Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I am still finding it hard to understand how it is that The Who did not hit have a string of top hits. I Can't Explain how I they could have had the exposure on the radio that they did in North America and still not top the charts. And what about Pinball Wizard and I Can See For Miles. Great songs but relatively poor showings in my view.

Was their music too different for the times?

They never actually had a number one in UK but did have a string of hits, they did have two number 2's.

Perhaps early on some of their subject matter did not lend itself to an American audience, songs like I'm A Boy and Happy Jack. Personally I thought they were overrated, but others will not agree.

It may be because "mod" Culture was not really understood outside of London and some parts of Southern England.

I don't know the answer to your question either.

All I can say is that back then they were one of my favourite bands. We played I'm a Boy, Pictures of Lily, Run Run Run, Pinball Wizard, Can't Explain, Substitute, Boris the Spider, I can See for Miles, Happy Jack, My Generation and few others that do not readily spring to mind. So needless to say our band were big fans of the Who.

I don't think the Who ever got much airplay on AM Top 40 radio, except with stations that may have 'dayparted' their material for night time play only, which used to be the case. By the time progressive FM emerged they obviously became a staple along about 1969 with 'Tommy'. This helped sell albums not singles.

I was born and raised in Corpus Christi, Texas, a town that put out more than it's share of great garage rock during the 60s. The Who were always on the radio there, right alongside The Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones, and The Kinks. All huge influences on the local scene.
We play "My Generation" as an encore, hear a recording of a live radio broadcast here:
http://www.eggmen.com/audio.html

Peter: I'm sure I'll catch flak for saying this, but here goes. For all their talent and musicianship, The Who made a lot of poor sounding records. They recorded great songs along with a bunch of clunkers, and to my ears the production was lousy. In another thread someone speculated on what The Who could've sounded like working with George Martin. In many early interviews, Pete Townshend can be heard saying that their new record will capture their live sound much better than their last. I'm not sure that capturing their live sound is really what they should have been doing. I've always thought that their early live shows had more to do with excitement, volume, and destruction than musical quality. The Beatles didn't work with George Martin to recreate their live sound. Instead they raised their studio work to a level that couldn't be matched by their stage performances (and that was fine because nobody could hear them over the screaming anyway). I didn't really mean to turn this into a Beatles thread, but I think the comparison needed to be made. By the way, I love playing Pete Townshend's songs so I'm not a Who-hater.

Wasn't the case in Dallas (sparingly maybe), but when I was working on KNUS in '69 they were starting to get played...again FM radio, not on AM.

The Who?

"The Beatles make better records than we do, but we'd blow them off the stage"
-The Ox

Best live show I ever saw was the Who!

Ronn: It appears that John Entwistle agrees with me. The Who were capable of making a scene on the stage in the early days, but they didn't come across well on records. Without Daltry pushing in the early days, the band would have never played a gig. Pete would have preferred to sit in his room smoking 'jazz cigarettes' while jamming to old blues records. I have always thought as performers, Roger was the weak link, because he had to sing Pete's lyrics and try make them his own. He wasn't really much of a singer, although he became a better performer by the late 1960's. His fringed outfits and microphone spinning never did anything for me though...

The Who, in the early years, had Shel Talmy as their producer, who was also producing some of the Kinks material. Talmy was no wizard. His work, or lack of it, explains why much of the Who's early work sounded so bad on vinyl. By the time Gly Johns began producing their work (Who's Next) things improved greatly! I don't think singing someone elses lyrics is so difficult. If this were the case, countless bands and solo artists would have never had success.

Stan: Perhaps Roger's singing is just a problem for me. When I watch early Who performances on video, I keep thinking that Pete should be singing his own songs. It's not that I think it's hard to sing someone else's lyrics. When a performer chooses to sing a cover song, it's often because they 'identify' (to use a terrible term) with what the song has to say. Roger had to sing whatever Pete wrote, and they were two very different people. Enough about this...

I agree that Shel Talmy was a disaster as a producer, and that his hits with The Kinks and others were achieved in spite of himself. There were lots of bands struggling with producers and engineers that weren't as good as George Martin and Glyn Johns.

Agreed, Randy. Not everyone had Martin. The Beatles situation was one of those moons and stars aligning scenarios, the right composers, the right songs, the right players and the perfect producer. Happens once in a lifetime, and it was in their lifetime. Johns was good but it might have to do with the period. By the time The Who came out with 'Who's Next', Martin and the Beatles were done. Who (no pun) knows what the Beatles production sound might have been after 1970?

I Missed the Beatles only appearance in Southampton but I saw The Who in a small club in Woolston.

They were incredible live. They just could not get their energy to show up on recordings. Neither Shel Talmy or Kit Lambert could capture their sound.

The same applies to Humble Pie. Incredible Band but just a tad short on the production side. Andrew Loog Oldham may have had a good record label (Immediate) and good studio musicians (Page as an example) but his production staff left a lot to be desired IMHO.

Itoo would have loved to have seen what George Martin could have done with both Bands.