PETE TOWNSHEND – The First Profile I Wrote

Happy 70^th Birthday Pete.

          In 1974 I was asked to write a profile of Pete Townshend for Melody Maker, and to mark Pete reaching his 70^th I am reproducing it below, in two parts, today and tomorrow, virtually word for word. It was published on May 18, a day before Pete’s 29^th birthday.

          Since I researched and wrote this piece 41 years ago, Who scholarship has come in on leaps and bounds. Nowadays there are several detailed books on The Who by authors who have investigated their career in minute detail, many of them among the best rock biographies and chronologies ever published. None of these existed when I wrote this nor, of course, was there an internet to explore. As a result there’s a few mistakes and sweeping statements that make me cringe today, but there’s a certain naïve enthusiasm I quite like, and although I can’t remember how, I must have gone to some trouble to find out all this information. I had interviewed all four by this time, and asked questions about their early career but I was in New York in 1974 and didn’t have access to the MM’s cuttings library. The only Who book to have been published was Gary Herman’s pioneering biography in 1971, which I still have, and I think I talked to Nik Cohn a bit too, also Vicki Wickham and probably Peter Rudge.

          A month later I saw The Who play four nights at Madison Square Garden.

This shot was taken at Jacksonville, August 7, 1976, one of the batch if pictures taken at this show and sent to me by Mark Starcke.

It may well have been pure chance that produced the most visually exciting guitarist in rock. If Pete Townshend hadn’t been born with a big nose he might never have picked up a guitar in the first place, and if he hadn’t accidentally bashed his fretboard against a low ceiling in a club at Acton one night long, long ago he might never have developed his peculiar – and totally original – style of playing.

          It was in the earliest days of The Who, when they were called the Detours, that Townshend, imitating Keith Richards somewhat deliberately, spun his arm around propeller fashion, knocked his guitar against the roof and smashed the fretboard.

From that day onwards The Who was born. They were the most violent, antisocial, debt-ridden band of the sixties. Then they grew up, became superstars and millionaires but still have a genuine claim to being the most exciting live act in the business

          Townshend, too, grew up. He watched and learned until it was time for him to become a trendsetter himself. He led The Who through stormy waters and watched them conquer the world.

          He became one of the most eloquent spokesmen on rock in general, a man whose views are respected by all. He also found Meha Baba which transformed the fighting, angry young man into a sensitive, mature adult and musician.

          Few can argue that, in the light of the day, Peter Townshend IS The Who. While his three colleagues undeniably contribute a great deal to his amazing little rock band from London’s Shepherds Bush, they would be the first to admit that without Townshend’s guiding light there would be no Who.

          It was Keith Moon who told me, during a rare moment of seriousness, that Townshend was in his opinion, a true genius. Moon spoke in hushed, revered tones and meant exactly what he said.

          Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend was born on May 19, 1945, in Chiswick Hospital, in West London. He attended Acton Grammar School and Ealing Arts College. He’s said often enough that he was a skinny, ugly youth who couldn’t pull birds and whose big nose made him a frequent subject of ridicule among his school mates. So he turned to the guitar, possibly subconsciously thinking that guitarists in groups could pull birds and joined the band that was later to become The Who.

          At this time Roger Daltrey was the undisputed leader, the lead guitarist and the lead singer. Pete played rhythm guitar. Some say he always has.

          First they were The Detours, then The Who, then The High Numbers and back to The Who again. Their first public appearance was in 1964 in Acton and their decision to change their name back to The Who coincided with the arrival of their managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp.

          Lambert was an out of work film producer and Stamp was the brother of actor Terry. Both immediately realised the potential of The Who and immediately cashed in on the mod craze that was beginning to envelop the London area. They stuck their Who on at the Marquee Club on Tuesday nights, formed a fan club called the 100 Faces (a top mod was known as a “Face”) and encouraged the group to self-destruct at the end of their act.

          Townshend would ram a Rickenbacker into his speaker cabinet, Moon would walk over his kit and Daltrey – the sharpest looking “Face” of them all – would snap his fingers and boast about the number of pills he’d taken that evening. Entwistle, of course, would just stand there.

          There were records, too, all coming from the pen of Townshend who by this time had become the star attraction. Their first hit ‘I Can’t Explain’ was a deliberate rip-off from the Kinks’ chunky chord style. There was, in fact, a great deal of ripping-off in the early Who. ‘The Kids Are Alright’ was a dead-ringer for the Beatles, ‘A Legal Matter’ and, to a certain extent ‘Substitute’, were pure Rolling Stones, and all the while arguments were going on within the group because Keith Moon wanted them to harmonise like The Beach Boys and Roger Daltrey was after a rhythm and blues/black soul sound.

          But Townshend steered a middle course and The Who became a competent if slightly controversial, pop band. They made excellent singles, like ‘I Can See For Miles’ with a superbly delayed chorus line, and ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere’ where Townshend began experimenting with the on/off switch on his electric guitar, and using feedback to good effect.

          He also wrote what was to become the anthem of the mods and one of the greatest rock singles of the sixties, ‘My Generation’, still arguably the group’s most potent number and an important contribution to rock culture. The classic line “Hope I Die Before I Get Old” will stand forever.

          Clues as to Townshend’s further capabilities were slipping out as the group sought to establish themselves firmly. Arguments will rage forever about who released the first concept rock album, but long before Tommy was even thought of The Who put out THE first rock opera, albeit a mini-opera, titled ‘A Quick One’.

          It was the first time any band had recorded two or more songs linked together to form a story, but its significance on rock’s future was totally missed at the time. Concept albums had never been thought of before The Who put out their third album, The Who Sell Out. On this all the tracks on the first side were linked by commercials that sounded like pirate radio stations. Another first for Townshend – again before the world woke up to the fact.

          Commercial radio, in fact, had a large hand in the growing acceptance of The Who. Lambert and Stamp were quick to realise the promotional potential of the pirate radio stations and they plagued the pirate deejays with Who singles.

          There was also Ready Steady Go!, the ITV TV rock show hosted by Cathy McGowan on which The Who were frequent guests and on which Townshend, looking mean and moody, would parade his Union Jack jacket amidst “oohs” and “aahs” from the strictly mod studio audience.

          For all their local London and South East success and their clique following, The Who lost money hand over fist. Various estimates as to their total red figures run well into six figures, mostly because of guitar damage, and they had yet to crack America where they toured with “bigger” English bands like Herman’s Hermits and the Dave Clark Five*.

          In 1968 the tide turned. Townshend found Meha Baba and began work on what was to transform The Who into one of the biggest rock acts of all time. It also revealed him as one of the greatest creative talents in rock as well as the most visual instrumentalist.

          This was Tommy, previewed at generous volume in a live performance before ecstatic critics at Ronnie Scott’s London jazz club later that year. Over three-quarters of Tommy came out of Townshend, including the electrifying ‘Pinball Wizard’ and the huge crescendo of ‘See Me, Feel Me’ which still remains the best climax to any piece of rock music to this day.

          And while The Kinks had tried their hand at a rock opera a few months previously, it was The Who and Townshend who scored supremely, simply because they could put it over live with the most dynamic act in the world.

          Townshend had begun phase two of his career. Now he was utterly respected and, unlike in previous years, considerably more approachable. He took Tommy on the road where it was received with wild adulation and in 1969 he was generally voted the most outstanding artist at the legendary Woodstock Festival.

          He had also perfected the group’s stage act to such a degree that, although perhaps a little predictable, there was really no one to touch them on a live stage.

There was motionless Entwistle, lassooing Daltrey and flaying Moon. But standing majestically to stage right, his tall skinny frame angling like rubber, was the most incredible gymnast of them all.

          Jumping, spinning, writhing, splitting, vaulting, and leaping as if in a trance, a spinning top whipped by the violence of the music he was playing, sometimes angry sometimes laughing, but always making that block chord in time with the spin of his right arm.

          Tommy and that act brought financial rewards at last. They paid off their debts, bought big houses and big cars and slowed down considerably.

          And it was at this point in their career that Townshend’s great dilemma took control. Having produced what was generally regarded as a masterpiece which elevated the group to the attention of serious music observers everywhere, how was he going to follow it up?

          First there was the Live At Leeds album, a particularly good live set on which one track – the extended version of ‘My Generation’ – will stand out as one of their best recorded works. But it was hardly a follow-up to Tommy, more of a delaying tactic.

Part 2 tomorrow.

* DC5? Rubbish I know! Someone must have told me this. 

SITAR MUSIC - A Post Script

Further to my post about sitar music my friend Adrian Boot has created a playlist for anyone who fancies checking out the best tracks by the crème de la crème of sitar players: ‘Mand’ (by Nikhil Banerjee),‘Mand’ (Shahid Parvez), ‘Baul’ (Nikhil Banerjee), ‘Thumbri’ (Nikhil Banerjee), ‘Raga Deshkar’ (Shahid Parvez), ‘Raga Desh (Shahid Parvez), ‘Dhun Bhatiali’ (Shahid Parvez), ‘Raga Bihag (alap)’ (Shahid Parvez), ‘Vilambit (slow)’ (Shahid Parvez), ‘Raga Misra Mand’ (Ali Akbar Khan), and ‘Raga Bhairavi (Madhyalaya)’ (Ustad Vilayat Khan). 

Nikhil Banerjee (1931-1986)

SUNNY AFTERNOON - The Kinks' Musical

A few weeks ago Ray Davies was in the building that houses Omnibus Press to attend the launch of a book entitled 100 Years Of British Songwriting, a lavish coffee table affair commissioned by the Performing Rights Society for Music that we had effectively packaged for them. So I sidled up to Ray and had a chat, firstly about his book Americana, which I’d recently read, then about Effingham where Ray had lived and which is close to where we live now, and finally about Sunny Afternoon, the musical based on the music of The Kinks that is playing at the Harold Pinter Theatre near Leicester Square. He was, he said, on his way there to check that some new cast members were doing their job in the manner that was expected of them, which is why he ducked out of this bash early. It was a genuine hit, he told me, clearly pleased, and this was the first time I realised how closely involved he evidently is in its production.

Well, it deserves to be a hit I thought last night as I left the Pinter Theatre along with the rest of my family who had conspired to take me there as a surprise birthday treat. It’s lots of fun, like The Kinks a bit topsy-turvy, full of spirit and energy as it combines the juke-box musical format with a plotline that follows the far from comfortable trajectory of The Kinks’ career from The Ravens to headlining at New York's Madison Square Garden, though this latter episode is bolted on at the end a tad hurriedly.

For anyone unfamiliar with the real story of The Kinks, and what was going on behind the scenes, Sunny Afternoon will be a bit of an eye-opener, for Davies – who with playwright Joe Penhall wrote the story as well as the music – hasn’t tried to hide the less than edifying goings-on that were hidden from view, at least until drummer Mick Avory chucked a cymbal at Dave Davies during a gig in Cardiff in 1965. Dave was rushed to hospital, Mick did a runner and it hit the headlines. All this is dramatically played out as the climax to the first act, so audiences who are either too young or unversed in Kinks lore to know about it will probably assume it is dramatic licence. It isn’t.

Neither are the management woes involving the pair of toffs, Robert Wace and Grenville Collins who took them on as The Ravens, inviting experienced impresario Larry Page to join them along with music publisher Eddie Kassner. All these characters are present and correct, all taking their cut and leaving the increasingly paranoid Ray Davies to ponder the wisdom of a career in showbiz that seems to benefit all but him. This isn’t helped by the disaster that was The Kinks’ introduction to America and their subsequent banning from the land of plenty, which occupies some lengthy and especially funny scenes in the second act.

The action is set in Swinging London in the Swinging Sixties with Swinging Dollybirds dancing go-go style against a backdrop of wall-to-wall speakers and along a catwalk that stretches out into the stalls and fosters a close connection with the audience. When the fashion-dedicated group sings the title song towards the end of the second half ticker tape floats down from above, all to recognise the inescapable fact that the world spun around England in those days. After all, we did have The Beatles, the Stones and the World Cup.

Rightly the show is centred around the character of Ray, sympathetically portrayed by gangly John Dagleish, who finds the balance between art – the integrity of his songs – and commerce – the need to be productive – difficult to maintain. The plot hinges on this and his difficult marriage to Rasa Didzpetris (Lillie Flynn), the daughter of Lithuanian refugees who settled in Bradford. Ray – the real Ray – is to be commended for his willingness to permit these glimpses into his private world to be aired in this way.

Meanwhile younger brother Dave (George Maguire), perhaps inspired by the example of Keith Moon, embarks on a debauched journey that involves a regiment of groupies, a fondness for wearing their clothes and a sea of booze, all of which displeases his elder brother to the extent that their relationship descends into toxicity. The ying and yang of the brothers’ relationship serves as a secondary plotline, the more Ray backs away from the pop world’s more disagreeable traits, the more Dave embraces them.

Of course, all this unpleasantness is accompanied by a wealth of brilliant Kinks music, from ‘You Really Got Me’ – with Dave shoving a screwdriver into the amp speaker to create distortion, as per the legend – to ‘Lola’, played as a sing-along encore at the end, as it often was at real Kinks concerts. All the great Kinks songs, and some not so well known ones, crop up along the way, not all of them played by the group. The girls, who double as Ray’s many sisters, screaming fans and dancers on shows like Top of The Pops, get their fair share, as do the male characters from the management, and all of them seem to play some instrument or other, including trombones, trumpets and a banjo. The sound is fattened out by a guitarist and piano player at the rear of the stage and is rarely less than rock gig volume. Nevertheless, ‘Days’ is given a particularly effective a cappella treatment, ‘I Go To Sleep’ is sang by Rasa, on the phone to homesick Ray in America, and ‘Dead End Street’ sees Ma and Pa Davies grumbling about their downtrodden circumstances.

Pride of place, though, is given to Ray’s masterpiece ‘Waterloo Sunset’, played by the group with Rasa on back-up vocals as the penultimate number in the show. Here we find The Kinks in the studio working on the song, bassist Peter Quaife having just decided not to hand in his notice (yet) because he loves playing the descending bass line intro, Dave figuring out the licks on his electric guitar, Ray strumming the chords, Mick tapping softly in the background until it all comes together. “What are the words Ray?” asks one of them. Ray approaches the mike. “Dirty old river…”

As long as I gaze on…

It was the cue for the theatre audience to rise as one and sing along, as did we. Back in the nineties I used to drive my two children to primary school each morning and (to discourage squabbling) I taught them to sing this lovely song as we made our way down Percy Road past Ravenscourt Park to Flora Gardens. They’re no longer kids nowadays but as I glanced across the seats I noted that they still remember the words; paradise and the Southbank sunset were ours. Thanks L, O & S, and thanks Ray for this wonderful song.

         

RICK BUCKLER - That's Entertainment

The middle of May marks the anniversary of my washing up on Melody Maker, joining the music industry as an immature but rock-mad lad of 23, so this year I’m celebrating 45 years on the obstacle course that my dear departed friend Derek Taylor christened The Industry of Human Happiness. I’m not sure it’s quite such a happy place now as when Derek spoke those immortal words, though it certainly was when he was in his prime. While it would be going too far to call it The Industry of Human Misery, nowadays it’s more of a sprawling land mass, much of it troubled, and occupied – as ever – by ne’er do wells, by get-rich-quick hawkers of tat (hang your head in shame descendants of Opportunity Knocks), by too many lawyers and accountants, by too many musicians hanging on for dear life, by those who made their pile and by genuinely nice guys whose pile ought perhaps to be a big bigger.

         One of the latter is Rick Buckler whom I’ve had the pleasure of working with this year on his autobiography That’s Entertainment: My Life With The Jam, which Omnibus Press published this week. I’ve had plenty of close-encounters with rock stars over these 45 years and few have struck as such an all-round, down-to-earth nice guy as Rick who hasn’t a bad word to say about anyone – not even Paul Weller who, in a manner of speaking, pulled the rug from beneath his feet – and seems truly grateful to all of us at Omnibus for publishing his book. Rick is cheerful, friendly, gracious to everyone he meets, a tribute to his profession.

         Last night Rick was at our offices for the book’s official launch – see photo below – and he’s spent all this week helping to promote it, including an appearance on Breakfast TV.

Rick with CC & Chris Magill, visiting from Australia.

With an introduction by Keith Moon biographer Tony Fletcher who began his life as a writer by publishing a fanzine called Jamming, That’s Entertainment is both an insider’s intimate chronicle of the heyday of The Jam, and a revealing personal memoir. In exhaustive detail, Rick retraces the story of his fifties childhood, one of many kids who went through school dreaming about being in a band. Unlike almost all of his fellow dreamers, Rick got his wish. Rick takes fans through the whole story: growing up in a working-class family in Woking, the early Jam – a covers band who worked their asses off until they got it right – the early records, the competition with the Pistols and the Clash – they were never really punks – through to the glory days and the break-up, then the post-Jam realignments of personnel through a succession of other groups and even a spell as a craftsman-like furniture restorer. It is the story of the dissolution of schoolboy friendships, the highs professional triumphs, the lows of quarrels, and the ongoing influence of a politically abrasive band that for so many music fans dominated late seventies and early eighties British rock.  

         He was also a damn good drummer as testified by a slew of great Jam songs.

SITAR MUSIC

And now for something completely different…

         Until very recently the only Indian music I owned was the opening track on George Harrison’s Concert For Bangla Desh, once a triple vinyl album set, now a double CD. Recorded live at Madison Square Garden on August 1, 1971, George introduced Ravi Shankar as his opening act whereupon Ravi and his three accompanists tuned their instruments for a couple of minutes which prompted a round of applause from the sell-out crowd. “If you appreciate the tuning so much, I hope you will enjoy the playing more,” chided Ravi before settling down to play a 16-minute piece entitled ‘Bangla Dhun’.

         In my haste to get to the songs by George or, more likely, Bob Dylan (his four songs [five on the CD] are the highlight of the show), I tended to skip past Ravi. That all changed earlier this year when Mrs C and I sort of rediscovered it, in the process kindling a shared but dormant fondness for sitar music. This led to my buying a ‘best of’ Shankar album from iTunes but many of the tracks were duets with the violin maestro Yehudi Menuhin which weren’t really to my taste, so I chanced my arm with a couple of CDs by Ravi’s daughter Anoushka which were nice enough but, to use an Indian analogy, a bit Korma-ish when what I was looking for was more of a Vindaloo.

         Help came from my friend Adrian Boot, best known as the music photographer who took more shots of Bob Marley than anyone else, including the one on the front of the multi-million selling Legend CD, who just happens to live quite close to us and plays the sitar. “Although Ravi is the most famous, he is not regarded as the best,” Adrian told me. “The Eric Clapton of the sitar is Nikhil Banerjee. Other good sitar players are Vilayat Khan and Shahid Parvez.”

         Adrian sent me a download of music by Banerjee and some others and he’s right. This music is quite extraordinary; long, winding pieces of extreme delicacy, most of them starting slow (Alap) and speeding up towards the finish (Jor), the longest lasting just over 45 minutes, an Indian symphony in fact, meditative and graceful, like watching a leaf floating down a stream or a feather on a breeze. On most of the nine pieces that Adrian sent me, a tabla – a bit like a conga drum but played very fast – joins in about half way through as the pace hots up.

         Of course I know next to nothing about the sitar and how to play it but my modest knowledge of the guitar tells me that in terms of fretted instruments the sitar is to Everest as a guitar is to a peak in the Lake District. It can have anything up to 20 strings, not all of which are plucked, and roughly the same number of frets, under which certain strings drone, or resonate in sympathy with the plucked strings. Unlike on a guitar, the frets are rounded and high up from the neck, enabling the player to use vibrato extensively, and its tuning is quite unlike the western 12-note octave which explains why to it can sound discordant to ears attuned to the scales of a piano.

         One of the pieces that Adrian sent me, a duet between Ry Cooder and Vishwa Mohan Bhatt from Jaipur, was called ‘A Meeting By The River’ and was so lovely I simply had to get the album of the same name which I’ve also been listening to this week. It sounds as if Bhatt is playing a sitar but in reality it’s an instrument of his own design, which he calls the Mohan Vina, a remodelled f-hole guitar on which a steel rod is used slide-style over what sounds to me like a much depressed alternative tuning. Cooder plays glass bottle neck on the four pieces, all of them spontaneous and lasting around 10 minutes each, occasionally straying into the territory he explored on the soundtrack to Paris, Texas, but more often playing runs that complement the Indian style music. Percussion is added by Cooder’s son, Joachim, on dumbek and Sukhwinder Singh Namdhari playing tabla.

A Meeting By The River is more Korma-ish than Vindaloo, but in some ways can serve as the perfect introduction to sitar music for those too hesitant to try it. It’s highly recommended as a pleasant and surprising change from the music I usually listen to and write about. 

THE WHO - Track Singles

Last month I was commissioned by Universal to write the notes that will appear in the booklet accompanying a forthcoming box set of 15 7-inch singles by The Who, all of them on Track Records. This follows on from a Brunswick Box containing eight singles (including ‘I’m The Face’ on Fontana), released at the beginning of April, and a soon to be released Reaction box with five discs.

              Here’s what I wrote about the first two Track singles, ‘Pictures Of Lily’ and ‘The Last Time’. More to follow.

A. Pictures Of Lily

Written by Pete Townshend. © 1967 Fabulous Music.

Produced by Kit Lambert.

B. Doctor Doctor

Written by John Entwistle. © 1967 Essex Music.

Produced by Kit Lambert.

Originally released as Track 604 002 on 21 April, 1967, it reached Number 4 in the British charts.

Recorded at Pye Studios, London, on April 5, 1967, ‘Pictures Of Lily’ was The Who’s first release on Track Records, established earlier in the year by their managers Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. Unlike many subsequent labels set up essentially as vanity projects by artists or their management, Track was a genuine independent label in search of fresh talent and its first signing, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, signalled their intention to seek out innovative new artists. Indeed, Hendrix recorded Track’s first hit, ‘Purple Haze’, which reached the UK charts in March 1967, beating The Who by one month. The much discussed rivalry between Hendrix and The Who was certainly exacerbated by their sharing a brand new pioneering record label headed by The Who’s own managers.

              ‘Lily’ sees Pete Townshend entering what John Entwistle sometimes referred to as The Who’s ‘blue’ period. Not to put too finer point on it, it features Pete’s observations on onanism, written from the point of view of a young lad whose father sympathises with his son’s raging hormones and offers relief in the form of soft-core pornography to hang on his bedroom wall. Naturally he falls in love with Lily, a scantily dressed pin-up, only to learn to his deep regret that she died long ago. Quite daring for its time, even today ‘Lily’ might generate a ban from sensitive radio stations and, on a quiet news day, a lurid headline in the prurient tabloid press. During the solo John steps forth on the French horn, which he played in a Boys’ Brigade band in his early teens.

              John: “It’s all about wanking... Townshend going through his sexual traumas – something that he did quite often. I suppose you could say this record represents our smutty period, or to be more refined, our blue period.”

              Keith Moon famously played a Premier drum kit adorned with pictures of ‘Lily’ who, judging from her demeanour, seems to have been abducted by The Who from a music hall in the Roaring Twenties.

              ‘Lily’ was a welcome addition to the set list for the ‘Who Hits 50’ tour in 2014 and 2015.

              Recorded at Ryemuse Sound, London, circa April 5-6, 1967, ‘Doctor Doctor’ continues what would become a Who tradition of John Entwistle B-sides on which his name was spelt incorrectly, with an ‘h’ after the ‘w’. In this, one of the bassist’s best ever sixties songs, the composer sings disconsolately about his various illnesses in a high-pitched voice to a lively rock melody. 

A: The Last Time

Written by Mick Jagger & Keith Richards. © 1965 Mirage Music.

No producer credited.

B: Under My Thumb

Written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. © 1965 Mirage Music.

No producer credited.

Originally released as Track 604 006 on 30 June, 1967, it reached Number 44 in the British charts.

Recorded as a gesture of support to Rolling Stones Mick Jagger and Keith Richards who between June 28-30 at Chichester Quarter Sessions were imprisoned briefly on drugs charges, The Who released these cover versions of two Stones songs while the trial was in progress. A cause célèbre of the day that pitched the hedonistic glamour boys of the counter-culture against the stuffy British Establishment, the issue was settled in part by a now legendary editorial in The Times newspaper in which Jagger’s fate was likened to “breaking a butterfly on a wheel”, a line borrowed from a 1735 poem by Alexander Pope.

              With remarkable swiftness, The Who and Kit Lambert recorded the two songs at De Lane Lea studios on June 28, with Pete playing bass because John was away on his honeymoon aboard the QEII. In a full-page advert published in the London Evening Standard they announced their intention to record Stones tracks until Mick and Keith were released “to keep their work before the public”. “It’s just a simple gesture,” said Lambert. “We are not trying to cash in at all. All royalties will go to charity.” Fortunately for all concerned, the errant Stones were sprung before The Who got around to recording any more.

              The Who’s version of ‘The Last Time’ is far from sloppy with clanging guitars, a chaotic solo and an upward key change towards the end but despite following the Stones’ arrangement almost note for note it lacks the menace of the original. They are better suited to the nimbler ‘Under My Thumb’, a song from the Stones’ notorious but short-lived misogynistic period in which The Who inject a touch of their own style, eschewing the catchy little riff in favour of acoustic rhythm, galloping bass and some Who-ish harmony vocals. Still, it was the thought that counted. 

LAMBERT & STAMP – The Managers’ Tale

Managing a rock group is not for the fainthearted and managing The Who was as arduous as it gets, calling for extreme measures in the face of many obstacles. These included a chronic cash-flow situation, profound ignorance of the workings of the music industry, the ever-present threat of the group imploding, a maniac for a drummer and a singer predisposed towards violence as a means to resolve disputes. Somehow, though, Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp kept The Who afloat during the key period of their career because deep down inside they knew that if the ship didn’t sink and take them with it, sooner or later they’d end up sailing it past the winning post. No sooner had they done so, however, than they walked the plank. 

          This is the theme of Lambert & Stamp, a film directed by James D. Cooper that was premiered last night at London’s newly opened and rather swish Regent Street Cinema. It’s a lengthy documentary, perhaps too long at 117 minutes, and its appeal rests largely with Who fans and students of the 'swinging’ sixties, so I can’t see it becoming much of a commercial success. Also, writing as someone who’s probably seen more footage of and about The Who than most, barring the new interviews done specifically for the film, there wasn’t much in the way of unseen vintage material. That said, there was still much to enjoy as the film shed further light on one of rock’s most tempestuous and unlikely partnerships, even if it did at times muddy an already murky pool.

          There are many versions of The Story Of The Who and this is yet another take on it, with subtle variations that can be attributed to Pete’s notorious tendency to embellish facts, Roger remembering things the way he prefers and Chris Stamp, who appears on screen more than all the rest put together, mostly in interviews conducted towards the end of his life, inclined to gloss over controversial issues. The most reliable witness interviewed at length is probably Richard Barnes, long term Who chronicler and Pete’s Ealing flatmate back in the day, who was promoting a High Numbers gig at the Railway Hotel in Harrow, most probably on July 14, 1964, when Kit Lambert showed up. At first Barnes thought he was a man from the local council come to check that the number inside didn’t exceed safety limits but once he realised Lambert’s true intention was to make a film of the group he duly bid him to enter, thus changing the lives of everyone concerned.

          In short order Lambert contacted his friend and business partner Stamp who was away filming in Ireland. They decided not only to make a film but to manage this group, quickly ousting His Modness Pete Meadon, a slightly under-the-counter ploy that is not mentioned in the film, thereafter setting about the task with relish. The Who believed Lambert and Stamp to be rich and influential – they were neither – and accepted them as brothers, effectively bringing the team’s core complement to six, and after many hair-raising escapades they triumphed. Success, however, rent the partnership asunder since for Lambert, and to a lesser extent Stamp, the mission had been accomplished and there was nothing left to do, neither being temperamentally suited to the dull but essential administrative duties involved in managing a successful rock group. Lambert also took umbrage at being side-lined from the Tommy movie but by then both had succumbed to the hedonistic lifestyle that riches had brought, leaving The Who’s affairs in the hands of others, mostly notably Bill Curbishley who has been at the helm since 1976, prudently handling all their business matters while consolidating their position and bank accounts.

          But everyone knows it might never have happened without Lambert and Stamp. The film opens with summaries of their contrasting backgrounds: Lambert, the posh son of a classical musician and music critic, public school and Oxford educated, cultured, plummy voiced, pleasure-seeking, unashamedly gay, immensely reckless; Stamp, the son of a stoker on Thames tugboats, working class, tough, a bit of a Casanova, highly imaginative, also something of a chancer and desperate for a life that would take him away from all this. They do say opposites attract.

          Having established the characters we move towards life with The Who, and here the film seems unsure of its purpose. Is it a documentary about Lambert and Stamp or (yet another) documentary about The Who? In fact it flits between the two, the first 25% L&S, the next 50% mostly The Who and the final 25% back with L&S. There’s plenty of previously seen live footage of The Who, snatches of songs up to and including Tommy, and footage of Lambert and Stamp in conversation at the Speakeasy club, all soundtracked by (mostly) Who music, not necessarily in chronological order according to the story on screen. Due space is given to the establishment of Track Records from whence the dynamic duo derived their fortunes, much of which Lambert squandered on maintaining a palace in Venice. Curiously, in the film the multilingual Lambert speaks more German and French than he does English, this no doubt because no decent footage of him being interviewed at length (in English) seems to exist, and, although he was unquestionably the dominant and most interesting figure in the partnership, his voice is therefore seldom heard. So Stamp, by virtue of having outlived him, now silver haired and wise after the event, is the star of the movie. Sadly he will never see it as he died in 2012, 31 years after Kit.

          There is a good deal of flattery. Stamp believes Townshend and Moon were both geniuses; Townshend states that John Entwistle was a musical genius and Daltrey a great actor who used this talent to become a great rock singer; Daltrey is unstinting in his praise for the efforts of both Lambert and Stamp, although it’s no secret that of all the members of The Who he was the most instrumental in jettisoning them back in 1975. Moon evidently wanted no part of this and made his feelings known. Entwistle barely gets a look in. But there’s a happy ending with Daltrey paying rich tribute to Lambert and Stamp from the stage during a fairly recent solo show and all three of them – Pete, Roger and Chris, along with Bill Curbishley – attending an event in Washington in 2008 when The Who were honoured for their services to music.

          Finally, the film is not without humour. The rumpy-pumpy with the ballerinas mentioned in Mark Blake’s book Pretend You’re in A War (via Andrew Loog Oldham’s book Stone Free) is referred to by Chris’ actor brother Terence Stamp, also interviewed on screen. Everyone agrees that Lambert chose to live in Eton Square because the address enabled him to get credit from banks and local merchants and Pete, who had a room at the same address for a while, says he was still able to get wine on credit long after he’d gone on the wagon in the eighties. Kit was a gambler, too. If the bank would only cash him a cheque for £30 he’d be off to a casino immediately, his thinking being that because this was insufficient for his needs the best course of action was to risk it on the roulette wheel since only then would he be able to trouser what he required, all assuming he won of course.

          Documentaries of persons who have passed on usually end with a note of this on screen but this one doesn’t. Perhaps the producers thought it was obvious. Either way, the film does offer another angle on a rock saga that continues to fascinate. And while it would be too much to suggest the destiny of The Who rested on the spin of the wheel at Kit’s casino, we can all be thankful that Barney didn’t send him packing that July night back in 1964.