For two turbulent decades, Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle, Keith Moon and Pete Townshend went on a rock and roll rampage that would forever alter the course of rock music history.
Featuring a foreword by Roger Daltrey and former manager Chris Stamp, and with text by veteran Who biographers Andy Neill and Matt Kent, Anyway Anyhow Anywhere is the most dynamic and indispensable day-to-day chronicle of the band’s wild ride ever compiled.
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First published in paperback in Great Britain in 2005 by
Virgin Books Ltd
First published in hardback in Great Britain in 2002 by
Virgin Books Ltd
Published in the USA in 2005 by Sterling Publishing Inc.
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016.
Copyright © 2005 by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
The right of Andy Neill and Matt Kent to be identified as the Authors of this Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior written consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
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ISBN 978 0 7535 1217 3
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedications
Foreword
Introduction
1944 I’m a boy
1958–63 The kids are alright
1964 I’m the face if you want it
1965 My generation
1966 A legal matter
1967 I can see for miles
1968 Amazing journey
1969 Deaf, dumb and blind boy
1970 The seeker
1971 There once was a note
1972 Rock is dead… long live rock
1973 Four faces
1974 How many friends
1975 By numbers
1976 Goodbye all you punks
1977 Rough mix
1978 Not to be taken away
Discography
Concert index
Television and radio appearances
Picture Section
Acknowledgements
Copyright
FOR AN EPIC of such scale, a considerable amount of people have to be acknowledged, so without any further ado, we’d like to thank the following interviewees, listed here in alphabetical order:
Keith Altham, Rod Argent, Jon Astley, Mick Avory, Richard “Barney” Barnes, Joe Boyd, Mick Bratby, Vernon Brewer, Arthur Brown, John “Rabbit” Bundrick, John Burgess, Anya Butler, Peter “Dougal” Butler, Neville Chesters, Dave Clarke, Richard Cole, Bill Curbishley, Jeff Dexter, Mick Double, Robert Druce, Allen Ellett, Steve Ellis, Alison Entwistle, Mike Evans, Barry Fantoni, Bill Harrison, Tony Haslam, Jim Hubbard, Graham Hughes, Chris Huston, Glyn Johns, Billy Kinsley, Cy Langston, Nancy Lewis, Damon Lyon-Shaw, Jack “the Barber” Marks, Mike McInnerney,. John Mears, Deirdre Meehan, Gordon “Lurch” Molland, Chris Morphet, Billy Nicholls, Alan Oates, Andrew Oldham, Bob Pridden, Noel Redding, Tony Rivers, Peter Rudge, Doug Sandom, Roger Searle, John Sebastian, Mike Shaw, Jerry Shirley, “Legs” Larry Smith, Chris Stamp, Richard Stanley, Shel Talmy, Chris Townson, Peter Tree, Peter Vernon-Kell, Chris Welch, Vicki Wickham, John “Wiggy” Wolff, and Tom Wright.
Thanks also to the following for their help, information, and/or assistance (however major or minor) over the past five years:
2002 edition: Genero Alberto, Barry Appleby, Paul Atkinson, Mike Baess, Glenn A. Baker, Fred Bannister, Danny Barbour, Nick Bartlett, Sandy Baynes, Danny Betesch, Bob Bickford, Steve Binder, Denis Bowler, John Brett, Mike Brewer, Geoff Brown, Tony Brown, Chris Butler, Brian Cady, Laura Campbell (Trinifold Ltd.), Chris Charlesworth, Gordon Chilvers, Arthur Chisnall, Dave Clark, June Clark, Dave Clynch (MCPS), Glenn Cornick, Austin David, Andy Davis (Record Collector), Tim Derbyshire (On The Beat), Paul Derry (Who’s Wax), Mary Devereux, Barry Dickens, Jeff Docherty, Peter Doggett, Mark Donovan, Andrew Easterbrook (Twenty Twenty), Ruth Edge (EMI archives), Steve English, Richard Evans, B.P. Fallon, Dick Fiddy, Tony Fletcher, Pat Gilbert (Mojo), Nick Godison, Kenny Goodless, Richard Groothuizen (AVRO), Ross Halfin, Richard & Daphne Hamilton, Linda Haslam, Mark Hayward, Jesse Hector, John Hellier, Helter Skelter Bookshop Ltd. (Sean and Mike), Doug Hinman, Chris Hjort, Brian Hogg, Phil Hopkins (Generations), Gary & Melissa Hurley, Virginia Ironside, Keith Jackson, Colin Jones, Nick Jones, Tom Kaniewski (VH-1), Jon Keeble (ITC), Pat Kent, Tom Keylock, Justin Kreutzman, Max Ker-Seymer, Uve Klee, Eric Kuhlberg & Jon Paige (Universal Media), Mark Laff, Spencer Leigh, Robert Lemkin, Simon & Tony Lordan, Olle Lundin, Alan Mair, Mike Mansfield, Bryan Mason, Paul McEvoy, Joe McMichael, Doug McLauchlan, George McManus (Polydor), Alan & Susan McMullan, Barry Miles, Kenny Mundey, Peter Neal, Peter Norris, Clare Norton-Smith (BFI), Helen Oakley, Mandy O’Connor, Ian O’Sullivan (BFI), Don Paulsen, Mark Paytress, John Peel, John Perry, Dave Petersen, Ian Pickavance (Abbey Road), Trevor Poppell (LWT), Roger Powell, Raja Prem, Sarah Prosser (BFI), Marek Pytel, Terry Rawlings, John Reed, Jan Reynaert, Jim Rodford, Brad Rodgers, Robert Rosenberg (Trinifold), Gary & Peter Ross, Henry Scott-Irvine, Greg Shaw, Keith Smart, Russell Smith, Terry Smith, Paul Southeran, David Stark, Sandy Steel, Frans Steensma, Carl Stickley, Bob Strano, Reggy Tan, Veronica Taylor (BFI), Andrea Thompson (Trinifold), Ronald Thorp, Mark Tilson, Ralph & Cathy Titterton, Steve Tollivay (BFI), Ted Tuksa, Dave van Staveren, Hugh Wallace, Dana & Martin Wiffen, Richard Williams, Phil Windeatt (LWT), Birte Zwyko (Studio-Hamburg).
2005 edition: Alexander Budnyj, Brian Cady, Paul Feneron, Kim Fowley, Graham Goldwater, Tony Hole, Kevin Johansen, Phil King, Bernard Mattimore, Andy McKaie, Pete Nash, Luke Pacholski, David Peck, Glenn Povey, Mike Ross-Trevor, Roger Ruskin Spear, Harry Spooner, David Swartz, Jeff Walden (BBC Caversham), Mike Weighell, Richard Weiner, Rupert Williams.
We’d also like to express our appreciation to the group of talented and dedicated professionals whose hard work helped make this book a reality:
At Friedman/Fairfax – Kevin Baier, Chris Bain, Jeff Batzli, Betsy Beier, Richela Fabian Morgan, and Nathaniel Marunas. At Barnes & Noble – Steve Riggio. At SMAY Vision – Stan Stanski and Phil Yarnell.
Special thanks to Ed Hanel for preparing the discography, Keith Badman for assistance with BBC research, Mark Lewisohn for invaluable help and whose groundbreaking Beatles tomes were the touchstone for this book, the photographers featured herein, and lastly, but by no means least, Roger and Pete (and, in spirit, Keith and John), without whom…
IT NEVER CEASES to amaze me how four young prats (aren’t we all at that age?) with such diverse personalities ever came to be in the same band. To make matters worse, we were four megalomaniacs, with all the traumas, insecurities, and paranoia that make adolescence such a joy. Looking back on those years, what is so amazing, here at the pinnacle of our decline, is that the bond that connects us is stronger than ever. I always knew it was special. This was brought home to me when I was sacked from the band in 1965. It was then that I realised that this was the most important thing in my life. I’ve actually had it proven to me that music conquers all!
The Who were quirky from the start. The Beatles and the Stones were much more broad based, but we were individual, in a league of our own – distinctly British. We were the bloke’s band and thank God for that because they’ve stuck with us. They identified with the songs that Pete was writing from a bloke’s perspective. He was obviously making contact at a very deep level; it must have taken a lot of courage to write with such honesty.
We were in the spotlight, but the truth is that everyone involved with us from those early days was an important part of the jigsaw. Helmut Gorden kept us in a van for a year. Pete Meaden recognised the value of the Mod movement and got us noticed. Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp were the fifth and sixth members of the Who: Kit, with his outrageous behaviour and ideas on how to manipulate the media, and Chris, the expert in cool, menace, and scams! Their contribution to the band should never be underestimated, and neither should the input of our manager since the 1970s, Bill Curbishley.
One of my greatest frustrations with the Who was that we never really achieved our full potential in recorded sound. We had the songs, we had the talent – but our sound was too big for the grooves! If only 5.1 sound had been around in those days.
It hasn’t all been a bed of roses. We took casualties. Keith Moon’s death cast a giant shadow. What made it worse was that somehow we were expecting it. He was our funny bone and, as Pete has said, our alter ego. Although not here in body, his spirit still lives on in everything we do. Kit Lambert’s slow death through drugs and alcohol left a creative void, especially as far as Pete is concerned, which is very difficult to fill.
With all the shit that went down in the early years (and occasionally the latter ones!), for me, I’m never as happy in my life as I am when the Who are working. It’s the ultimate highlight; the inner feeling of purpose, struggle, success, and failure – all these things rolled into one. My other careers I enjoy, but it could never be the same. Maybe that’s why I like acting so much, because I go from one production to another searching for another Who – but of course there isn’t one.
A great deal of misinformed rubbish has been written about the Who. Yes, we had our differences – and still have. But it’s the differences that make it work. Thanks to Andy and Matt for making the effort to get it down as accurately and in as much detail as possible, talking to all the people that matter while we’re all still here and before senility sets in. A lot of it I didn’t know, a lot of it I’ve forgotten, but most of it reminds me just why the Who are the best fucking rock ’n’ roll band in the world.
DURING THE SUMMER of 1964 Kit Lambert and I were two young filmmakers looking for a rock group for our first independent film. Our idea was to find a group that somehow represented the emerging ideas of our time. They would be rebellious, anarchistic, and uniquely different from the established English pop scene. We would then manage them to success, all the while filming, cinema verité-style, all that happened. The film would be in stark contrast to the pop film fodder that existed at the time.
After interminable months of scouting ballrooms, clubs, and pubs, we saw the High Numbers. They brought into being what had only been in our minds, and more. We made a film called High Numbers, which amounted to a filmic good-bye to that name. New multimedia concepts emerged as Kit and I gave over our hearts, minds, and souls to our new roles as managers of the Who.
We were six very different people, but over the next ten years, our differences worked to our benefit. We sparked each other to reach into previously untapped parts of ourselves. Struggles became creative adventures. The powerful dynamics that held us together threatened to explode us apart at any moment. We stayed the course. Every idea was cheered or jeered until it was accepted by the group, and the more we trusted this process the more the creative centre grew. The united strength combined with the challenging weaknesses seemed to be in sync with the time we were living in. The success was sometimes more difficult to handle than the failure but we could always rely on the strength of the group.
It often felt like two worlds, the united, dynamic, creative struggle of the group that transcended everything and everyone, in contrast with the day-to-day reality of a rock ’n’ roll family system with its rivalries, fighting, and emotional growth.
The first few years were meteoric. Time seemed to speed up; emotional and psychic changes took place every day. These inner changes were soon manifested outwardly; even our appearances changed. As we wandered wide-eyed into the 1970s, the pace slowed down. New ideas were talked about more, as opposed to the spontaneity of the earlier happenings. Our adulthood was struggling with our youth.
With success came more money. At first the money fuelled creativity, but this soon fragmented into a search for luxury. This was fun for awhile, but became ultimately unfulfilling, a distraction from our real path. The centre began to weaken and some of us lost our grip. Over time, some of us became dependent on the strength of the group, while some of us fell away. My years with the force that is known as the Who were more than magnificent, they were about untethered love.
LIFE IS WHAT happens to you when you’re busy making other plans… So wrote John Lennon before his tragic death in December 1980. The line was to have an uncanny resonance as we prepared to launch the first (hardback) edition of this book in June 2002. With the unexpected resurgence of the Who during the new millennium, the publication and promotion of Anyway Anyhow Anywhere was tied in to the commencement of a full-scale American Who tour – some forty years after their humble orgins as the Detours.
Two weeks before the tour we had taken pride in showing the fruits of our labours to the appreciative band, who were rehearsing for the forthcoming trek at Pete Townshend’s Eel Pie studio complex in London. Not wanting to let the opportunity of a signed first edition slip by, we asked each of the three surviving band members for an inscription; they graciously complied. Laconic as ever, John Entwistle wrote in Andy’s copy: “Hope this has got a happy ending” – words that would become eerily poignant in light of the news that reached us on 27 June 2002.
“What we have lost,” Roger Daltrey wrote in tribute to John on the Who’s official website, “is a unique individual, both as a human being and a musician. He transformed the bass guitar into something way beyond anything that it was originally designed for. On his way he inspired many budding musicians to turn the bass into a lead instrument, and though he was often copied, he was never equaled.” We both heartily concur and dedicate this new edition to John’s memory. He was most giving of his time to us, and his generosity and patience with the most trivial probing for the book helped to unravel new information as well as clear up a few Who myths along the way.
On a brighter note, the success of Anyway Anyhow Anywhere (both aesthetically and commercially) was a welcome surprise to us both. Since the book’s initial publication, a welter of additional and corrected information gleaned from new research and various sources (who have been thanked in the acknowledgments) has resulted in this updated volume. Many Who fans enquired as to whether we would consider bringing the band’s history beyond Keith Moon’s death in 1978, up to the present day. By mutual agreement we felt that the Who’s true legacy lies within the period covered (although we’ll be happy to be proven wrong by the band’s forthcoming studio album – their first in twenty-three years!). Besides, to cover an additional twenty-five years, the volume you hold would need its own bookshelf!
To all who bought the original, we offer a big thanks and hope that there’s enough new material herein to justify a second buy. To those coming to this book afresh, if it makes the Who’s sometimes convoluted history clearer, or alerts a new convert to that inimitable “power and volume,” then it will all have been worthwhile.
WHO, WHAT, WHERE, when, and more importantly, why? In 1971, the first Who-related biography was published. Since then, a plethora of titles about the band have hit the shelves, several authorised, the bulk not, and most containing factual inconsistencies relating to the Who’s lengthy career. The idea for a definitive tome initially sprang from that void.
As fans of the group since the early 70’s, we were both hopeful of seeing such a volume appear during our lifetimes. When it failed to materialise, it seemed the maxim “if you want something done properly…” was going to apply.
Before commencing the gargantuan amount of work required for such an undertaking, an approach was made in 1997 to Bill Curbishley, the Who’s manager, to gauge whether the band would object to an in-depth chronicling of Who history. After consulting each respective individual, Curbishley gave his approval by stating, “At last, I’m looking forward to reading a factually accurate account of the Who’s history.” Work began in earnest in April 1997.
While God may have created the earth in seven days, it soon became apparent that this endeavour was to take a little longer!
During the course of our research, we were fortunate to be given access to various official archives, many of which had not been exhumed or examined in more than thirty years. This in turn led us to many of the connected individuals, some of whom had not previously spoken about their association with the Who.
As for John, Pete, and Roger, they have helped in varying degrees to either confirm, deny, or (occasionally) confuse different issues. However, without their input, for which we are indebted, there would be several unresolved holes in the book you now hold. In most instances, all quotes contained within were given directly to the authors, unless otherwise stated. We apologise to any sources that remain uncredited. Inevitably, inaccuracies are prone to arise when relying on memories of events that took place up to four decades ago. The information provided herein has been cross-checked as much as humanly possible, but we accept the possibility that there are errors. (Nobody’s perfect, least of all us.)
The Who continue to sporadically function as a working unit, but this reference work steadfastly concentrates on the period up to Keith Moon’s death in 1978, when the band comprised four original components. Throughout the 80’s and beyond, the Who’s reputation suffered as the result of lucrative “reunion” tours and record company indifference. Now, at the time of this writing, thanks to the advent of Britpop and grunge (in which their influence is tangible), exposure gained through films and television, and recent faith-affirming live shows, the Who have reached a new generation. Their reputation as the greatest live act has been firmly re-established.
In closing, we both hope this book aids in enhancing the enjoyment of the Who’s timeless music because ultimately, that’s what it’s all about. And to those who kept asking “Where’s the book?” here it is, finally!
This book chronicles the Who’s public activities from their West London beginnings as the Detours to Keith Moon’s demise in 1978 and the end of the Who as they are best known. As stated in the introduction, it is as exhaustive as human endeavour (and space) will allow – an absolute document remains out of reach.
Unlike peers such as the Beatles, Bob Dylan, or the Rolling Stones, the minutiae of the Who’s activities were never reported with the same degree of detail or fascination. This is particularly true of the group’s early incarnations, where frustratingly large amounts of information from 1961 to 1964 sadly appears lost to the passage of time. However, a considerable wealth of new information from those years is presented here for the first time.
Basically, all known concerts, radio and television broadcasts, recording activities, and record release dates by the group and its individual members are presented in chronological order, using the British configuration of day, month, year.
For the most part, a concert is defined here as a live performance in front of a paying audience. Early engagements where the group were booked at private functions are documented where known, as are specially arranged concerts such as the Young Vic experiments (1970/71), Portsmouth (22/5/74), Kilburn (15/12/77), and Shepperton (25/5/78). Because these were essentially closed events, they have been excluded from the “Who Concerts” appendix.
Similarly, impromptu jam sessions involving band members have been excluded, as most went unreported. However, those that occurred at billed shows (e.g., the Beach Boys on 12/11/70) have been included. Concerts that were booked or advertised in advance but were subsequently either cancelled or rescheduled, have been duly noted under “Engagements Not Played” in the same appendix.
For a more in-depth examination of the Who’s live performances, the authors recommend The Who Concert File by Joe McMichael and “Irish” Jack Lyons (Omnibus Press, 1997; updated edition 2004) as a companion volume.
These appearances are defined as engagements for the purposes of radio/television broadcasts (either live or recorded for subsequent transmission) or a promo/feature film. These include all principal U.K. and U.S. media appearances by the group as individuals up to September 1978, though this list remains illustrative, not exhaustive.
Local radio and TV coverage have been excluded due to the sheer impossibility of chronicling all the appearances in detail, particularly in the United States, where minor press interviews were given in most cities and states. The odd exception, such as Look North (6/11/73), has been included due to surrounding circumstances. The transmission dates and times relate to the relevant region, though different broadcasters may have aired a particular programme at different times or dates.
These activities are defined as recording and/or mixing sessions involving the group or its individual members. Unfortunately, the Who’s work in the studio was not documented as thoroughly, for example, as the Beatles’ work at Abbey Road. Because the Who weren’t tied to an organisation like EMI, where all work had to be accounted for (ironically, written records of the Who’s audition for this very company cannot be found!), the group utilised a number of independent studios around London and, in the odd instance, the United States. Details of take numbers, overdubs, etc., remain vague and often non-existent. A producer like Kit Lambert was more intent on capturing a definitive performance than keeping administrative records. Therefore, many of the studio references are based upon limited information from personal diaries, written sources, and the Who’s official tape archive.
In some cases, a date written on a tape box may refer to the actual mixing (i.e., when the recording in question was mixed down from a multitrack tape for the purposes of acetate cutting, tape copying, and/or mastering).
From the outset of the Who’s career, Pete Townshend recorded demonstration tapes, usually at his home studios, as a means of presenting material for group consideration. To a lesser degree, so did John Entwistle. Because no specific details, i.e. precise recording dates, are available in the main for this type of material, they are not listed in the book.
Many of the Who’s concert appearances were illicitly recorded by spectators on basic audio and visual equipment, leading to a thriving circulation of illegal “bootleg” tapes, records, videos, CDs and DVDs over the years. This book details only legal activities, unless the film or tape in question was subsequently integrated into an authorised venture (e.g., the Cow Palace footage from 20/11/73) or has a specific historic importance (e.g., the first U.S. Tommy performance on 9/5/69).
A thorough examination of the Who’s private affairs is beyond the scope of this book, but slotted between the group’s hectic professional career is a public log of births, deaths, marriages, divorces, court cases, and the like. Once again, this part of the work is illustrative, not exhaustive.
ROGER HARRY DALTREY was born at Hammersmith Hospital, East Acton, West London, on 1 March 1944, during a heavy World War II bombing raid. Both parents were staunchly working class. His father Harry worked as an insurance clerk, while mother Irene (maiden name: Stone) was a sickness beneficiary due to losing a kidney and contracting polio prior to Roger’s birth.
When Harry was drafted overseas in the war effort, Irene and her three-month-old baby were evacuated to a farm in Scotland to escape the “doodlebugs” discharging their devastating bombs across London. With the end of the war, the family was reunited back at 15 Percy Road, Shepherd’s Bush. Roger’s sisters, Gillian and Carol, were born in 1946 and 1947 respectively.
When Roger was twelve, the Daltreys moved to 135 Fielding Road, Bedford Park, part of the more affluent suburb of neighbouring Acton. Having passed the all-important 11-plus examination at Victoria Junior Boys School, Shepherd’s Bush, Roger attended Acton County School, situated on Gunnersbury Lane, near Acton Town station.
Initially promising as a student, Roger’s Cockney accent and street attitude stood out among the more refined pupils. Consequently, any thoughts of scholastic achievement were abandoned by the rebellious lad dressed in Teddy Boy threads. Besides, the invigorating sounds of early rock and roll and skiffle had reached his impressionable teenage ears.
Unable to afford a proper guitar and inspired by skiffle’s do-it-yourself raison d’être, Roger made his own acoustic model, carving the body from a solid piece of plywood with his father’s tools. (In much the same fashion, he went on to design the Who’s early guitars, which Pete Townshend remembered as being “quite good except the necks kept folding up.”) With a group of local lads, Roger formed the Sulgrave Rebels, so named because they were members of the Sulgrave Boys’ Club on Sulgrave Road, Shepherd’s Bush.
Roger’s skiffle group came first in a local talent contest, winning £10 worth of record vouchers-a hollow victory, as none of the band members owned a record player.
Audible sighs of relief were no doubt heard in the staff room at Acton County Grammar when the disruptive fifteen-year-old was expelled, ostensibly for being caught smoking in the lavatories. His despairing parents packed him off to his first job as a £2-a-week electrician’s mate on a South Acton building site.
Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend was born on 19 May 1945 – eleven days after the German surrender in Europe – at Chiswick Hospital, Chiswick, Middlesex.
He arrived into a musical family. Pete’s grandfather Horace had performed in the Jack Shepherd concert revue. His parents, Clifford and Betty (maiden name: Dennis), were part of the RAF dance orchestra, later known as the Squadronaires and regarded as Britain’s most popular showband. Clifford was alto saxophonist and star-billed as “Cliff Townshend and His Singing Saxophone.” Betty had sung with the Sidney Torch Orchestra. After the war, Cliff continued playing with the Squadronaires, and at the age of only thirteen months, Pete first saw his father perform during a summer season at Butlin’s Holiday Camp, Clacton.
While on holiday on the Isle of Man, he met a performing Texan cowboy. “He promised me a harmonica, which I never got,” Pete recalled, “and in the end I think I had to shoplift one a couple of years later.” With both parents absent for long periods, the five-year-old was uprooted from the family home at 22 Whitehall Gardens, Acton, and spent approximately a year living in Westgate-on-Sea, Kent, with his maternal grandmother, Denny.
The Townshend family resettled into a large house at 20 Woodgrange Avenue, off Ealing Common. Pete’s younger brothers, Paul and Simon, were born in 1957 and 1960 respectively. Surprisingly, there was little music to be heard around the household, “apart from my dad practising clarinet in the back room,” said Pete. “We didn’t have a very good record player, and we had a shitty radio, and there was no piano in the house.”
While a pupil at Berrymede Junior School, South Acton, Pete sang in the local choir. An auntie encouraged him to learn piano, but it wasn’t until the summer of 1956 that his musical aspirations coalesced. On 28 July, during a Squadronaires’ season on the Isle of Man, Cliff took Pete and his childhood chum, Graham “Jimpy” Beard, along to a Saturday morning preview of Rock Around The Clock at the Gaiety Theatre, Douglas. “Rock Around The Clock did it for me,” Pete told Richard Green. “I hadn’t been into rock and roll before that. After a while, I decided the guitar was what I wanted.”
First, however, Pete went through a brief period of trying to follow in his father’s footsteps as a saxophonist. Watching his red-faced son struggle unsuccessfully to get a note out of a reed, Cliff suggested what was then his second instrument: the guitar. At twelve, Denny bought Pete his first woefully inadequate model as a Christmas present. He spent a year struggling with it before conceding defeat. Temporarily abandoning the guitar and rock and roll, Pete got a five-string mandolin banjo from a friend of his father’s, and in the mold of Acker Bilk, learned to play trad jazz and bluegrass.
John Alec Entwistle was born at Hammersmith Hospital, East Acton, on 9 October 1944. His father Herbert was in the Royal Navy, and mother Maud (maiden name: Lee), known to all as “Queenie,” worked as a tax clerk. An only child, John’s parents separated when he was just eighteen months. Maud took John to live with his grandparents at 81a Southfield Road, South Acton, where he was raised. Although broken homes were not uncommon in immediate post-war Britain, this early displacement undoubtedly contributed to John’s reserved nature.
Herbert taught John trumpet, and thanks to his mother making him take piano lessons (under considerable duress), he was able to read music from the age of seven. The lad made his first public appearance in the Boys’ Brigade at Hendon Town Hall at age eleven. With a surfeit of trumpet players already in the school orchestra, John took up the less glamorous French horn, joining the 90-member Middlesex Schools’ Symphony Orchestra for two years as lead horn player.
At twelve, John met fellow student and struggling banjo player Peter Townshend at Acton County School. Both shared a similar sense of humour and a liking for traditional Dixieland jazz, which was unusually popular in the area. Together, they attended gigs by the likes of Acker Bilk, Cy Laurie and Ken Colyer at the Chiswick Jazz Club, which hosted trad sessions every Sunday evening.
John invited Pete to join his band, the Confederates, featuring schoolmates Phil Rhodes on clarinet and Chris Sherwin on drums. “I’d been buggering about for two years on guitar without getting anywhere,” Townshend told Richard Green in New Musical Express. “I knew they expected me to play, so I rushed out and got a chord book. They were fairly impressed, which I couldn’t work out. Perhaps they thought if you could play three chords, you could play the rest!”
Keith John Moon was born at Central Middlesex County Hospital, Park Royal, North West London, on 23 August 1946. He was raised at 224 Tokyngton Avenue, Wembley, by his father Alfred, a motor mechanic, and mother Kathleen or “Kitty” (maiden name: Hopley), a part-time domestic cleaner. Keith’s two sisters, Linda and Lesley, were born in 1949 and 1958 respectively. By the early ‘50s, the Moon family had moved to 134 Chaplin Road, Wembley.
At nearby Barham Primary School, Keith was already displaying extrovert tendencies: he was a hyperactive boy with a restless imagination. In 1957, after failing the 11-plus, he attended Alperton Secondary School For Boys. However, schoolwork came a poor second to the antics that reduced his teachers to fits of apoplexy but had his classmates in stitches (which to Keith was far more important).
Alongside an early interest in boxing, Keith’s musical rumblings began at twelve, when he joined the local Barham Sea Cadets, blowing a bugle one week, a trumpet the next. This in turn led to the acquisition of a bass drum. At sixteen, he received his first proper kit, a £25 pearl blue Premier kit, with help from his father, Alfie, who signed the hire purchase forms. Practice sessions in the family sitting room became a regular endurance test for the neighbours.
The cocky teenager received some tutelage from local hero Carlo Little, of Screaming Lord Sutch’s backing group, the Savages; the rest he picked up from watching and listening to other skinsmen. In a 1971 interview, Moon claimed his main influences to be DJ Fontana, Ringo Starr, and Tony Meehan (the Shadows’ original drummer), choosing them over jazzers like Elvin Jones or Buddy Rich. Still, Shelly Manne and the visually flamboyant style of Gene Krupa, who singlehandedly turned the drums into a solo instrument, were undoubtedly important inspirations.
Keith sat in with a succession of Wembley groups, including schoolmates’ combos the Altones and the Escorts, before joining his first serious group, Mark Twain and the Strangers, featuring singer Peter Tree, guitarist Barry Foskett, and bassist Michael Evans. Tree and Evans had answered an ad in Melody Maker. “It was for a singer,” recalled Evans, “but we used that as a ruse to find ourselves a drummer. This audition was being held in somebody’s front room up in Rickmansworth, and there was Keith behind the drums. I thought this kid’s young, but then he started playing… Peter asked me, ‘Well, what do you think?’ I said, ‘If you can get hold of that drummer, I’ll join a band with you!’”
Foskett found a rehearsal hall in East Hill, Wandsworth, South West London, where the group rehearsed twice a week for the usual round of pubs, dances, and functions. At fifteen, Keith left Harrow Technical College and was employed briefly in the printing room at the National Council of Social Services in Bedford Square. As well as recording a demo tape, Mark Twain and the Strangers auditioned for the Light Programme at the BBC’s studio at 201 Piccadilly on 5 September 1962. Unfortunately, they were passed over in favour of a Tottenham combo, the Dave Clark Five.
The group were offered six months’ work playing U.S. Army bases around West Germany, but Keith’s age precluded him from going and Mark Twain and the Strangers eventually disbanded. Keith then unsuccessfully auditioned for Shane Fenton and the Fentones (future Hollies drummer, Bobby Elliott got the gig), before answering an ad placed in the Harrow Observer, dated 25 April 1963. The Beachcombers were a semi-professional outfit from Wembley, comprised of Ron Chenery (a.k.a. Clyde Burns) on vocals, Norman Mitchener on lead guitar, John Schollar on rhythm guitar, and Tony Brind on bass.
At the time, Keith was holding down a day job as a trainee electrician at a government sponsored firm, Ultra Electronics. “That was the first of twenty-three jobs I started within two years,” he recalled years later to the Daily Express’ Judith Simons in typically exaggerated fashion. “With my knowledge and personality, I was always considered ‘management material.’”
ON SATURDAY, 6 December 1958, the Congregational Church Hall on Churchfield Road, Acton, opened a “Youth Club” each Thursday and Saturday, known as the “Congo Club.” Each night, local amateur skiffle and trad jazz hopefuls could attack their favourite Lonnie Donegan or Acker Bilk tunes (or at least the ones they could play) in a mighty bid for the sometimes embarrassingly scant audiences’ attention.
It was such a night, during the summer of 1959, that Acton County School pupils, John Entwistle and Pete Townshend, made their first public appearance together as part of the Confederates. Pete, for one, was nervous. “We stood up there with about five people in the room, and I really blushed,” he told Richard Green. “It was the only time in my whole life that I’ve been nervous on a stage.”
With the Confederates in a constant state of flux, John was lured off to a rival trad band. Pete was ostracised after a violent altercation with drummer Chris Sherwin, and subsequently diverted his attentions away from the banjo to the £3 Czechoslovakian acoustic guitar he had acquired from his parents’ antique shop, “Miscellania,” on Ealing Common. Thanks to Bert Weedon’s Play In A Day Guitar Guide, Britain was starting to produce its own indigenous (albeit watered down) version of American rock and roll.
In 1958, Cliff Richard scored with “Move It,” the first bona fide, British rock and roll single. Townshend was impressed with the song’s distinctive guitar work and became an admirer of Hank Marvin, guitarist in Cliff’s backing group the Drifters, renamed in 1959 as the Shadows. The withdrawn fourteen-year-old was acutely aware of the large proboscis that was making his adolescence hellish. “This seemed to be the biggest thing in my life; my fucking nose, man,” Pete told Rolling Stone’s Jann Wenner in 1968. “It was the reason I did everything. It’s the reason I played guitar – because of my nose…”
After flirting briefly with the guitar, John Entwistle had discovered the electric bass, inspired by the “twanging” sound and bass string solos of Duane Eddy. “I was playing trumpet in a dance band, playing at interesting venues like Joe Lyons and social clubs,” he told Tony Jasper. “I was quite interested in the guitar in the band, but the guitarist kept breaking strings. I think he must have tuned it wrong. Anyway, I had a guitar-playing friend who had made his own amp, and he wanted me to join him in a group playing trumpet. When we got together, he was louder than me, so I thought I’d better enquire into this guitar thing! I looked at 6-strings, but I found bass was much easier – mainly because the strings are further apart. There were only two or three you could buy in England in those days, Tuxedo, Star and Lucky 7, and they were all too expensive. I wanted a Fender, but they just weren’t available. I think Jet Harris of the Shadows was the only person who had one then.”
Ever practical, John, like Roger, resolved to build his own. “I had one made up, same sort of shape, but not really very good. It had a great, square-backed neck, just glued on to the body. One day when I was playing it, the glue gave out and I had an instant four-string harp!” He replaced it with a similar, cheaply-made model that Townshend remembered as sounding “pretty good,” although Entwistle’s estimation of “diabolical” was probably more likely.
John and Pete played together in groups like the Aristocrats and the Scorpions, formed by guitarist Pete Wilson and drummer Mick Brown. “Mick had a tape recorder, a rare possession for such a young man in those days,” Townshend wrote on his website in 2004. “We used to make up plays, comedies, like we heard on BBC radio. One day Mick recorded me playing [The Shadows’] ‘Man Of Mystery’ solo on an acoustic guitar… I heard myself as a real musician for the first time.” The Scorpions rarely ventured out of their East Acton practices, although a second ill-rehearsed gig did occur at the Congo Club sometime in the early part of 1960. “The Congo wasn’t just a place where we got together and entertained the troops, as it were,” Pete recalled to Richard Green. “There was a lot of violence and sex and stuff going on… We played Shadows numbers, which must be the cliché story, but that’s the way it was… There just weren’t any other groups around. I was terribly happy with it, people quite liked us, and it was incredibly exciting when we appeared in front of an audience. It gave me a new confidence… I was getting into the guitar and it became an obsession.”
Meanwhile, sixteen-year-old Roger Daltrey was busy playing lead guitar with his group, the Detours, in between graduating from tea boy to apprentice sheet metal worker at Chase Products Ltd, 27 Packington Road, South Acton. Daltrey met John Entwistle carrying his homemade bass, with girlfriend Alison Wise lugging his amplifier, as they returned from a Scorpions rehearsal to the Entwistle residence on Southfield Road. “I remember Roger said, ‘I hear you play bass,’” said John, “which I thought was funny considering I was carrying one without a case!”
Roger casually invited John to a rehearsal being held the following week at drummer Harry Wilson’s house at 21 Yew Tree Road, Shepherd’s Bush. Entwistle knew of the Detours, but was wary of Daltrey’s Teddy Boy reputation, which preceded him from the year above at Acton County School. “Roger told me they had some gigs coming up, which was a lie, and that they were making money, which was a lie, but I went along to the rehearsal anyway.” Afterwards, Daltrey enquired of John, “Do you think we’re any good?” Entwistle decided there was nothing to lose by leaving the Scorpions (and Pete) to throw in his lot with the Detours, joining during the summer of 1961.
By the turn of 1962, Del Angelo and his Detours comprised Roger, John, Harry Wilson, rhythm guitarists Peter James and Roy Ellis, and vocalist Colin Dawson, who presumably appropriated the name Del as a tribute to Del Shannon and Angelo from his girlfriend Angela Dives, who later set up the Detours’ local fan club. On 15 January, a typewritten application form to the BBC requesting a Light Entertainment radio audition confirmed Daltrey as leader, with the band’s music described as “Rock (Ballards) [sic].” In the section asking for details of the group’s last three engagements was listed: “Coach outing, Lakers Hotel, Redhill, Surrey; Rootes (Social), Barlby Road, W10; Conservative Club, Brixston [sic].”
The BBC turned the group down on 2 February, citing “insufficient experience,” and a rejection letter was dispatched to Wilson’s address five days later. Shortly after, Peter James was replaced by Reg Bowen, whose family home was used for band rehearsals. “I didn’t have an amp,” Entwistle recalled, “so I used to plug into his radiogram.” Roy Ellis, whose inclusion in the Detours had been largely justified by his owning an expensive Vox 15s amplifier, tragically drowned while swimming in the Thames, at Chertsey, on 30 July. After six months, with Bowen’s abilities as a rhythm player limited at best (“he only knew three chords,” according to Entwistle), John pitched his friend Pete Townshend as a replacement.
Daltrey had originally invited the gangling youth – “a nose on a stick,” as he remembered Townshend – to join the Detours when the two met on the stairs at Acton County School the year before. Pete owned a Harmony single pickup Stratocruiser guitar, which he’d sprayed red, and was won over by John’s promise of the use of Ellis’ Vox amp, which the group had inherited. “What I didn’t tell him was he’d be sharing with Roger,” said Entwistle. “Meanwhile, I was plugged into the other AC15 with the PA!”
With Bowen’s house now unavailable for rehearsals, the amateur group resorted to subterfuge. While Daltrey’s parents were out for the evening, their bed would be pushed against the wall, allowing space for a few hours of illicit band practice in the front room. Like any other aspiring combo of the period, the Detours’ repertoire included an all-encompassing mix of Shadows and Ventures instrumentals, current pop hits, and even trad jazz, featuring Pete on banjo, John on trumpet, and Roger blowing trombone.
“It became a good social thing,” Pete told Richard Green. “The drummer’s father ran us about in his Dormobile, and we got a lot of seaside gigs. We did an audition at Peckham Paradise Club for £7 a night, which we thought was very good.”
Roger had chanced upon drummer Doug Sandom, from South Acton, outside a rehearsal hall on Beaumont Road. At twenty-six, Sandom was some eight years older than Daltrey – a fact he swiftly concealed by knocking several years off his age. He was also married, with a child on the way. However, these deficiencies were overlooked in recognition of his proficiency and experience; he had played semi-pro for the past two years. “Dougie” first met his future bandmates outside Acton Town Hall, as they waited for the Dormobile to deliver them to the Paradise, where he “sat in” on certain numbers. While Harry Wilson and his father were conveniently away on holiday, Sandom joined the Detours as their permanent drummer during the summer of 1962.
The Detours were indistinguishable from any other Shadows-influenced band in the area, performing in matching suits, with Colin Dawson crooning à la Cliff Richard in a dapper navy blue blazer and light grey slacks. Operating without a manager, the group relied largely on word-of-mouth for bookings, although one useful source for engagements was through John’s girlfriend, Alison, who trained as a secretary at the large CAV engineering company at Warple Way, Acton. The company frequently held socials at the firm’s sports ground in Northolt and at the CAV Social Club, Chiswick, West London. As well as these, the Detours played several socials for the North Acton company Dubilier Condenser Co. Ltd. and secured at least three Sunday night engagements at the Ealing Jewish Youth Club, 15 Grange Road, thanks to Harry Wilson’s father’s connections with the owner Richard Goldwater.
Between the whirl of youth clubs, weddings, and company dances, Dawson was a sales rep for a Danish bacon company, Sandom a bricklayer for a joinery firm, and Daltrey still earning £7 a week at the sheet metal factory. “I used to get up at eight o’clock, work in the factory until six o’clock at night, and then the group from seven till midnight,” Roger recalled.
At the age of sixteen, John and Pete left Acton County School, John to start work as a trainee tax officer for the Inland Revenue at its Bromyard Avenue office, East Acton. “I had a choice when I left school of either going to art school or music school,” he remembered, “but there was some trouble from my family about the music thing, and I didn’t particularly want to go to art school. So my mother got me a job at the tax office, where at least I was starting to earn money.”
In September 1961, Pete started a two-year introductory course at Ealing Technical College & School of Art, on St. Mary’s Road. His mother, Betty, solved the Detours’ eternal transport problem by driving their equipment to gigs in the yellow Ford van used for her antiques business. The group would then travel separately by train, or if this proved impractical, they would squeeze uncomfortably into the back of the van. After each show Pete would load and unload the gear in and out of the Townshend home.
As well as providing wheels, Betty was adept at procuring work by calling in favours with various contacts in the business. She arranged several important auditions on the Detour’s behalf, the first at the Castle Hill Hotel, Richmond. After reading of his successful dances at Acton’s White Hart Hotel in the Ealing and Acton Gazette (dated 9 August ‘62), Betty hustled an audition through sheer persistence with local promoter Robert Druce at the Oldfield Hotel, 1089 Greenford Road, Greenford.
Druce ran Commercial Entertainments Ltd. with partner Barry Foran from his home at 58 Abbotts Drive, North Wembley, and was responsible for booking exclusive “Club Druane” dances around a widespread pub circuit. On any given night, one could catch his stable of bands, including Peter Nelson and the Travellers, Bobby King and the Sabres, the Images, the Corvettes, the Riversiders, the Presidents, the Federals, and the Bel-Airs, gigging in the hall’s adjoining pubs like the White Hart, 264 High Street, Acton, as well as at the Goldhawk Social Club, 205 Goldhawk Road, Shepherd’s Bush. Druce also ran promotions further afield-in the West End at the Notre Dame Hall, Leicester Place, and in South London at St. Mary’s Ballroom, Hotham Road, Putney, and the Glenlyn Ballroom Dance Club, 15a Perry Vale, Forest Hill.