At Home in Hespeler

One likes to believe in the freedom of music.

Rush – Spirit of Radio.

“Hope I die before I get old,” Roger Daltrey sang in 1965. Fast forward 50-years and last week at a concert in Long Island, Daltrey threatened to walk off stage if someone smoking a joint up front didn’t put the joint out. One wonders if his specific request used the line “get off the grass!”? Pete Townsend, writer of the above line, followed Daltrey’s threat with a suggestion the offending pot smoker take his medication in suppository form. It’s like Grumpy Old Men 3: the Rock and Roll Tour™.

“How the hell am I supposed to hear myself sing with you people clinking your ice-cubes around in your glass?” Frank Sinatra never yelled at his audience. Sinatra died at 82 and performed until about a year before his death, when heart problems, bladder cancer and dementia forced him to stop performing. The smell of scotch never becoming an issue with Frank, even as he was dying of what was basically old age, Sinatra never seemed quite as old as The Who’s lead singer. Daltrey, now 71, for the last several years has kept his light, curly hair cut short and wears small colored glasses, looking more like your Granny than Tommy.

But the Who came of age when Sinatra was middle aged. They cut their teeth the 60’s in front of the stoned hippies and cemented their reputations in the 70’s in front the of the hippies ever more stoned brothers and sisters. Smoking a joint was as much a part of the experience as the music was.

Here’s another Townsend penned line that Daltrey sang:

long live rock, be it dead or alive.

When rock has been reduced to a nostalgic hippy paying $100 to have Roger Daltrey’s granny yell at him to get off the grass, then it has lived long – long past it’s dead date.

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get off the grass, Hey you hippies, The Freedom of Music, This Week on my I-Pod Frank SInatra, Long Live Rock, My Generation, Pete Townsend, Roger Daltrey

No band has made more hay out of their catalogue than The Who. In their first 40-years, between 1965’s My Generation and 2006’s Endless Wire, they produced 11 studio albums and 20 compilation albums – plus another 5 compilations since. With this years Quadrophenia: Live in London, they have as many live albums as studio albums.

So if you’re Pete Townsend and Roger Daltrey, the last remnants of The Who, what better way to celebrate the bands 50th anniversary than with a greatest hits album, The Who Hits 50!?

Stretching from their pre-Who days with The High Numbers Zoot Suit and their first singles as The Who, I Can’t Explain, Anyway Anyhow Anywhere and My Generation to the post-Y2K collection of hits, 2004’s Real Good Looking Boy, 2006’s It’s Not Enough from the last Who studio album Endless Wire and Be Lucky, recorded earlier this year.

As always when you get a collection from a band has been around as long as, and have had as many hits as the Who, the 42 song set is loaded with great material and almost anyone is sure to find a number of songs they like, and one or two they are less keen on. But every significant era of The Who, the early singles, Tommy, Quadrophenia, the 70’s rock, the Kenny Jones era, is well represented here. Personal favourites that I don’t get to hear often enough, Postcard and Who Are You’s Trick of the Light are on the album, compensating for what I consider too many of the early pop singles. Those early singles, however, have never sounded better. The sound on this collection is excellent, with everything sounding clear and clean.

Overall The Who Hits 50! is a solid collection that sounds great and has enough material for everyone to enjoy. If you happened to have bought the last three Who collections, I’m not sure you really need this one. But if your looking for some Who, this is a great set.

Tracklist

1. Zoot Suit (as the High Numbers)
2. I Can’t Explain
3. Anyway Anyhow Anywhere
4. My Generation
5. Substitute
6. The Kids Are Alright
7. I’m a Boy
8. Happy Jack
9. Boris the Spider
10. Pictures of Lily
11. The Last Time
12. I Can See For Miles
13. Call Me Lightning
14. Dogs
15. Magic Bus
16. Pinball Wizard
17. I’m Free
18. The Seeker
19. Summertime Blues
20. See Me, Feel Me
21. Won’t Get Fooled Again
22. Let’s See Action
23. Bargain
24. Behind Blue Eyes
25. baba O’Riley
26. Join Together
27. Relay
28. 5: 15
29. Love Right O’er Me
30. Postcard
31. Squeeze Box
32. Slip Kid
33. Who Are You
34. Trick of The Light
35. You Better You Bet
36. Don’t Let Go The Coat
37. Athena
38. Eminence Front
39. It’s Hard
40. Real Good Looking Boy
41. It’s Not Enough
42. Be Lucky

Album release, Review Anyway Anyhow Anywhere, Be Lucky, Greatest Hits, I Can’t Explain, My Generation, Quadrophenia, The Who, The Who Hits 50, Tommy

It’s easy enough to find reasons to celebrate Roger Daltry. As the vocalist/front-man for The Who, his strong voice has led the rock ‘n’ roll charge for almost 45 years. The voice of My Generation, Squeeze Box and Pinball Wizard, Daltry has few peers as a singer.

But at the end of the day it’s that one moment, after the synthesizer section of Won’t Get Fooled Again, when Daltry and the band kick the song back in with, literally, a scream.  The finest scream in rock ‘n’ roll, a genre that can be defined by it’s screamers.

So Happy 65th Birthday Roger Daltry, leather lunged belter extraordinaire.

Birthday Wishes, Rockin' and Rollin' and Never Forgettin', The Kids are Alright Box, Daltry, My Generation, Roger, Squeeze, The Who, WOn't Get Fooled Again