The Who

成立时间：1964，英国伦敦
解散时间：1983
风格划分：时髦音乐、硬摇滚
The Who是在摇滚乐发展的进程中很有“激情”的一支乐队，四个成员通过不同的行为反映了同样的一种情绪——疯狂：吉他手Pete Townshend用能表演风车技法的灵巧的手砸碎了自己的吉他；鼓手Keith Moon推翻了鼓架；主唱Roger Daltrey则肆无忌惮地在舞台上发威；贝司手John Entwistle向观众投去肆虐的眼神。在这些不平常的举止后面，非凡的音乐也应蕴而生。
The Who在音乐风格上，通过狂暴的吉他和极度活跃的贝司的演奏，加上混乱但强劲的鼓点，在传统的摇滚和R&B的风格基础上不断求新，他们的即兴发挥表演也更加深了他们音乐的魅力。
吉他手Pete Townshend才华横溢，是当时英国出色的歌曲创作者，不但他创作的单曲“The Kids Are Alright”、“My Generation”等等，成了当时年轻人的最爱，而且他独创的摇滚歌剧《Tommy》也受到了主流音乐的批评家们的重视。他将白人音乐、概念音乐有机地注入到了作品当中。
步入70年代后，The Who已经成了一支成功的擅长舞台表演的乐队。1978乐队鼓手Keith Moon不幸去世，乐队随之在1983年解散。但是，在80年代末和90年代的几次国外巡演中，乐队曾经一度重新集合在一起。
Few bands in the history of rock & roll were riddled with as many contradictions as the Who. All four members had wildly different personalities, as their notoriously intense live performances demonstrated. The group was a whirlwind of activity, as the wild Keith Moon fell over his drum kit and Pete Townshend leaped into the air with his guitar, spinning his right hand in exaggerated windmills. Vocalist Roger Daltrey strutted across the stage with a thuggish menace, as bassist John Entwistle stood silent, functioning as the eye of the hurricane. These divergent personalities frequently clashed, but these frictions also resulted in a decade's worth of remarkable music — it took some five years to find their audience, but at the tail end of the 1960s they suddenly achieved a level of popularity rivaling the Rolling Stones, both as a live act and in album sales.
As one of the key figures of the British Invasion and the mod movement of the mid-'60s, the Who were a dynamic and undeniably powerful sonic force. They often sounded like they were exploding conventional rock and R&B structures with Townshend's furious guitar chords, Entwistle's hyperactive basslines, and Moon's vigorous, seemingly chaotic drumming. Unlike most rock bands, the Who based their rhythm on Townshend's guitar, letting Moon and Entwistle improvise wildly over his foundation, while Daltrey belted out his vocals. This was the sound the Who thrived on in concert, but on record they were a different proposition, as Townshend pushed the group toward new sonic territory. He soon became regarded as one of the finest British songwriters of his era, rivaling John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles and Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones, as songs like "The Kids Are Alright" and "My Generation" became teenage anthems, and his rock opera, Tommy, earned him respect from mainstream music critics.
Townshend continually pushed the band toward more ambitious territory, incorporating white noise, pop art, and conceptual extended musical pieces into the group's style. The remainder of the Who, especially Entwistle and Daltrey, weren't always eager to follow him in his musical explorations, especially after the success of his first rock opera, Tommy. Instead, they wanted to stick to their hard rock roots, playing brutally loud, macho music instead of Townshend's textured song suites and vulnerable pop songs. Eventually, this resulted in the group abandoning their adventurous spirit in the mid-'70s, as they settled into their role as arena rockers. The Who continued on this path even after the death of Moon in 1978, and even after they disbanded in the early '80s, as they reunited numerous times in the late '80s and '90s to tour America. The group's relentless pursuit of the dollar was largely due to Entwistle and Daltrey, who never found successful solo careers, but it had the unfortunate side effect of tarnishing their reputation for many longtime fans. However, there's little argument that at their peak the Who were one of the most innovative and powerful bands in rock history.
Townshend and Entwistle met while attending high school in the Shepherd's Bush area of London. In their early teens, they played in a Dixieland band together, with Entwistle playing trumpet and Townshend playing banjo. By the early '60s, the pair had formed a rock & roll band, but Entwistle departed in 1962 to play in the Detours, a hard-edged rock & roll band featuring a sheet-metal worker named Roger Daltrey on lead guitar (and trombone!). By the end of the year, Townshend had joined as a rhythm guitarist, and in 1963 Daltrey gave up his guitar chores — a consequence of his day job as a metal worker — and became the group's lead vocalist after Colin Dawson (followed briefly by another singer named Gabby, who didn't last) left the band. The group's sound evolved rapidly during this period, and was especially influenced not only by American acts such as James Brown, Booker T. & the MG's, and Eddie Cochran — each of whom had songs represented in the group's repertory — but also one classic British act, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, with whom they shared a bill. Johnny Kidd (real name Frederick Heath) had been together since the late '50s, and rocked the British charts with an original called "Shakin' All Over" (which Townshend and company also added to their set list); they'd built their reputation on their fierce renditions of American-style R&B, which relied heavily on a lean single guitar/bass/drums approach, with the single guitarist — very unusual in England during this period in any recording act — playing both the rhythm and lead parts. Hearing and seeing their presentation up close while playing support to them, Townshend was impressed and realized that he took naturally to that approach, and the Detours were down to a single guitar in short order. A name change also followed, as the group sought to keep its image and profile out in front of the curve of popular culture — with the Beatles burning up the charts, something better and more striking that the Detours was called for, and between Daltrey and Townshend thrashing it out, they settled on the Who, which confused people in conversation at first but worked great (and memorably) on posters. Within a few more months, amid all of these changes, original drummer Doug Sandom — who was considerably older than the others, and married — had parted ways with the Detours, just as they were about to try and make the jump to cutting a record. In his place, the group added Keith Moon, who had previously drummed with a surf rock band called the Beachcombers.
As the group struggled to get a break, Townshend attended art school, while the remaining three worked odd jobs. Soon, the band became regulars at the Marquee Club in London and attracted a small following, which led to the interest of manager Pete Meaden. Under the direction of Meaden, the Who changed their name to the High Numbers and began dressing in sharp suits, all in order to appeal to the style- and R&B-obsessed mods — in the social order of early-'60s English youth, the mods were fiercely independent teenagers, originally of middle-class (by British standards) origins, who began gathering together in working-class clubs, initially around London, in the early '60s; they dressed somewhat like Edwardian dandies, and were mostly interested in dancing, which they could do for hours under the influence of the pills that they seemed to pop incessantly; they also lived their lives after work around likes and dislikes that could provoke verbal altercations and even physical violence under the right circumstances. Many R&B-oriented groups tried to cultivate relationships with the ranks of the mods, who were fiercely loyal and could fill clubs and help propel a record onto the charts — among those who succeeded best, along with the Who, were the Small Faces ("face" being a part of mod slang) and the Move. The High Numbers released one single, "I'm the Face" — between their new name and the record, the band was pushing important buttons among their target audience, "high number" and "face" both being important parts of the vernacular. The record was, in typical fashion for the time, comprised of two songs written by their manager, Meaden — though "I'm the Face," as a composition, wasn't much more than "Got Love If You Want It" retooled with mod lyrics. After the single bombed, the group ditched him and began working with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two fledgling music business entrepreneurs who had previously failed as film directors — Lambert was the son of composer Constant Lambert, while Stamp was the brother of actor Terence Stamp (best remembered today for his role as Julie Christie's roguish husband in the 1967 movie Far from the Madding Crowd), and both were anxious to make their mark in the now suddenly percolating and fermenting popular culture scene in England. It was Lambert who first spotted the group playing one night at the Railway Hotel, in the wake of the "I'm the Face" single, and brought Stamp in, and between the two they rescued the Who (or the High Numbers, as they were calling themselves at that moment). Instead of moving the band away from mod, Lambert and Stamp encouraged them to embrace the movement, offering them advice on both what to play and what to wear, including pushing the target T-shirt that became a key visual signature. The group reclaimed the Who name and began playing a set that consisted entirely of soul, R&B, and Motown — or, as their posters said, "Maximum R&B."
It was also during this period that, completely by accident, at a gig at the Railway Hotel, Townshend smashed his first guitar. It happened by accident, because of a temporary stage extension that the band had built, which was higher than the stage itself, and caused him to accidentally hit the ceiling with his instrument — frustrated by his damaging of the instrument, and the crowd's reaction, he struck it again, and again, and soon it was in pieces, and it was only by using a 12-string Rickenbacker that he'd recently gotten that Townshend was able to finish the show. The following week, he discovered that people had heard about this, and had come to the Railway Hotel to see him smash his guitar. He eventually obliged with encouragement from Keith Moon, who attacked his drum kit — and while Lambert and Stamp were at first appalled, Townshend smashed another guitar to pieces a little bit later with Lambert's encouragement, as part of his publicity campaign (and it worked, despite the fact that the journalist for whose benefit he committed the destruction never actually saw it). In reality, he didn't smash guitars at every show in those days, and what he was doing, in terms of generating feedback, sufficed in most audience's minds — smashing the guitar, when it did take place, only punctuated the feedback. It did enhance their status with the mods, however, and by late 1964, they had developed an enthusiastic following — they loved destruction as part of an act (at one point the Move were smashing television picture tubes on-stage; the Small Faces, by contrast, never needed anything so obvious, their one "gimmick" being little Steve Marriott screaming like a dervish).
At the end of the year, Townshend was able to present the group with an original song called "I Can't Explain," which owed a little bit to the Kinks hit "You Really Got Me," but had lots of fresh angles. Townshend's lyrics, in particular, gave a vivid, visceral impression of teenage angst and uncertainty that Daltrey could sing in his powerful, ballsy manner, while the band attacked the music full-bore, and the result was a song that was punchy, sensitive, and macho all in one, with a lean, mean lead guitar opening and break and even some harmonies in there as were expected in British rock & roll; even better, the words managed to be crude and bold and sensitive (in their peculiar way) — it seemed like a great potential debut single for the newly rechristened Who. Not only did the band and their managers think so, but so did producer Shel Talmy, an American based in England who was already making lots of noise producing the Kinks' records (including "You Really Got Me"). Talmy got the band a contract with the American Decca Records label on the strength of "I Can't Explain" and followed this with a contract with English Decca (the two companies had been closely related at one time — and were again as of 2000 — but had divided into separate entities in the 1950s). The single, produced by Talmy, was released to little attention in January 1965, but once the Who appeared on the television program Ready, Steady, Go, the record shot up the charts, since the group's incendiary performance, featuring Townshend and Moon destroying their instruments, became a sensation. "I Can't Explain" reached the British Top Ten, followed that summer by "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," which was virtually a mod anthem in all but name and declared the mod ethos to the world; "I can go anywhere (where I choose)" — it actually wasn't that far removed from the mentality behind the Sparkletones' "Black Slacks," among other youth anthems of the early rock & roll era in its sensibilities, except that the Who made it sound resolutely English, and it was a huge hit in England. That fall, "My Generation" climbed all the way to number two on the charts, confirming the band's status as a British pop phenomenon. An album of the same name followed at the end of the year, comprised of the title song plus various R&B covers (especially of James Brown material) and some interesting originals, mostly by Townshend, on the U.K. Brunswick label. And early in 1966, "Substitute" became their fourth British Top Ten hit.
It was during this period that Lambert had an especially strong influence on Townshend as a songwriter. Lambert, the son of a renowned composer and arranger, introduced Townshend to a huge range of classical music, including the work of Sir William Walton (with whom Lambert's father had worked extensively), Darius Milhaud, and various Baroque figures. Townshend didn't change his style of writing, which was still developing and influenced by a multitude of figures and styles, including Jimmy Reed and Sonny Boy Williamson II, Eddie Cochran and Mose Allison, but he did end up broadening his way of thinking about composition and what one could do with songs and subject matter. Over the years that followed, Lambert would encourage Townshend to go beyond the mod-themed romantic subjects that would have seemed like a natural direction for his songs.
"Substitute," produced by Kit Lambert, marked the band's acrimonious split with Talmy, with whom the band and their managers were no longer happy working, and the end of the group's British Decca/Brunswick recording contract — Lambert and Stamp also tried to scrap the American Decca deal, but that proved impossible. Starting with "Substitute," the band was now signed to Polydor in England, and issued on Reaction. There were, for a time, rival releases on Brunswick and Reaction as Talmy and Brunswick, and Lambert and Stamp with Reaction dueled with the group's fortunes, but the competition was eventually sorted out in Lambert and Stamp's (and the band's) favor. "I'm a Boy," issued in the summer of 1966, was the first Who single produced without some rival release on Brunswick entering the marketplace, and it (along with some of those Brunswick sides) showed just how far the band and Townshend had come in 18 months — "Substitute" was a catchy song that carried with it a fascinating character study, and one with sociological overtones, no less, none of which got in the way of its appeal; "A Legal Matter" was a phenomenal romantic (or, really, non-romantic) "story" song with a narrative and a powerful quasi-dramatic singing role for Daltrey, and could almost have been part of a larger body of work, like a rock musical or something more ambitious; "The Kids Are Alright" was similar, a vest-pocket drama with great harmonies, a memorable guitar break (and opening), and a strong dramatic performance by Daltrey; and "I'm a Boy" was an eerie (for a pop song) example of sexuality and child abuse as subject matter, about a teenage boy who is feminized by his dominating mother, forced to dress in girl's clothing and act the part of a girl; it carried an amazing amount of exposition, and yet had plenty of room for the band's by now trademarked attack on their instruments, and Daltrey giving a strong vocal performance in what was very much a dramatic role in miniature. The band was essentially leading a dual existence artistically, generating immensely popular singles in England, which were gradually redefining the acceptable content and boundaries of pop/rock songs; what's more, their hard, manic approach to playing dressed those songs up as some of the hardest — yet most melodic and complex — rocking pop singles of the period. Though no one recognized it, the Who were having as profound effect on the rock & roll landscape as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones.
That was in England. The story in the United States was very different. "I Can't Explain" had barely created a ripple, and "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" did little better despite some publicity on the ABC television rock & roll showcase Shindig. Even with Decca getting behind "My Generation" for a major marketing push, the single only got to number 74, which was barely a shadow of what it did in England. And the British success was all well and good, but it wasn't enough — with a string of hit singles in that market and one album under their belt, and all of the most creative methods that Lambert and Stamp could devise to keep the band in the press and maximize their audience and their bookings, they were not losing money as fast as they might have. But the instrument-smashing routine and the attendant effects (often involving flash-powder and damage to Moon's drums as well as Townshend's guitars) had been frightfully expensive, even if it had generated the press they needed to get people to check out their music; and even done more selectively, as it was after 1966, with as much skilled repair work as possible to salvage what could be reclaimed, it meant that the band was carrying an ongoing (and ever growing) debt that no other act had to concern themselves with, and drove the group's expenses through the roof. For all of their publicity, huge record sales, and well-attended concerts booked for top fees, the spectre of financial ruin was never far from the thoughts of their management, this despite the fact that Lambert and Stamp were now luxuriating in a new label imprint of their own under the Polydor umbrella, called Track Records — and that Track had a new signing in late 1966, a transplanted American guitarist/singer named Jimi Hendrix. A breakthrough for the Who in America, or in the album market in a major way (or, preferably, both), was essential.