on a flight to Sydney, the band were briefly arrested in Melbourne and then forced to leave the country; Prime Minister John Gorton sent a telegram to The Who telling them never to return to Australia.

In June 1968, they reached #25 in the UK charts with "Dogs" (b/w "Call Me Lightning"). One of the most obscure and overlooked singles released by the band, the song was most likely influenced by the recent Cockney knees-up output of the Small Faces.

   

It was apparently intended for a proposed 1968 album - "Who's For Tennis" - along with other songs recorded around this time, including : "Glow Girl"  /  "Magic Bus"  /  "Faith In Something Bigger"  /  "Melancholia"  /  "Fortune Teller"  /  "Little Billy"  /  "Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde"  /  "Politician"  / and "Goin' Fishin'"

 

"Magic Bus" was released as a single in October 1968. Incredibly it did even worse than "Dogs" - breaking down at #26 in the UK charts, and plans for Who's for Tennis were quietly abandoned, as Townhend was by now busy working on a brand new album project . . .

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

By 1968 Townshend had stopped using drugs and became interested in the teachings of Meher Baba. In August, he gave an interview to Rolling Stone describing in detail the plot of a new album project and its relationship to Baba's teachings. The album went through several names during recording, including Deaf Dumb and Blind Boy and Amazing Journey; Townshend settled on Tommy for the album about the life of a deaf, dumb and blind boy, and his attempt to communicate with others.

The album was intended for a Christmas 1968 release but recording sessions were extended after Townshend decided to make a double album to cover the story in sufficient depth.

The Who's US record company, Decca, got impatient waiting for new product, so they released the compilation album Magic Bus: The Who on Tour in September 1968 - consisting of single and EP tracks that were previously unavailable on a US album, while Track Records released "Direct Hits", a similar collection of mostly non-LP tracks originally recorded for Reaction Records and Track Records between 1966 and 1968.

 

Pete Townshend : "I wanted the story of Tommy to have several levels ... a rock singles level and a bigger concept level"

Though Townshend wrote the majority of the material, the arrangements came from the entire band. Singer Roger Daltrey later said that Townshend often came in with a half-finished demo recording, adding "we probably did as much talking as we did recording, sorting out arrangements and things."

Townshend asked Entwistle to write two songs, "Cousin Kevin" and "Fiddle About", that covered the darker themes of bullying and abuse. "Tommy's Holiday Camp" was Moon's suggestion of what kind of religious movement Tommy could lead. Moon got the songwriting credit for suggesting the idea, though the music was composed and played by Townshend. A significant amount of material had a lighter style than earlier recordings, with greater prominence put on the vocals.

Keith Moon : "It was, at the time, very un-Wholike. A lot of the songs were soft. We never played like that."

Some of the material had already been written for other projects. "Sensation" was written about a girl Townshend had met on the Who's tour of Australia in early 1968, "Welcome" and "I'm Free" were about peace found through Meher Baba and "Sally Simpson" was based on a gig with The Doors which was marred by violence.

Other songs had been previously recorded by the Who and were recycled; "It's A Boy" was derived from "Glow Girl", an out-take from The Who Sell Out, while "Sparks" and "Underture" re-used and expanded one of the instrumental themes in "Rael".

"Amazing Journey" was, according to Townshend, "the absolute beginning" of the opera and summarised the entire plot. "The Hawker" was a cover of Mose Allison's "Eyesight to the Blind". A cover of Mercy Dee Walton's "One Room Country Shack" was also recorded but was scrapped from the final track listing as Townshend could not figure out a way to incorporate it in the plot. By March 1969, some songs had been recorded several times, yet Townshend still thought there were missing pieces.

John Entwistle : "we had to keep going back and rejuvenating the numbers ... it just started to drive us mad."

The final recording session took place on 7 March, the same day that "Pinball Wizard" (b/w "Dogs Part Two") was released as a single. The song was written so that New York Times journalist Nik Cohn, a pinball enthusiast, would give the album a good review. The single reached #4 in the UK in March 1969.

 

After delays surrounding the cover artwork, Tommy was released on 17 May 1969 in the US by Decca and 23 May in the UK by Track Records. The original double album was configured with sides 1 and 4 on one disc, and sides 2 and 3 on the other, to accommodate "stacking" record changers - which is the sort of thing that could confuse a stupid person.

The album was commercially successful, reaching #2 in the UK album charts, and #4 in the US, selling 200,000 copies in the first two weeks in the US alone, and was a critical smash - Melody Maker declared: "Surely the Who are now the band against which all others are to be judged." However, the album had a hostile reception with the BBC and certain US radio stations, with Tony Blackburn describing "Pinball Wizard" as "distasteful" - Aw, diddums!

The album cover was designed by Mike McInnerney, which included a booklet including lyrics and images to illustrate parts of the story. Townshend asked McInnerney to do the cover artwork for Tommy in September 1968.  Townshend thought McInnerney, a fellow follower of Baba, would be a suitable choice to do the cover. As recording was near completion, McInnerney received a number of cassettes with completed songs and a brief outline for the story, which he immediately recognised as being based on Baba's teachings.

Mike McInnerney : "I liked the 'idea' of the Tommy character. Rather than trying to portray him I wanted to picture his experience of being in a world without conventional senses. I thought it would be limitless and unbounded yet trapped in an environment made for people who have all their senses... The cover uses the form of the globe to represent both the Earth and Self floating in an endless infinite black universe like space. A space that can never be touched, only imagined."

The cover is presented as part of a triptych-style fold-out cover, and the booklet contained abstract artwork that outlined the story. The finished cover contained a blue and white web of clouds, a fist punching into the black void to the left of it. Townshend was too busy finishing the recording to properly approve the artwork, but Kit Lambert strongly approved of it, and said it would work. The final step was for record company approval from Decca, who's one concession was that that pictures of the band should appear on the cover. These were added to the web on the front.



Mike McInnerney : "The inside cover depicts a wall with wall lights as a symbol of domestic space. It is a space we can all touch and a room we all live in. But the light from the lamps does not behave as in our sighted world, it does not anchor objects to surfaces but appears to shift and change under Tommy's searching fingers."



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In August, the Who performed at the Woodstock Festival, despite being reluctant and demanding $13,000 up front. The group were scheduled to appear on Saturday night, 16 August, but the festival ran late and they did not take to the stage until 5 am on Sunday; they played most of Tommy. During their performance, Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman interrupted the set to give a political speech about the arrest of John Sinclair: "I think this is a pile of shit while John Sinclair rots in prison"; Townshend kicked him off stage, shouting: "Fuck off my fucking stage!".



Woodstock has been regarded as culturally significant, but the Who were critical of the event. Roadie John "Wiggie" Wolff, who arranged the band's payment, described it as "a shambles". Daltrey declared it as "the worst gig we ever played" and Townshend, who'd managed to crap himself on stage, said, "I thought the whole of America had gone mad."

The Single :
Quote"I'm a Boy" was written by Pete Townshend for the Who. The song was originally intended to be a part of a rock opera called 'Quads' which was to be set in the future where parents can choose the sex of their children. The idea was later scrapped, but this song survived and was later released as a single.



The track was produced by Kit Lambert at IBC Studios around 31 July - 1 August 1966 and released just over three weeks later on 26 August 1966. The single reached number 1 in the Melody Maker chart for three weeks in October 1966, but only got to number 2 on the obscure Record Retailer chart - which, fraudulently re-writing pop-history, would later become "the only one that mattered" . . . apparently!

The original recording featured John Entwistle's French horn arrangement prominently in the mix. The version included on most compilations, since the 1966 release, had the French horns removed.

A different, slower version was recorded in London in the week of 3 October 1966 and was intended for an early version of A Quick One titled Jigsaw Puzzle but was later released on "Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy" in 1971.

Other Versions includeThe Who BBC session (1967)  /  The Gathers (?)  /  Danny McEvoy (2011)

On This Day  :
Quote9 October : David Cameron, British Prime Minister (2010-16), born David William Donald Cameron in Marylebone, London
12 October : The Jimi Hendrix Experience forms with Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding & Mitch Mitchell
12 October :  Brian Kennedy, musician, born Brian Edward Patrick Kennedy in Belfast, Northern Ireland
15 October : Black Panther Party created by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale
15 October : Australia bans The Troggs' "I Can't Control Myself" as "terribly obscene"
17 October : Wieland Wagner, German opera director, dies
17 October : Mark Gatiss, actor and writer, born in Sedgefield, County Durham
21 October : 116 children and 28 adults died as a coal waste heap slid and engulfed a school in Aberfan, South Wales
22 October : USSR launches Luna 12 for orbit around Moon

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
Quote                       

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The Story So Far & Further : The 1970s and Beyonnnnd!!
QuoteBy 1970, The Who were widely considered one of the best and most popular live rock bands, and they decided a live album would help demonstrate how different the sound at their gigs was to Tommy.

They booked two shows, one in Leeds on 14 February, and one in Hull the following day, with the intention of recording a live album. Technical problems from the Hull gig resulted in the Leeds gig being used, which became Live at Leeds.



The album opens with "Young Man Blues", an R&B tune that was a standard part of the Who's stage repertoire at the time. It was extended to include an instrumental jam with stop-start sections. "Substitute", a 1966 single for the band, was played similarly to the studio version. "Summertime Blues" was rearranged to include power chords, and a key change. "Shakin' All Over" was arranged similar to the Johnny Kid & The Pirates original, but the chorus line was slowed down for effect, and there was a jam session in the middle . . . mmm delicious jam!

Side 2 featured a 15-minute rendition of "My Generation", which was greatly extended to include a brief extracts of "See Me, Feel Me", "Sparks", and part of the unreleased song "Naked Eye". The album closes with an extended version of "Magic Bus". The album is viewed, quite rightly, as one of the best live rock albums of all time.

The cover was designed by Beadrall Sutcliffe and resembled that of a bootleg LP of the era. It contains plain brown cardboard with "The Who Live At Leeds" printed on it in plain block letters as if stamped on with ink. The original cover opened out, gatefold-style, and had a pocket on either side of the interior, with the record in a paper sleeve on one side and 12 facsimiles of various memorabilia on the other, including a photo of the band from the My Generation photoshoot in March 1965 / handwritten lyrics to the "Listening to You" chorus from Tommy / the typewritten lyrics to "My Generation", with hand written notes / a receipt for smoke bombs / a rejection letter from EMI / and the early black "Maximum R&B" poster showing Pete Townshend wind-milling his Rickenbacker. The first 500 copies included a copy of the contract for The Who to play at the Woodstock Festival.

The label was handwritten and included instructions to the engineers not to attempt to remove any crackling noise : "Crackling noises OK! DO not correct!"




In March The Who released the non-album single, "The Seeker" (b/w "Here For More"), which reached #19 in the UK charts in April 1970.  Townshend wrote the song to commemorate the common man, as a contrast to the themes on Tommy.

 

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During the latter part of 1970, Townshend plotted a follow up Tommy: Lifehouse, which was to be a multi-media project symbolising the relationship between an artist and his audience.

In the world the album is set in, pollution is so bad that the populace are forced to wear 'Lifesuits' - that could simulate all experiences in a way that no one would have to leave home. The suits are plugged into a huge mainframe called The Grid which contains tubes for sleeping gas, food, and entertainment. The Grid is controlled by a man named Jumbo.

The story begins when a farming family in Scotland * hear of a huge rock concert called Lifehouse occurring in that there London. Their daughter, Mary, runs away to join the concert. Bobby, the creator of Lifehouse, is a hacker who broadcasts pirate radio signals advertising his concert, where the participants' personal data are taken from them and converted into music. * [In some versions, the father - Mary's dad - is an old rock star called "Ray High" - probably 'the old Guru' Pete mentions below.]

At the climax of the album, the authorities have surrounded the Lifehouse; then the perfect note rings forth through the combination of everybody's songs, they storm the place to find everybody has disappeared through a sort of musical Rapture, and the people observing the concert through their Lifesuits have vanished as well.

Pete Townshend : "The essence of the story-line was a kind a futuristic scene...It's a fantasy set at a time when rock 'n' roll didn't exist. The world was completely collapsing and the only experience that anybody ever had was through test tubes. In a way they lived as if they were in television programmes. Everything was programmed. The enemies were people who gave us entertainment intravenously, and the heroes were savages who'd kept rock 'n' roll as a primitive force and had gone to live with it in the woods. The story was about these two sides coming together and having a brief battle.

"A very old guru figure emerges and says 'I remember rock music. It was absolutely amazing—it really did something to people.' He spoke of a kind of nirvana people reached through listening to this type of music. The old man decides that he's going to try to set it up so that the effect can be experienced eternally. Everybody would be snapped out of their programmed environment through this rock and roll-induced liberated selflessness. The Lifehouse was where the music was played, and where the young people would collect to discover rock music as a powerful catalyst — a religion as it were. Then I began to feel 'Well, why just simulate it? Why not try and make it happen?'"

The plan was for the Who to take over the Young Vic theatre with a regular audience, develop the new material on stage and allow the communal activity to influence the songs and performances. Individuals would emerge from the audience and find a role in the music and the film. When the concerts became strong enough, they would be filmed along with other peripheral activity from the theater. A storyline would evolve alongside the music. Although the finished film was to have many fictitious and scripted elements, the concert footage was to be authentic, and would provide the driving force for the whole production.



Townshend went wild, working out a complex scenario whereby a personal profile of each concert-goer would be compiled, from the individual's astrological chart to his hobbies, even physical appearance. All the characteristics would then be fed into a computer at the same moment, leading to one musical note culminating in mass nirvana that Townshend dubbed 'a kind of celestial cacophony.'

This philosophy was based on the writings of Inayat Khan, a Sufi master musician who espoused the theory that matter produces heat, light, and sound in the form of unique vibrations. Taking the idea one step further, making music, which was composed of vibrations, was the pervading force of all life. Elevating its purpose to the highest level, music represented the path to restoration, the search for the one perfect universal note, which once sounded would bring harmony to the entire world.

The songs for the album would have been split across four sides - Three telling the main characters stories, and the fourth featuring the Lifehouse concert itself - culminating in "The Note".

Side 1 - Ray's Story : "Teenage Wasteland"  /  "Going Mobile"  /  "Baba O'Riley"  /  "Time Is Passing"  /  "Love Ain't for Keeping"
Side 2 - Mary & Jumbo's Story : "Bargain"  /  "Too Much of Anything"  /  "Greyhound Girl"  /  "Mary"   /  "Behind Blue Eyes"
Side 3 - Bobby's Story : "I Don't Even Know Myself"  /  "Put the Money Down"  /  "Pure and Easy"  /  "Getting in Tune"  /  "Let's See Action (Nothing is Everything)"
Side 4 - The Lifehouse Concert : "Relay"  /  "Join Together"  /  "Won't Get Fooled Again"  /  "The Song Is Over"

Despite Townshend's grandiose plans, the project had its problems - the theater wasn't available on a regular nightly schedule that Townshend insisted was necessary for the band to sustain a "euphoric level" of performance, and Townshend's inability to translate the ideas in his head to those around him eventually led to a nervous breakdown. No one apart from himself actually understood the whole concept of Lifehouse. Even John Entwistle believed that the band were to actually stay at the Young Vic with the audience in a sort of commune.

Pete Townshend : "The fatal flaw...was getting obsessed with trying to make a fantasy a reality rather than letting the film speak for itself."



Eventually, the others complained to Townshend that the project was too complicated and they should simply record another album.

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The group restarted with Glyn Johns in April. The group salvaged some of the songs, without the connecting story elements, to release as their next album. Eight of the nine songs on Who's Next were from Lifehouse, the lone exception being the John Entwistle-penned "My Wife" ["Mmmmmmmmy Wife?]

The album opened with "Baba O'Riley", featuring piano and synthesizer-processed Lowrey organ by Townshend. The song's title pays homage to Townshend's guru, Meher Baba, and minimalist composer Terry Riley. The organ track came from a longer demo by Townshend, that was edited down for the final recording.

The opening lyrics to the next track, "Bargain", "I'd gladly lose me to find you", came from a phrase used by Baba. Entwistle wrote "My Wife["Mmmmmmmmy Wife?] after having an argument with his wife and exaggerating the conflict in the lyrics. The track features several overdubbed brass instruments recorded in a single half-hour session.

"Pure and Easy", a key track from Lifehouse, did not make the final track selection, but the opening line was included as a coda to "The Song is Over". "Behind Blue Eyes" featured three-part harmony by Daltrey, Townshend and Entwistle and was written for the main antagonist in Lifehouse, Brick.

The cover artwork shows a photograph, taken at Easington Colliery, of the band taking a piss on a large concrete piling protruding from a slag heap. The decision to shoot the picture came from Entwistle and Moon discussing Stanley Kubrick and the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. According to photographer Ethan Russell, only Townshend actually urinated against the piling, so rainwater was tipped from an empty film canister to achieve the desired effect. The sky in the background was added later to give the image an other worldly quality.

 

An alternative cover featuring Moon dressed in black lingerie and a brown wig, was mercifully rejected, but other photos from the session were used to promote the single "Won't Get Fooled Again" (b/w "I Don't Know Myself") which reached The Top 9 in July 1971.

   

Over the next few years songs from the abandoned Lifehouse project would emerge as singles, and in October 1971, "Let's See Action" (b/w "When I Was A Boy") was released, and peaked at #16 in the UK charts. This was followed by "Join Together"  (b/w "Baby Don't You Do It") - #9 in June 1972, and "Relay" (b/w "Waspman") - #21 in January 1973.

   

The group recorded new material with Who's Next collaborator Glyn Johns in May 1972, including a mini-opera called "Long Live Rock – Rock Is Dead", but the material was considered too derivative of Who's Next and sessions were abandoned.

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Their next album, "Quadrophenia" was set in London and Brighton in 1965, the story follows a young working-class mod named Jimmy. He clashes with his parents over his usage of amphetamines, has difficulty finding regular work and doubts his own self-worth.Though he is happy to be "one" of the mods, he struggles to keep up with his peers, and his girlfriend leaves him for his best friend.

After destroying his scooter and contemplating suicide, he decides to take a train to Brighton, where he discovers the "Ace Face" who led the gang now has a menial job as a bellboy in a hotel. He feels everything in his life has rejected him, steals a boat, and uses it to sail out to a rock overlooking the sea. On the rock and stuck in the rain, he contemplates his life. The ending is left ambiguous as to what happens to Jimmy on the rock.

Townshend had met up with "Irish" Jack Lyons, one of the original Who fans, which gave him the idea of writing a piece that would look back on the group's history and its audience. He created the character of Jimmy from an amalgamation of six early fans of the group, and gave the character a four-way split personality.

In order to do justice to the recording of Quadrophenia, the group decided to build their own studio, Ramport Studios in Battersea. Work started on building Ramport in November 1972, but five months later still lacked an adequate mixing desk. Instead, Townshend's friend Ronnie "Plonk" Lane, bassist for Faces, loaned his mobile studio for the sessions. Kit Lambert began producing the album in May, but missed recording sessions and generally lacked discipline. By mid-1973, Daltrey demanded that Lambert leave the Who's services. The band recruited engineer Ron Nevison to assist with engineering.

To illustrate the four-way split personality of Jimmy, Townshend wrote four themes, reflecting the four members of the Who. These were "Bell Boy" (Moon), "Is It Me?" (Entwistle), "Helpless Dancer" (Daltrey) and "Love Reign O'er Me" (Townshend). Two lengthy instrumentals on the album, "Quadrophenia" and "The Rock" contain the four themes, separately and together.

The album was preceded by the single "5:15" (b/w "Water") which reached #20 in the charts in October 1973.

 

Quadrophenia was originally released in the UK on 26 October, but fans found it difficult to find a copy due to a shortage of vinyl caused by the OPEC oil embargo. In the UK and the US, Quadrophenia reached #2 - the highest position of any Who album in the US.

The album was originally released as a two-LP set with a gatefold jacket and a booklet containing lyrics, a text version of the story, and photographs taken by Ethan Russell illustrating it.

   

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In the autumn of 1973, while the rest of the band were preparing for Ken Russell's Tommy film, John Entwistle was put in charge of compiling the album "Odds & Sods" to counter the rampant bootlegging that arose from The Who's concerts.

John Entwistle : "I tried to arrange it like a parallel sort of Who career – what singles we might have released and what album tracks we might have released. It could have been a double album, there was that much material."

Songs included : Entwistle's "Postcard"  /  "Now I'm a Farmer" [gourds!]  /  "Little Billy" - written by Townshend for the American Cancer Society  /  "Naked Eye"  /  "Long Live Rock"  /  plus "Put the Money Down", "Too Much of Anything" and "Pure and Easy" from the aborted Lifehouse project.

 

After concluding the album tour for Quadrophenia in June 1974, the Who took an extended hiatus and did not perform live for more than a year. The sessions for the next album, The Who by Numbers, began in April 1975 and lasted through early June.

The songs on the album were, for the most part, more introspective and personal than many other songs that the band had released. Townshend had his 30th birthday in May 1975 and was struggling with the idea of being too old to play rock and roll and that the band was losing its relevance. He began to feel disenchanted with the music industry, a feeling that he carried into his songs.

Pete Townshend : "The songs were written with me stoned out of my brain in my living room, crying my eyes out... detached from my own work and from the whole project... I felt empty."

Songs reflecting his bleak state of mind included : "However Much I Booze"  / "Imagine a Man"  /  "How Many Friends", and the gently charming "Blue, Red and Grey". For the album's recording, the band recruited their old producer Glyn Johns.

Compared to previous Who albums, 'The Who By Numbers' took an unusually long time to complete - nearly three months, and was marred by numerous breaks and interruptions due to the band members' growing boredom and lack of interest.

Pete Townshend : "I felt partly responsible because the Who recording schedule had, as usual, dragged on and on, sweeping all individuals and their needs aside. Glyn worked harder on The Who by Numbers than I've ever seen him. He had to, not because the tracks were weak or the music poor but because the group was so useless. We played cricket between takes or went to the pub. I personally had never done that before. I felt detached from my own songs, from the whole record

"Recording the album seemed to take me nowhere. Roger was angry with the world at the time. Keith seemed as impetuous as ever, on the wagon one minute, off the next. John was obviously gathering strength throughout the whole period; the great thing about it was he seemed to know we were going to need him more than ever before in the coming year."

Despite it's tortuous gestation, the finished album proved to be one of their strongest, and something of a hidden gem. Released in October 1975, it peaked at #7 on the UK Albums Chart and #8 in the US.  Oddly, despite the title, the cover image, designed by John "The Ox" Entwistle, actually shows a "Join the Dots" rather than a 'by numbers' - which is one of those 'colour in the shapes' things - you know, like this Spike Milligan Sketch. Over to you, "The Ox" - explain yourself . . .

John Entwistle"The cover only took me an hour, but the dots took about three hours. I took it down to the studio while we were mixing and got the worst artist in the room to fill it in. Discovered I'd left two inside legs out. We were taking it in turns to do the covers. It was Pete's turn before me and we did the Quadrophenia cover, which cost about the same as a small house back then, about £16,000. My cover cost £32."

"Squeeze Box" (b/w "Success Story") was also a Top 10 hit in the UK, although the US follow-up, "Slip Kid" (b/w "Dreaming from the Waist") failed to chart.

   

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After the 1976 tour, Townshend took most of the following year off to spend time with his family. The group reconvened in September 1977, but Townshend announced there would be no live performances for the immediate future. By this point, Keith Moon was so unhealthy that the Who conceded it would be difficult for him to cope with touring. The only gig that year was an informal show on 15 December 1977 at the Gaumont State Cinema in Kilburn, London, filmed for the documentary, The Kids Are Alright. The band had not played for 14 months, and their performance was so weak that the footage was unused.

On 25 May 1978, the Who filmed another performance at Shepperton Sound Studios for The Kids Are Alright. This performance was strong, and several tracks were used in the film. It was the last gig Moon performed with the Who.

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Recording of Who Are You started in January 1978 - a time when punk rock became highly popular. However, this was not reflected in the album's music, which showcased some of Townshend's most complicated arrangements, with multiple layers of synthesizer and strings.

Many of the songs also revisited themes from Townshend's long-contemplated Lifehouse project, featuring lyrics about songwriting and music as a metaphor for life, as indicated by titles like "Guitar and Pen", "New Song", "Music Must Change", and "Sister Disco". Several of the song's lyrics reflect Townshend's uncertainty about the Who's continued relevance in the wake of punk rock, and his dissatisfaction with the music industry.

Moon's health was especially an object of concern, as his drumming skills had noticeably deteriorated and his performances for most of the sessions were substandard. He was unable to play in 6/8 time on the track "Music Must Change", so the drums were removed completely from the track, and replaced with the sound of footsteps and a few cymbal crashes.

The recording was further delayed when lead singer Roger Daltrey underwent throat surgery, and when during a lengthy Christmas break, Townshend sliced his hand in a window during an argument with his parents. 

When the sessions resumed in March, they were moved to RAK Studios, which caused further delays due to the equipment malfunctioning, including the wiping of a backing track. In one incident, Daltrey punched Glyn Johns in the face due to an argument over a rough mix, rendering him unconscious. The argument was fueled by Ted Astley adding a string arrangement to "Had Enough", which Daltrey derided as "slushy".

After a long and frustrating day, Townshend planned to fire Moon from the band unless he cleaned up his act. All of the drums except for "Who Are You" were recorded in the last two weeks of production. The album was released on 18 August 1978, and became their biggest and fastest seller to date, peaking at #6 in the UK and #2 in the US. The single version of "Who Are You" reached #18 in July 1978.

 

On 6 September 1978, Keith Moon attended a party held by Paul McCartney to celebrate Buddy Holly's birthday. Returning to his flat, Moon took 32 tablets of clomethiazole which had been prescribed to combat his alcohol withdrawal. He passed out the following morning and was discovered dead later that day.

The day after Moon's death, Townshend issued the statement: "We are more determined than ever to carry on, and we want the spirit of the group to which Keith contributed so much to go on, although no human being can ever take his place."



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In 1979, the film of Quadrophenia was released starring Phil Daniels as Jimmy. The soundtrack album was dedicated to Peter Meaden, a prominent Mod and first manager of The Who, who had died a year prior to the album's release.

Ten of the seventeen tracks from the original 1973 album were remixed in 1979 by John Entwistle. The most notable difference is the track "The Real Me" which features a different bass track, more prominent vocals and a more definite ending, which was part of the original recording but faded out on the previous mix.

 

The soundtrack also includes three tracks by The Who that did not appear on the 1973 album – "Four Faces", "Get Out and Stay Out" and "Joker James". The latter two songs marked Kenney Jones's first on-record appearance with the Who after taking over on drums for the late Keith Moon. "Four Faces" was only one of two outtakes recorded during the original 1973 sessions but unused at the time - The other being "We Close Tonight", which eventually was released on the remastered version of Odds & Sods.

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Their next album, "Face Dances", was released in 1981. It was the band's first full album with drummer Kenney Jones, who joined the band after Keith Moon's death three years earlier.

"You Better You Bet" (b/w "The Quiet One") was the first single from the album, reaching #9 in the UK in March 1981 - it would be the bands last major UK hit. The follow up single "Don't Let Go The Coat" (b/w "You") stalled at #47 in May 1981.

   

The album cover features paintings of the members by many British painters, who were commissioned by Peter Blake, including Tom Phillips, Richard Hamilton, Allen Jones, David Hockney, Clive Barker, R. B. Kitaj, Howard Hodgkin, Patrick Caulfield, and Blake himself.

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"It's Hard" was the final album to feature drummer Kenney Jones, and original bassist John Entwistle, who contributed three songs : "Dangerous", "It's Your Turn" and "One at a Time" to the album.

The album cover depicts a young boy playing an Atari Space Duel arcade game. This is intended as a contemporary update to the song "Pinball Wizard," from the album Tommy.

 

The first track on the album, "Athena" (b/w "A Man Is A Man") peaked at #28 on the US chart, and #40 in the UK in October 1982.

Daltrey later said that "It's Hard should never have been released" and that he also had arguments with Townshend over the release of the album. He stated that the record company wanted them to make a new record and they also wanted them to do a tour for the album, so in many ways they were forced to release it.

Pete Townshend : "Face Dances and It's Hard were made by a band who were very unsure about whether or not they wanted to be making a record, and I think that's a terrible doubt."

Alternate takes exist of "Eminence Front" featuring Roger Daltrey on lead vocals and "One Life's Enough" featuring Pete Townshend on lead vocals. "I've Known No War" features the orchestra arrangement from the 1979 Quadrophenia film version of "I've Had Enough".

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Two and a half years after the group finished their "farewell tour", they were persuaded by Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof to appear in the London segment of the Global charity concert, which took place on 13 July 1985 at Wembley Stadium.

The band had initially hoped to perform "After the Fire", a song Pete Townshend had composed about the troubles in Ethiopia that had served as the inspiration for Live Aid, but this did not come to fruition. Instead they played four numbers that had been mainstays of their last tour in 1982.

The performance was energetic, but problematic: a problem with John Entwistle's bass guitar briefly delayed the start of their set, only to have the BBC's power cut out during the second verse of "My Generation", resulting in only the audio being transmitted for the last part of this song and "Pinball Wizard"; the video resumed for "Love Reign O'er Me". Prior to "Won't Get Fooled Again", Pete Townshend announced "I think we're just about getting there...wherever it is we're supposed to end up." Confusion resulted in the complete omission of the middle verse, as the band missed the entire key change and only recovered when it was too late. Despite all this, the band's showing was well received and is one of the most lasting images from the event.



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On 27 June 2002, one day before the first show of the Who's 2002 United States tour, John Entwistle died at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Paradise, Nevada. He had gone to bed that night with a local stripper, who awoke the next morning to find Entwistle cold and unresponsive. His death, was due to a heart attack induced by a cocaine overdose, and, presumably, some first class shagging to boot!

"The Ox has left the building — we've lost another great friend. Thanks for your support and love - Pete and Roger."



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In 2004 they released two new songs "Real Good Looking Boy"  and  "Old Red Wine" - a  tribute to former band member John Entwistle - on the "Then and Now" compilation album. Released as a single, they went nowhere near the chart . . . obviously!

 

Released in October 2006, "Endless Wire" was the first new studio album of original material from The Who in 24 years, as well as their first since the death of the bassist John Entwistle.

Songs on the album included :  "Black Widow's Eyes"  / "Mike Post Theme" /  "A Man in a Purple Dress"  /  "It's Not Enough" and the mini opera : "Wire & Glass"

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In 2014 The Who, released another new song - "Be Lucky" as a new track on "The Who Hits 50!" compilation album.

 

In December 2019, The Who released "WHO" - their first new album in 13 years. Included on the album were : "Ball and Chain", released as the first single  /  "All This Music Must Fade"  / and "I Don't Wanna Get Wise". Two songs, "Got Nothing to Prove" and the bonus track "Sand" were initially recorded as demos in 1966.

The album cover was designed by pop artist Peter Blake, and shows different coloured images placed around three squares forming the word "WHO" in the centre of the album cover. The 22 squares depict some of the band's influences and symbols of their career and culture :

The Union Jack flag  /  red Routemaster 'magic' bus  /  Royal Air Force 'mod' Target / Baked beans  /  Pinball machine  /  a scooter  / fondue set  / cuddly toy  /  Batman and Robin  /  Chuck Berry and boxer Muhammad Ali / and finally, a traffic sign reading "Detour", which is the fourth track on the album and a reference to the band's earlier name, The Detours - which is where we came in . . .

Extra! Extra! Read all about it! :
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gilbertharding

Someone pointed me towards this the other day:



It's on the spotify... not sure what I think of it.