Daltrey Roger - Roger Daltrey : the biography

Published by Hachette Digital

ISBN: 978-1-405518-45-1

Copyright 2004 by Tim Ewbank and Stafford Hildred

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

Hachette Digital
Little, Brown Book Group
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London, EC4Y 0DY

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Tim: To my mother Joy, Emma and Oliver
Stafford: To Janet, Claire and Rebecca

The authors wish to express their deep gratitude to the many individuals who have made this book possible. Heartfelt thanks go to all those who have figured in Roger Daltreys life who agreed to be interviewed for this book.

For their co-operation, help and encouragement, special thanks go to: Geoff Baker; Dave and Sue Batchelor; John Blake; Jay Bowers; Dana Brook; Alan Brooke; Mel and Ruth Chapman; Tom and Mags Condon; Keith Cronshaw; Carrie Davies at the Halfmoon, Putney; Richard Dawes; John and Wendy Dickinson; Ingrid Dodd; Ian Dowell; Karen Dunn; Alan Durrant; Ken Eastaugh; Jane Ennis; the late John Entwistle; Bill Eve; Carole Anne Ferris; Peter and Janet Garner; Phillip Garrahan; Rod and Joy Gilchrist; David and Sally Gritten; Don Hale; Richard Hall; Philip and Ann Hammond; Jim and Jorma Hampshire of Canterbury Rock; The History Channel; Kathryn Holcombe; Lorinda Holness; Mike Hope; Jerry Johns; Allan Jones, editor of Uncut; Paula Jones; Selina Julien; Pat and Nick Justice; Fergus Kelly; Barry Kernon; Alan Kingston; Simon Kinnersley; Fiona Knight; the late Kit Lambert; Ray and Janet Lewis; Moira Marr; Bryan and Vicki Marshall; Fraser Massey; Ian McLagan; Charles McCutcheon; Joanna Mitchell; the late Keith Moon; Neal Moyse; Barry Munslow; Garth and Davina Pearce; Sean and Debbie Pouley; Keith Richmond; Ken Russell; Alison Sturgeon; Freda Tallantyre; Alistair Taylor; Teenage Cancer Trust; Alison and Paul Tissington; Lynn Trunley-Smith; Francis White of The Rollin Stoned and Lesley White.

The authors would like to acknowledge as important sources:

Guitar World; Sound International; Womans Own; VH1; Q Magazine; Rolling Stone; The Sun; News of the World; Daily Mirror; Daily Mail; Daily Express; New Musical Express; Melody Maker; Goldmine; Los Angeles Times; Now; Simon Goddards Uncut interviews; Before I Get Old - The Story of The Who by Dave Marsh; and The Kids Are Alright DVD.

Special thanks to the irrepressible Alasdair Riley for his generous access to the late Kit Lamberts personal recollections.

Tim Ewbank would especially like to thank Keith Altham for his invaluable insights, and for his tickets to two concerts by The Who at their peak which will always live in the memory. Tim also wishes to thank his guitar teacher Rob Urbino for his exceptional knowledge and enthusiasm, and his encouragement to try a few of Pete Townshends power chords.

Look at me. Im a funny little geezer, really. Skinny. Only five feet seven inches. Bow legs and a lopsided walk. But I was born with a star presence. Thats an indefinable quality, but Ive got it.

Roger Daltrey

The long queue snaking around the side of the building in Londons Charing Cross Road tells its own story. The venue is the Mean Fiddler and the event is a London convention for fans of The Who. Two members of the band, Keith Moon and John Entwistle, are both dead, but the message for the assembled fans is that Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and The Who live on.

Its exactly 40 years since Townshend delivered his short, sharp, three-chord shock as The Whos opening salvo on disc. Four decades have passed since Roger Daltrey sang Townshends words of teenage angst and inarticulate frustration for that first record I Cant Explain.

Once inside the Mean Fiddler, its like a flashback in time. On the walls are posters from decades ago advertising upcoming concerts by The Who, Townshend pictured with trademark armupraised on high over his guitar. Specially erected monitors are screening vintage, possibly bootleg, footage of the band, filmed adoringly by some fan, showing Roger cockily strutting the stage swinging his microphone lead as though about to lasso a steer.

In one corner of the club bidding has started for a rare copy of Ready Steady Who!, an EP issued on 11 November 1966. Its cover picture shows four very young musicians, Roger looking almost angelic, piercing blue eyes gazing out under golden hair combed forward Beatles-style. Two of the tracks are Bucket T and Barbara Ann, recorded as sops to the musical tastes of Keith Moon, The Whos long-dead, lamented, demonic drummer, a fanatical devotee of Californias surf sounds of the 1960s.

At another table fans are jostling for prospective purchases of concert programmes and pictures of Pete Townshend in mid-air scissors kick, the late John Entwistle leaning deadpan up against his Marshall amp, Moon with drumsticks a blur, and Roger in his pomp, hair a mass of curls, frilled buckskin jacket open to reveal his taut, lean torso.

At the bar the talk, in hushed tones, is of sadness at the quite recent death of Entwistle, The Whos bassist. But doesnt Roger look good, says one fan brightly, wearing a T-shirt with a colourful archery target design on the front, sixties Mod-style. I mean, look at Rog. Youd never think there was just a few months in age between him and Keith Richards of the Stones, now would you?

That same night, some nine miles across town, just over the River Thames and close to the point where the Oxford and Cambridge crews start their annual boat race, the popular Half Moon pub-cum-music venue in Putney is packed with punters listening to a tribute band called Whos Who. Their set is as faithful a reproduction of Who numbers as they can muster over two frantic hours, and the singer has Roger Daltreys distinctive on-stage mannerisms off to a T, even if he inevitably, yet understandably, falls a decibel and a semitone short when it comes to matching his bloodcurdling scream in the middle of his bands version of Wont Get Fooled Again. The audience, many of whom are teenagers, know all the words and sing along at appropriate moments.

Across the Atlantic, for millions of Americans Rogers singing of Wont Get Fooled Again, with its obvious message, remains the abiding memory of the charity concert for New York that was held after the desperate events of 9/11.

That same day, in the London offices of Rogers management, plans are under way for he and Pete Townshend to team up for yet another fund-raising concert for the Teenage Cancer Trust to which Roger, cruelly scarred by living with cancer within his own family, is so deeply committed. Theres also a remarkable offer to consider: an invitation to The Who to play at the 2004 Isle of Wight festival in front of 60,000 fans, 34 years after they first made a memorable appearance there.

On this very same day a 22-year-old disc jockey in Ohio is telling his listeners that there has never been a better group than The Who, and that there never will be. They will never f-f-f-fade away, he says, echoing the way Roger stutteringly sang it all those years ago. To prove it, the DJ says, hes going to play two hours of non-stop Who.

In Australia, rumours are spreading among devotees of The Who that Roger and Pete are set to play some concerts down under, more than three decades after they left the country in disgrace after a riotous tour. You have behaved atrociously while youve been here and we hope you never come back, was the telegram Australias Prime Minister, Senator John Gorton, sent Roger and Co. after the mayhem and misbehaviour culminated in Keith Moon smashing his way into a hotel to park his rented car in the lobby. Now, Roger and Pete Townshend will return to a heros welcome 36 years later.