A Doug's Life

Thanks A Lot Mr Kibblewhite - Rodger Daltrey, My Story

Written by Rodger Daltrey

If you're a fan of The Who you'll certainly like this read. It connects some dots regarding the timeline of the The Who's beginnings, Woodstock and of course the other guys - Townsend, Moon and Entwistle.

Some random quotes and passages:

"If you asked me to explain how a skinny little boy struggling to cope with his miserable life at school had the confidence to get up in front of an audience with a plywood guitar and perform, I couldn't begin to tell you. It was weird then and I still don't fully understand it now. But I survived and so did the guitar. Then, a week later, it folded in half. Bit of a design design flaw and a bit of a problem because I was now in a band. A skiffle group. I was in a skiffle group and my plywood guitar had given out after six weeks."

"A lot of bands split up because of imbalance. Or, worse, they end up in front of a judge arguing who wrote what when. It didn't' make huge difference to me. I have been a bit bothered over the years, not about the cash but about the acknowledgement. I made my contribution, I know what I added, and so it was hard reading criticisms of my vocals in the press. But that's life. Why wast time worrying about it? Instead, I just accepted it."

"In some ways, The Who by Numbers is my favorite album. I was our seventh studio album and I remember we didn't know what we were doing.
Pete just chucked a load of songs at me, I chose the ones I liked, and he was surprised by my selection. For me, the songs Imagine a Man, How Many Friends, and However Much I Booze expose our vulnerabilities and the album is wonderful for that. It's about inability in the bigger sense. I saw the lyrics and I thought, this has to be sung. If this can grab the ear of anyone of our age through this period of our lives, it will speak to them. And that's all I cared about."

"We didn't know it then, but this was us at the very height of our powers. When we picked up again in the early spring, Keith was in trouble. A couple of years after Kim had left him, he'd moved to California. He was out of reach. We had never been that close - we were friends, but we never mixed socially; it just wasn't part of our deal. That began to change when we were filming Tommy and then, when we were trying to get him home, we became much closer."