The Who - Acoustic Duo, 2005-2014

I'm able to post a lot of albums here in a relatively short period of time because I spent decades collecting this music and organizing it before I ever started this blog. But sometimes I come across new stuff, and today was one of those days. In double checking that I have all the good stuff for the Pete Townshend album I just posted, I came across some material by the Who, and I'm so pleased with it that I want to post it straight away.

Clearly, the Who are a rocking band, and I like them that way. But many of their songs sound good in solo acoustic format, as Pete Townshend has shown with various acoustic performances over the years. I knew the Who played in a stripped down format for the Bridge School Benefit in 1999 and some other occasions, but that included a bass player and drummer. What I didn't know until today is that Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey have played just as an acoustic duo on some very rare occasions in the last fifteen years or so.

They've only done a couple of songs here and there, seemingly for promotional appearances when the rest of the band wasn't available. So I searched out all the acoustic duo performances I could find and compiled them into this album. Luckily, it turns out that all of these performances have very good sound, usually professionally recorded sound. As a result, in my opinion, it sounds like one longer concert instead of a bunch of short ones.

In 2006, the Who put out an album of new songs called "Endless Wire." Four of the songs here are from that album. But, in my opinion, they sound better stripped down to the acoustic basics. All the other songs are Who classics from the 1960s and 70s, plus a cover of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire."

Speaking of that cover, that performance plus "Who Are You" actually only feature Daltrey. But you'd be hard pressed to hear that, because Daltrey plays acoustic guitar as he sings in a very impressive Townshend-esque style. I didn't know he had it in him to play guitar that well!

I included those two Daltrey solo tracks but not any Townshend solo tracks because I have tons of versions of Townshend playing Who songs in solo acoustic format. I don't really collect Daltrey solo stuff, but I figure those two Daltrey solo acoustic songs must be very unusual for him. Besides, including them here keeps the focus on Daltrey singing lead for the vast majority of the time on these songs.

The Who has raised some waves earlier in 2019 for acoustic performances of "Won't Get Fooled Again." I see one version has three million views on YouTube. So I'm glad to say I have an acoustic version of that song here, from 2014, when Daltrey's voice was in better shape. But also, if you liked hearing that in an acoustic version, check out the rest of these songs, because they all sound interesting that way.

On a minor note, Daltrey really screwed up the lyrics to "Bargain." He mostly sang the right lines, but in a mixed up order. So I carefully did some audio cutting and pasting to fix his most obvious errors.

I like it when I can put together albums that are between 35 and 50 minutes - long enough to set a mood and make a statement but not being too long to outstay its welcome. By chance, this is 47 minutes long, which is right in that sweet spot.

01 talk (Who)
02 Real Good Looking Boy (Who)
03 Man in a Purple Dress (Who)
04 Behind Blue Eyes (Who)
05 talk (Who)
06 Mike Post Theme (Who)
07 Tea and Theatre (Who)
08 Who Are You (Roger Daltrey)
09 Ring of Fire (Roger Daltrey)
10 Pinball Wizard (Who)
11 talk (Who)
12 Substitute (Who)
13 Bargain (Who)
14 The Kids Are Alright (Who)
15 talk (Who)
16 Won't Get Fooled Again (Who)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15853210/TWhoo_2005-2014_AcoustcDuo20052014_atse.zip.html

The last four songs come from a performance at Ronnie Scott's, a club in London, in 2014. The cover photo comes from that show. Daltrey and Townshend were situated rather far from each other on stage, so I cut out some of the space between them so I could show both of them with decent size.