Sunday, October 13, 2019

Pete Townshend - Who Demos, Volume 1: 1964-1965

So far, I've posted a lot of Pete Townshend music. I've created a bunch of albums mainly out of his demos, which often sound like finished, professional tracks. But I was careful not to include any songs that appeared on albums by The Who. I've been saving those for this series, which are all his solo demos of Who songs.

This just covers 1964 and 1965, the first two years of the Who (once they'd switched to that name). All but one of the songs are officially released. There aren't many surprises, except that "Call Me Lightning," which was released in 1968, and "Sunrise," which was released in 1967, actually date from these years.

These demos sound a lot like what the Who would have been if Townshend had been the lead singer instead of Roger Daltrey. Of course, you miss some special Who elements, such as Keith Moon's drumming and John Entwistle's bass playing. But, generally speaking, these could have been officially released at the time and they would have fared very well compared to what other bands were doing then.

This album is a bit short at only 30 minutes long. Unfortunately, that's all from these years that have been made publicly available. No doubt, there are more of Townshend's demos in the vaults. Hopefully those will be released someday.

01 Call Me Lightning (Pete Townshend)
02 The Kids Are Alright (Pete Townshend)
03 A Legal Matter (Pete Townshend)
05 My Generation (Pete Townshend)
06 Much Too Much (Pete Townshend)
07 Circles (Pete Townshend)
08 It's Not True (Pete Townshend)
09 La-La-La-Lies (Pete Townshend)
10 The Good's Gone (Pete Townshend)
11 Sunrise (Pete Townshend)
12 My Generation [Version 3] (Pete Townshend)

https://www.imagenetz.de/cUrwD

Normally, I hate to use black and white photos for the cover art. I could have easily found a good color photo of Townshend by himself. But I went with the photo I chose, because it shows him actually recording in a studio around this time period. Over a year later, I found a good colorizing program, so I colorized it.

4 comments:

  1. No one does demos quite like Townshend.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Need to get in contact...
    Have a demo album with 6 songs from 1964

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sounds interesting. My email is thompson22 @ runbox.com. (Remove the spaces.)

      Delete