Stevie Wonder is a much-beloved American icon and an indisputable genius not only of R&B but popular music in general. Blind virtually since birth, Wonder's heightened awareness of sound helped him create vibrant, colorful music teeming with life and ambition. Nearly everything he recorded bore the stamp of his sunny, joyous positivity; even when he addressed serious racial, social, and spiritual issues (which he did quite often in his prime), or sang about heartbreak and romantic uncertainty, an underlying sense of optimism and hope always seemed to emerge. Much like his inspiration, Ray Charles, Wonder had a voracious appetite for many different kinds of music, and refused to confine himself to any one sound or style. His best records were a richly eclectic brew of soul, funk, rock & roll, sophisticated Broadway/Tin Pan Alley-style pop, jazz, reggae, and African elements -- and they weren't just stylistic exercises; Wonder took it all and forged it into his own personal form of expression. His range helped account for his broad-based appeal, but so did his unique, elastic voice, his peerless melodic facility, his gift for complex arrangements, and his taste for lovely, often sentimental ballads. Additionally, Wonder's pioneering use of synthesizers during the '70s changed the face of R&B; he employed a kaleidoscope of contrasting textures and voices that made him a virtual one-man band, all the while evoking a surprisingly organic warmth. Along with Marvin Gayeand Isaac Hayes, Wonder brought R&B into the album age, crafting his LPs as cohesive, consistent statements with compositions that often took time to make their point. All of this made Wonder perhaps R&B's greatest individual auteur, rivaled only by Gaye or, in later days, Prince. Originally, Wonder was a child prodigy who started out in the general Motown mold, but he took control of his vision in the '70s, spinning off a series of incredible albums that were as popular as they were acclaimed; most of his reputation rests on these works, which most prominently include Talking Book, Innervisions, andSongs in the Key of Life. His output since then has been inconsistent, marred by excesses of sentimentality and less of the progressive imagination of his best work, but it's hardly lessened the reverence in which he's long been held.
Wonder was born Steveland Hardaway Judkins in Saginaw, MI, on May 13, 1950 (he later altered his name to Steveland Morris when his mother married). A premature infant, he was put on oxygen treatment in an incubator; likely it was an excess of oxygen that exacerbated a visual condition known as retinopathy of prematurity, causing his blindness. In 1954, his family moved to Detroit, where the already musically inclined Stevie began singing in his church's choir; from there he blossomed into a genuine prodigy, learning piano, drums, and harmonica all by the age of nine. While performing for some of his friends in 1961, Stevie was discovered by Ronnie White of the Miracles, who helped arrange an audition with Berry Gordy at Motown. Gordy signed the youngster immediately and teamed him with producer/songwriter Clarence Paul, under the new nameLittle Stevie Wonder. Stevie released his first two albums in 1962: A Tribute to Uncle Ray, which featured covers of Stevie's hero Ray Charles, and The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie, an orchestral jazz album spotlighting his instrumental skills on piano, harmonica, and assorted percussion. Neither sold very well, but that all changed in 1963 with the live album The 12 Year Old Genius, which featured a new extended version of the harmonica instrumental "Fingertips." Edited for release as a single, "Fingertips, Pt. 2" rocketed to the top of both the pop and R&B charts, thanks to Wonder's irresistible, youthful exuberance; meanwhile, The 12 Year Old Genius became Motown's first chart-topping LP.Wonder charted a few more singles over the next year, but none on the level of "Fingertips, Pt. 2." As his voice changed, his recording career was temporarily put on hold, and he studied classical piano at the Michigan School for the Blind in the meantime. He dropped the "Little" portion of his stage name in 1964, and re-emerged the following year with the infectious, typically Motown-sounding dance tune "Uptight (Everything's Alright)," a number one R&B/Top Five pop smash. Not only did he co-write the song for his first original hit, but it also reinvented him as a more mature vocalist in the public's mind, making the similar follow-up "Nothing's Too Good for My Baby" another success. The first signs of Wonder's social activism appeared in 1966 via his hit cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind" and its follow-up, "A Place in the Sun," but as Motown still had the final say on Wonder's choice of material, this new direction would not yet become a major facet of his work.
By this time, Wonder was, however, beginning to take more of a hand in his own career. He co-wrote his next several hits, all of which made the R&B Top Ten -- "Hey Love," "I Was Made to Love Her" (an R&B number one that went to number two pop in 1967), and "For Once in My Life" (another smash that reached number two pop and R&B). Wonder's 1968 album For Once in My Life signaled his budding ambition; he co-wrote about half of the material and, for the first time, co-produced several tracks. The record also contained three more singles in the R&B chart-topper "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day," "You Met Your Match," and "I Don't Know Why."Wonder scored again in 1969 with the pop and R&B Top Five hit "My Cherie Amour" (which he'd actually recorded three years prior) and the Top Ten "Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday." In 1970,Wonder received his first-ever co-production credit for the album Signed, Sealed & Delivered; he co-wrote the R&B chart-topper "Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours" with singer Syreeta Wright, whom he married later that year, and also scored hits with "Heaven Help Us All" and a rearrangement of the Beatles' "We Can Work It Out." In addition, two other Motown artists had major success with Wonder co-writes: the Spinners' "It's a Shame" and the Miracles' only pop number one, "Tears of a Clown."
1971 brought a turning point in Wonder's career. On his 21st birthday, his contract with Motown expired, and the royalties set aside in his trust fund became available to him. A month before his birthday, Wonder released Where I'm Coming From, his first entirely self-produced album, which also marked the first time he wrote or co-wrote every song on an LP (usually in tandem with Wright) and the first time his keyboard and synthesizer work dominated his arrangements. Gordy was reportedly not fond of the work, and it wasn't a major commercial success, producing only the Top Ten hit "If You Really Love Me" (plus a classic B-side in "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer"). Nonetheless, it was clearly an ambitious attempt at making a unified album-length artistic statement, and served notice that Wonder was no longer content to release albums composed of hit singles and assorted filler. Accordingly, Wonder did not immediately renew his contract with Motown, as the label had expected; instead, he used proceeds from his trust fund to build his own recording studio and to enroll in music theory classes at USC. He negotiated a new deal with Motown that dramatically increased his royalty rate and established his own publishing company, Black Bull Music, which allowed him to retain the rights to his music; most importantly, he wrested full artistic control over his recordings, as Gaye had just done with the landmark What's Going On.
Freed from the dictates of Motown's hit-factory mindset,Wonder had already begun following a more personal and idiosyncratic muse. One of his negotiating chips had been a full album completed at his new studio; Wonder had produced, played nearly all the instruments, and written all the material (with Wright contributing to several tracks). Released under Wonder's new deal in early 1972, Music of My Mind heralded his arrival as a major, self-contained talent with an original vision that pushed the boundaries of R&B. The album produced a hit single in the spacy, synth-driven ballad "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)," but like contemporary work by Hayes and Gaye, Music of My Mind worked as a smoothly flowing song suite unto itself. Around the same time it was released, Wonder's marriage to Wright broke up; the two remained friends, however, and Wonder produced and wrote several songs for her debut album. The same year, Wonder toured with the Rolling Stones, bringing his music to a large white audience as well.For the follow-up to Music of My Mind, Wonder refined his approach, tightening up his songcraft while addressing his romance with Wright. The result, Talking Book, was released in late 1972 and made him a superstar. Song for song one of the strongest R&B albums ever released, Talking Book also perfected Wonder's spacy, futuristic experiments with electronics, and was hailed as a magnificently realized masterpiece. Wonder topped the charts with the gutsy, driving funk classic "Superstition" and the mellow, jazzy ballad "You Are the Sunshine of My Life," which went on to become a pop standard; those two songs went on to win three Grammys between them. Amazingly, Wonder only upped the ante with his next album, 1973's Innervisions, a concept album about the state of contemporary society that ranks with Gaye's What's Going On as a pinnacle of socially conscious R&B. The ghetto chronicle "Living for the City" and the intense spiritual self-examination "Higher Ground" both went to number one on the R&B charts and the pop Top Ten, and Innervisions took home a Grammy for Album of the Year. Wonder was lucky to be alive to enjoy the success; while being driven to a concert in North Carolina, a large timber fell on Wonder's car. He sustained serious head injuries and lapsed into a coma, but fortunately made a full recovery.
Wonder's next record, 1974's Fulfillingness' First Finale, was slightly more insular and less accessible than its immediate predecessors, and unsurprisingly imbued with a sense of mortality. The hits, however, were the upbeat "Boogie On Reggae Woman" (a number one R&B and Top Five pop hit) and the venomous Richard Nixon critique "You Haven't Done Nothin'" (number one on both sides). It won him a second straight Album of the Year Grammy, by which time he'd been heavily involved as a producer and writer on Syreeta's second album, Stevie Wonder Presents Syreeta. Wonder subsequently retired to his studio and spent two years crafting a large-scale project that would stand as his magnum opus. Finally released in 1976, Songs in the Key of Life was a sprawling two-LP-plus-one-EP set that found Wonder at his most ambitious and expansive. Some critics called it brilliant but prone to excess and indulgence, while others hailed it as his greatest masterpiece and the culmination of his career; in the end, they were probably both right. "Sir Duke," an ebullient tribute to music in general and Duke Ellington in particular, and the funky "I Wish" both went to number one pop and R&B; the hit "Isn't She Lovely," a paean to Wonder's daughter, became something of a standard, and "Pastime Paradise" was later sampled for the backbone of Coolio's rap smash "Gangsta's Paradise." Not surprisingly, Songs in the Key of Life won a Grammy for Album of the Year; in hindsight, though, it marked the end of a remarkable explosion of creativity and of Wonder's artistic prime.
Having poured a tremendous amount of energy into Songs in the Key of Life, Wonder released nothing for the next three years. When he finally returned in 1979, it was with the mostly instrumental Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, ostensibly the soundtrack to a never-released documentary. Although it contained a few pop songs, including the hit "Send One Your Love," its symphonic flirtations befuddled most listeners and critics. It still made the Top Ten on the LP chart on Wonder's momentum alone -- one of the stranger releases to do so. To counteract possible speculation that he'd gone off the deep end, Wonder rushed out the straightforward pop album Hotter Than July in 1980. The reggae-flavored "Master Blaster (Jammin')" returned him to the top of the R&B charts and the pop Top Five, and "Happy Birthday" was part of the ultimately successful campaign to make Martin Luther King's birthday a national holiday (Wonder being one of the cause's most active champions). Artistically speaking, Hotter Than July was a cut below his classic '70s output, but it was still a solid outing; fans were so grateful to have the old Wonder back that they made it his first platinum-selling LP.
In 1981, Wonder began work on a follow-up album that was plagued by delays, suggesting that he might not be able to return to the visionary heights of old. He kept busy in the meantime, though; in 1982, his racial-harmony duet with Paul McCartney, "Ebony and Ivory," hit number one, and he released a greatest-hits set covering 1972-1982 called Original Musiquarium I. It featured four new songs, of which "That Girl" (number one R&B, Top Five pop) and the lengthy, jazzy "Do I Do" (featuring Dizzy Gillespie; number two R&B) were significant hits. In 1984, still not having completed the official follow-up to Hotter Than July, he recorded the soundtrack to the Gene Wilder comedy The Woman in Red, which wasn't quite a full-fledged Stevie Wonder album but did feature a number of new songs, including "I Just Called to Say I Love You." Adored by the public (it was his biggest-selling single ever) and loathed by critics (who derided it as sappy and simple-minded), "I Just Called to Say I Love You" was an across-the-board number one smash, and won an Oscar for Best Song.
Wonder finally completed the official album he'd been working on for nearly five years, and released In Square Circle in 1985. Paced by the number one hit "Part Time Lover" -- his last solo pop chart-topper -- and several other strong songs, In Square Circle went platinum, even if Wonder's synthesizer arrangements now sounded standard rather than groundbreaking. He performed on the number one charity singles "We Are the World" by USA for Africa and "That's What Friends Are For" by Dionne Warwick & Friends, and returned quickly with a new album, Characters, in 1987. While Characters found Wonder's commercial clout on the pop charts slipping away, it was a hit on the R&B side, topping the album charts and producing a number one hit in "Skeletons." It would be his final release of the '80s; he didn't return until 1991, with the soundtrack to the Spike Lee film Jungle Fever. His next full album of new material, 1995's Conversation Peace, was a commercial disappointment, despite winning two Grammys for the single "For Your Love." That same year, Coolio revived "Pastime Paradise" in his own brooding rap smash "Gangsta's Paradise," which became the year's biggest hit. Wonder capitalized on the renewed notoriety by cutting a hit duet with Babyface, "How Come, How Long," in 1996. Since then, Motown has released a number of remasters and compilations attempting to define and repackage Wonder's vast legacy. His far-reaching influence was felt in the neo-soul movement that came to prominence in the late '90s, and he also remained a composer of choice for jazz artists looking to incorporate harmonically sophisticated pop/R&B tunes into their repertoires. That only scratches the surface of Wonder's impact on contemporary popular music, which is why he was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1989, and remains a living legend regardless of whatever else he does. After a decade hiatus, Wonder returnted to the spotlight in autumn of 2005 with A Time 2 Love, a comeback album on par with his classic releases featuring a tour de force of guest appearances including "So What the Fuss", which featured Prince on guitar.
Decision: 46 top 40 hits, 28 top 10 hits and 10 #1's. Is it any 'wonder' that Stevie is in the Pop HOF?
Dionne Warwick
It is easier to define Dionne Warwick by what she isn't rather than what she is. Although she grew up singing in church, she is not a gospel singer. Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are clear influences, but she is not a jazz singer. R&B is also part of her background, but she is not really a soul singer, either, at least not in the sense that Aretha Franklin is. Sophisticated is a word often used to describe her musical approach and the music she sings, but she is not a singer of standards such as Lena Horne orNancy Wilson. What is she, then? She is a pop singer of a sort that perhaps could only have emerged out of the Brill Building environment of post-Elvis Presley, pre-Beatles urban pop in the early '60s. That's when she hooked up with Burt Bacharach and Hal David, songwriters and producers who wrote their unusually complicated songs for her aching yet detached alto voice. Warwick is inescapably associated with those songs, even though she managed to build a career after leaving Bacharach andDavid that drew upon their style for other memorable recordings, and she remains a unique figure in popular music.
Marie Dionne Warrick was born into a gospel-music family. Her father was a gospel record promoter for Chess Records and her mother managed the Drinkard Singers, a gospel group consisting of her relatives. She first raised her voice in song at age six at the New Hope Baptist Church in Newark, New Jersey, and soon after was a member of the choir. As a teenager, she formed a singing group called the Gospelaires with her sister Dee Dee and her aunt Cissy Houston (later the mother of the late Whitney Houston). After graduating from high school in 1959, she earned a music scholarship to the Hartt College of Music in Hartford, CT, but she also spent time with her group recording background vocals on sessions in New York. the Gospelaires are said to be present on such well-known recordings as Ben E. King's "Spanish Harlem" and "Stand by Me." They were at a Drifters session working on a song called "Mexican Divorce" composed by Burt Bacharach when Bacharach, attending the session, suggestedWarwick might do some demos for him. She did, singing songs he had written with lyricist Hal David.Bacharach and David pitched one of the songs to Florence Greenberg, head of the small independent Scepter Records label, and Greenberg liked the demo singer enough to sign her as a recording artist.Bacharach and David wrote and produced her first single, "Don't Make Me Over," in 1962. When the record was released, the performer credit contained a typo; it read "Dionne Warwick" instead of "Dionne Warrick," and she kept the new name. (Her sister Dee Dee eventually became Dee Dee Warwick as well.)
"Don't Make Me Over" peaked in the Top 20 of the pop charts in early 1963, also reaching the Top Five of the R&B charts.Warwick's subsequent singles were not as successful, but in early 1964, she reached the pop and R&B Top Ten and the Top Five of the easy listening charts with "Anyone Who Had a Heart," which was also her first record to reach the charts in the U.K. (There, such singers as Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield sometimes would cover her records before her own versions had a chance to become hits.) "Walk on By" followed it into the Top Ten of the pop, easy listening, and U.K. charts in the spring of 1964, and it hit number one on the R&B charts. By then, the Beatles had arrived on the American scene, followed by the British Invasion, and for a while, pop artists like Warwick took a beating on the charts. Nevertheless, the singer continued to place singles and LPs in the rankings over the next couple of years and in the spring of 1966, she returned to the Top Ten of the pop charts and the Top Five of the R&B charts with "Message to Michael." Other, more modest hits followed, including the most successful U.S. recording of the title song from the movie Alfie, which reached the R&B Top Five and the pop Top 20 in the spring of 1967. That summer, Warwick topped the R&B LP charts with her gold-selling Here Where There Is Love album and by the fall, Scepter had amassed enough chart singles to issue Dionne Warwick's Golden Hits, Pt. 1, her first album to reach the pop Top Ten.
Curiously, Warwick's career reached a new level with a single not written by Bacharach and David, although they produced it. It was "(Theme From) Valley of the Dolls," written by Andréand Dory Previn and issued at the end of 1967. The record reached the Top Five of the pop, R&B, and easy listening charts. Its B-side, Bacharach and David's "I Say a Little Prayer," reached the Top Five of the pop and R&B charts, helping the single become a gold record and the Valley of the Dolls LP also made the Top Five of the pop and R&B charts and went gold. With that, Warwick was on a roll. Her next single, "Do You Know the Way to San José," reached the pop Top Ten and the R&B and easy listening Top Five in the spring of 1968 and won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Pop Vocal Performance, Female. In the winter of 1969, her version of "This Guy's in Love With You," re-titled "This Girl's in Love With You," made the pop and R&B Top Ten and the easy listening Top Five and in early 1970, "I'll Never Fall in Love Again" from Bacharach and David's score for the Broadway musical Promises, Promises made the pop Top Ten and topped the easy listening charts, bringing her another Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Vocal Performance, Female.
In 1971, Warwick added an "e" to the end of her name on the advice of a numerologist, retaining the new spelling until 1975. She also left Scepter Records and signed a deal with the major label Warner Bros. that included Bacharach and Davidas her writer and producer. The team produced the 1972 album Dionne, which was a modest seller, but thenBacharach and David split up in the wake of the critical and commercial failure of their work on a musical remake of the film Lost Horizon in 1973. Due to her contractual commitment, Warwick was forced to sue her old partners. A settlement was reached, but they would not work together again for many years and Warwick's career suffered.Warwick bounced back with "Then Came You," a song she recorded with the Spinners, which topped the pop and R&B charts and reached the Top Five of the easy listening charts in October 1974, going gold in the process. It proved to be a one-off success, but Warwick (now without the "e") signed to Arista Records in 1979 and returned to the Top Five of the pop adult contemporary (formerly easy listening) charts with "I'll Never Love This Way Again," produced by labelmate Barry Manilow and featured on her first platinum-selling album, another LP simply titled Dionne. "Deja Vu," also from the album, was a Top 20 pop and number one adult contemporary hit. "I'll Never Love This Way Again" wonWarwick her third Grammy for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female; "Deja Vu" won her her fourth for Best Rhythm & Blues Vocal Performance, Female.
Warwick topped the adult contemporary charts in 1980 with "No Night So Long," but her next across-the-board hit did not come until she hooked up with the Bee Gees for her 1982 album Heartbreaker. Barry Gibb produced the gold-selling LP and the three Gibb brothers wrote the title song, which made the pop Top Ten and topped the adult contemporary charts. In 1985, Warwick was reconciled with Bacharach and she organized a charity recording of his and Carole Bayer Sager's song "That's What Friends Are For" to benefit AIDS, featuring Elton John, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder, in addition to herself. The record topped the pop, R&B, and adult contemporary charts in the winter of 1985-1986, the album Friends on which it was included went gold, and the song earned Warwick her fifth Grammy for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. In 1987, Warwick topped the adult contemporary charts and reached the Top Five of the R&B charts with "Love Power," a duet with Jeffrey Osborne that was another Bacharach/Sager composition.
Warwick enjoyed less commercial success after the late '80s. She parted ways with Arista Records after her 1995 albumAquarela Do Brazil. In 1998, she issued Dionne Sings Dionne, an album consisting largely of re-recordings of her hits, on River North Records. Her first collection of holiday standards, My Favorite Time of the Year, was released in 2004 on EMI. Two years later she landed on the Concord label with My Friends & Me, a collection of duets that revisited her classic recordings with Cyndi Lauper, Kelis, Reba McEntire, and Wynonna Judd among her guests. Why We Sing, her first gospel album in nearly 40 years, landed on the Rhino label in 2008 and in 2011, she would star in Donald Trump's The Celebrity Apprentice 4, a reality television competition series that pitted her against fellow contestants like David Cassidy, Lil Jon, and Meat Loaf.Now, a new album of Bacharach and David material, arrived in 2012 on H&I Music label and marked her 50th anniversary as a recording artist.
Decision: With 31 top 40 hits and 12 top 10's, Dionne belongs in the Pop HOF.
The Four Tops
The Four Tops' story is one of longevity and togetherness: these Motown legends teamed up in high school and spent over four decades without a single personnel change. In between, they became one of the top-tier acts on a label with no shortage of talent, ranking with the Temptations and the Supremesas Motown's most consistent hitmakers. Where many other R&B vocal groups spotlighted a tenor-range lead singer, The Four Tops were fronted by deep-voiced Levi Stubbs, who never cut a solo record outside of the group. Stubbs had all the grit of a pleading, wailing, gospel-trained soul belter, but at the same time, the Tops' creamy harmonies were smooth enough for Motown's radio-friendly pop-soul productions. From 1964-1967, The Four Tops recorded some of the Holland-Dozier-Holland team's greatest compositions, including "Reach Out, I'll Be There," "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)," "Standing in the Shadows of Love," "Bernadette," and "Baby I Need Your Loving." The group's fortunes took a downturn when their chief source of material left the label, but they enjoyed a renaissance in the early '70s, which saw them switching to the ABC-Dunhill imprint. Regardless of commercial fortunes, they kept on performing and touring, scoring the occasional comeback hit.
The Four Tops began life in 1953 (some accounts say 1954), when all of the members were attending Detroit-area high schools. Levi Stubbs and Abdul "Duke" Fakir went to Pershing, and met Northern students Renaldo "Obie" Benson and Lawrence Payton at a friend's birthday party, where the quartet members first sang together. Sensing an immediate chemistry, they began rehearsing together and dubbed themselves the Four Aims. Payton's cousin Roquel Davis, a budding songwriter who sometimes sang with the group during its early days, helped them get an audition with Chess Records in 1956. Although Chess was more interested in Davis, who went on to become Berry Gordy's songwriting partner, they also signed the Four Aims, who became The Four Tops to avoid confusion with the Ames Brothers. The Four Tops' lone Chess single, "Kiss Me Baby," was an unequivocal flop, and the group moved on to similarly brief stints at Red Top and Riverside. They signed with Columbia in 1960 and were steered in a more upscale supper-club direction, singing jazz and pop standards. This too failed to break them, although they did tour with Billy Eckstine during this period.
In 1963, The Four Tops signed with longtime friend Berry Gordy's new label, specifically the jazz-oriented Workshop subsidiary. They completed a debut LP, to be called Breaking Through, but Gordy scrapped it and switched their style back to R&B, placing them on Motown with the Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team. After a full decade in existence, The Four Tops finally notched their first hit in 1964 with "Baby I Need Your Loving," which just missed the pop Top Ten. Early 1965 brought the follow-up ballad hit "Ask the Lonely," and from then on there was no stopping them. "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" went all the way to number one that spring, and the follow-up "It's the Same Old Song" reached the Top Five. The hits continued into 1966, with "Something About You" "Shake Me, Wake Me (When It's Over)," and "Loving You Is Sweeter Than Ever" all coming in succession. The fall of 1966 brought the group's masterpiece in the form of the virtual soul symphony "Reach Out, I'll Be There"; not only did it become their second number one pop hit, it also wound up ranking as the creative peak of the group's career and one of Motown's finest singles ever. During this period, the Tops also earned a reputation as one of Motown's best live acts, having previously honed their performances for years before hitting the big time.
The Four Tops kicked off 1967 with the dramatic Top Ten smash "Standing in the Shadows of Love," which was followed by the Top Five "Bernadette." "7-Rooms of Gloom" and "You Keep Running Away" reached the Top 20, but toward the end of the year, Holland-Dozier-Holland left Motown over a financial dispute, which didn't bode well for The Four Tops' impressive hit streak. Their next two hits, 1968's "Walk Away Renee" and "If I Were a Carpenter," were both covers of well-known recent songs (by the Left Banke and Bobby Darin, respectively), and while both made the Top 20, they heralded a rough couple of years when top-drawer material was in short supply. They enjoyed a resurgence in 1970 under producer Frank Wilson, who helmed a hit cover of the Tommy Edwards pop standard "It's All in the Game" and a ballad co-written by Smokey Robinson, "Still Water (Love)." the Tops also recorded with the post-Diana Ross Supremes, scoring a duet hit with a cover of "River Deep, Mountain High" in 1971.
When Motown moved its headquarters to Los Angeles in 1972, The Four Tops parted ways with the company, choosing to remain in their hometown of Detroit. They signed with ABC-Dunhill and were teamed with producers/songwriters Dennis Lambert and Brian Potter, who did their best to re-create the group's trademark Motown sound. The immediate result was "Keeper of the Castle," The Four Tops' first Top Ten hit in several years. They followed it in early 1973 with "Ain't No Woman (Like the One I've Got)," a gold-selling smash that proved to be their final Top Five pop hit. That year they also recorded the theme song to the film Shaft in Africa, "Are You Man Enough." Several more R&B chart hits followed over the next few years, with the last being 1976's "Catfish"; after a final ABC album in 1978, the Tops largely disappeared from sight before resurfacing on Casablanca in 1981. Incredibly, their first single, "When She Was My Girl," went all the way to number one on the R&B charts, just missing the pop Top Ten. The accompanying album, Tonight!, became their last to hit the Top 40.
The Four Tops rejoined Motown in 1983, the year of the company's 25th anniversary, and toured extensively with the Temptations. They also recorded a couple albums of new material that failed to sell well, and wound up leaving Motown amid confusion over proper musical direction. Meanwhile, Levi Stubbs provided the voice for Audrey the man-eating plant in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors.The Four Tops next caught on with Arista, where in 1988 they scored their last Top 40 pop hit, the aptly titled "Indestructible." The Four Tops were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and continued to tour the oldies circuit. In 1997, Lawrence Payton passed away due to cancer of the liver, which proved to be the only thing that could break up The Four Tops. After some consideration, the remaining members hired Theo Peoples to take Payton's place on tour.
Decision: Only 2 #1 Pop hits, but 18 top 20's, along with being Motown legends is enough to make the Pop HOF.
The Who
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 withTownshend's furious guitar chords, Entwistle's hyperactive basslines, and Moon's vigorous, seemingly chaotic drumming. Unlike most rock bands, the Who based their rhythm onTownshend'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 Townshendpushed 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 andKeith 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 toEntwistle 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 andTownshend playing banjo. By the early '60s, the pair had formed a rock & roll band, but Entwistledeparted 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 Whochanged 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.
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 Whoappeared 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.
"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 Stampcould 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 Lambertand 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.
It was time to record a second album, and this time Lambertand Stamp as well as the band had a more ambitious agenda. They didn't totally abandon their covers of R&B -- the group liked doing them and the mod audience expected them -- but Townshend's success at writing their singles had inspired their managers. Lambert and Stamp decided that every member of the Who should contribute songs this time, in order to generate more revenue. Although the ploy meant A Quick One -- as the album was finally called -- was uneven, Lambert's presence allowed Townshend to write the title track as a ten-minute mini-opera, an idea he would expand over the next few years. As it was, "A Quick One While He's Away" showed Townshend writing (and the Who singing and playing) in various idioms far beyond rock & roll, including faux western and faux operetta -- these were important moments for the players, getting dedicated rock & rollers Daltrey andEntwistle (who would just as soon have been crunching out covers of Eddie Cochran or something from the Vee-Jay Records song catalog, or something closer to "I Can't Explain") to go along and throw their full talents into the music, if even in a jocular fashion; and the track's successful extension of a narrative line across what amounted to several songs showed Townshend and company that this idea could be expanded upon. And one of the few moments of serious compromise in the song's production even seems to have anticipated one aspect of future interpretation of their music by an admirer -- for the final section, there should have been a group of cellos playing accompaniment behind the group, but the group couldn't afford to hire the necessary musicians, so instead the members did a peculiar kind of modified vocalise, singing a chorus of "cello cello cello cello," which worked beautifully on a musical level as well as adding a surreal edge to the finale; but heard 40 years later, that moment also uncannily prefigures Petra Haden's approach to recording her version of The Who Sell Out.Upon its 1966 release, A Quick One became another British hit, and the record also provided a minor breakthrough in America, where the album was retitled Happy Jack and its title track reached the Top 40 in early 1967. But to do that, they were forced to tour the U.S. as part of a package tour organized under the auspices of DJ-turned-impresario Murray the K. Booked alongside Cream (also a new act in America), folkies Jim & Jean, and Wilson Pickett, doing 15- or 20-minute sets five shows a day, the group got the exposure they needed to push the song onto AM radio, and finally become known to a wider public, even though "Happy Jack" was a totally atypical Who song, with its emphasis on harmony singing and its relatively restrained guitar part -- the band found itself in a situation amazingly similar to that of their mod audience rivals the Small Faces, who broke through in America around the same time with "Itchycoo Park," a song that was completely unrepresentative of their usual sound.
In 1968, The Who headlined the first Schaefer Music Festival in New York City's Central Park and released the single "Magic Bus". In December, they took part in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, performing their mini-opera, "A Quick One While He's Away". Also that year, Townshend became the subject of the first Rolling Stone interview. Townshend said he was working on a full-length rock opera. This was Tommy, the first work billed as a rock opera and a landmark in modern music.
During this time the teachings of India's Meher Baba influenced Townshend's songwriting, continuing for many years. Baba is credited as "Avatar" on Tommy. In addition to commercial success, Tommy became a critical smash, Life saying, "... for sheer power, invention and brilliance of performance, Tommy outstrips anything which has ever come out of a recording studio,"and Melody Maker declaring, "Surely The Who are now the band against which all others are to be judged."
The Who performed at the Woodstock Festival that year, insisting on being paid before going on stage early on Sunday morning when they played much of Tommy. During their performance Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman sat on the stage with concert organiser Michael Lang. Hoffman had been working the medical tent since the festival's opening act and was under the influence of LSD. Hoffman had become increasingly determined to publicise the case of John Sinclair, who had been given a 10-year jail sentence for passing two marijuana cigarettes to an undercover narcotics officer. Hoffman jumped up and grabbed a microphone during a brief lull in The Who's performance of Tommy saying, "I think this is a pile of shit, while John Sinclair rots in prison!" Townshend replied, "Fuck off! Fuck off my fucking stage!" and struck Hoffman with his guitar. Hoffman leaped off the stage and disappeared into the crowd.
The group began 1970 by appearing on the BBC's highly rated review of the sixties music scene Pop Go The Sixties, performing "I Can See For Miles" live on the show broadcast onBBC1, on 1 January 1970. In February 1970 The Who recorded Live at Leeds, thought by many critics to be the best live rock album of all time. The album, originally containing mostly the show's set closing hard rock songs, has been re-released in expanded and remastered versions. These versions remedy technical problems with the already-groundbreaking original, and are expanded with portions of the performance of Tommy, as well as versions of earlier singles and stage banter. A double-disc version contains the entire performance of Tommy. The Leeds University gig was part of the Tommy tour, which not only included gigs in European opera houses but saw The Who become the first rock act at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City. In March The Who released the UK top twenty hit "The Seeker".
Roger Daltrey, left, and Pete Townshend performing with The Who in Hamburg, 1972In March 1971, the band began recording the available Lifehouse material, a new Townshend-penned rock opera, with Kit Lambert in New York, and then restarted the sessions with Glyn Johns in April. Selections from the material, with one unrelated song by Entwistle, were released as a traditional studio album, Who's Next. The album became their most successful album among critics and fans, but terminated the Lifehouse project.Who's Next reached No. 4 in the US pop charts and No. 1 in the UK. Two tracks from the album, "Baba O'Riley" and "Won't Get Fooled Again", are early examples of synthesiser use in rock music; both tracks' keyboard sounds were generated in real time by a Lowrey organ (though in "Won't Get Fooled Again", the organ was processed through a VCS3 synthesiser). Synthesisers can be heard elsewhere on the album, in "Bargain", "Going Mobile", and "The Song Is Over". In October The Who released the UK top twenty hit "Let's See Action". On 4 November 1971 The Who opened the Rainbow Theatre in London and played for three nights. They also played at the Young Vic in London, performing the Lifehouse set. This has been released on disc 2 of the Who's Next Deluxe Edition. In 1972 they released the UK top ten and US top twenty single "Join Together" and the UK and US Top Forty "Relay".
Who's Next was followed by Quadrophenia (1973), The Who's second completed double album rock opera. The story is about a boy named Jimmy, who struggles to establish his own identity, with his family and others. His story is set against clashes between Mods and Rockers in the early 1960s in the UK, particularly at Brighton. The album became their highest charting cross-Atlantic success, peaking at No. 2 in the UK and US. The US tour started on 20 November 1973 at the San Francisco, California Cow Palace in Daly City where Moon passed out during "Won't Get Fooled Again" and, after a break backstage, again in "Magic Bus". Townshend asked the audience, "Can anyone play the drums? – I mean somebody good." An audience member, Scot Halpin, filled in for the rest of the show, a jam featuring "Smokestack Lightning", "Spoonful" and "Naked Eye".
Moon in 1975In 1974 The Who released the outtakes album Odds & Sods, which featured several songs from the aborted Lifehouse project. Their 1975 album, The Who by Numbers, had introspective songs, lightened by "Squeeze Box", another hit single. Some critics considered By Numbers Townshend's "suicide note." A movie version of Tommy released that year was directed by Ken Russell, starred Daltrey and earned Townshend an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Score. On 6 December 1975 The Who set the record for largest indoor concert at the Pontiac Silverdome, attended by 75,962 people. On 31 May 1976 The Who played at The Valley, the home of Charlton Athletic, in what was listed for more than ten years in the Guinness Book of Records as the world's loudest concert, at over 120 dBs.
Daltrey and Townshend, 21 October 1976, Maple Leaf Gardens, Toronto, OntarioOn 18 August 1978, the band released Who Are You. It became their biggest and fastest seller to that date, peaking at No. 2 in the US, and was certified platinum in the US on 20 September. This success was overshadowed by Keith Moon's death in his sleep on 7 September after an overdose of Heminevrin – prescribed to combat alcohol withdrawal – a few hours after a party held by Paul McCartney. Kenney Jones, of Small Faces and Faces, joined as Moon's successor.
On 2 May 1979, The Who returned to the stage with a well-received concert at the Rainbow Theatre in London, followed up over the spring and summer by performances at the Cannes Film Festival in France, in Scotland, at Wembley Stadium in London, in West Germany, at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, New Jersey and in five dates at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
Also in 1979, The Who released a documentary film called The Kids Are Alright and a film version of Quadrophenia, the latter a box office hit in the UK and the former capturing many of the band's most scintillating moments on stage, including their last performance with Keith Moon. In December, The Who became the third band, after The Beatles and The Band, featured on the cover of Time. The article, written by Jay Cocks, said The Who had "outpaced, outlasted, outlived and outclassed" all of their rock band contemporaries.
In 1979, a small tour of the United States was marred by tragedy: on 3 December 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio, a crowd crush at Riverfront Coliseum killed 11 fans and injured 26 others. This was due in part to festival seating – a seating arrangement in which seating is unassigned (non-reserved), so the first to enter the venue get the best of those spots. Additionally, many fans waiting outside mistook the band's sound check for the actual concert, and attempted to force their way inside. When only a fraction of the arena's entrance doors were opened, a bottleneck situation ensued, and with so many thousands trying to gain entry, the crush became deadly.
The band were not told until after the show because civic authorities feared crowd problems if the concert was cancelled. The band were deeply shaken upon learning of the incident and requested assistance in subsequent venues for appropriate safety precautions for their following concerts. From the stage the following evening in Buffalo, New York, Daltrey told the crowd that the band had "lost a lot of family last night and this show's for them."
John Entwistle performing with The Who at the Manchester Apollo, 1981The band released two studio albums with Jones as drummer, Face Dances (1981) and It's Hard (1982). Face Dances produced a US top twenty and UK top ten hit with the single "You Better You Bet" and a string of MTV and AOR hits like "Another Tricky Day". Three videos from the album played on MTV the day it took to the air in August 1981. While both albums sold fairly well and It's Hard received a five-star review in Rolling Stone, some fans were not receptive to the new sound. "Athena" was a US top thirty hit and "Eminence Front" charted as well and became a favourite. However Townshend's life was a mess – his marriage had fallen apart due to the constant touring with The Who. He began drinking heavily and became a heroin addict, which shocked even his closest friends after his previous anti-drug stance, when he swore off drugs, witnessing and enduring bad LSD trips in the late 1960s. He cleaned up in 1982, and The Who embarked on their 'farewell' tour of the US and Canada. It included two shows at Shea Stadium in New York on 12 & 13 October and ended in Toronto on 17 December and which was featured on HBO. Townshend had said he wanted one more tour with The Who before turning it into a studio band. It was the highest grossing tour of the year, with sellout crowds in stadiums and arenas throughout North America.
Townshend spent part of 1983 trying to write material for the studio album still owed to Warner Bros. Records from a contract in 1980. By the end of 1983, however, Townshend declared himself unable to generate material appropriate for The Who and announced his departure from the band in December, wishing Daltrey, Entwistle and Jones all the best if they went on without him. He then focused on solo projects such as: White City: A Novel, The Iron Man (which featured Daltrey and Entwistle and two songs on the album credited to "The Who"), and Psychoderelict, a forerunner to the radio work Lifehouse.
In July 1985, The Who—including Kenney Jones—reformed for a one-off at Bob Geldof's Live Aid concert at Wembley Stadium, London. The BBC transmission truck blew a fuse at the beginning of "My Generation", meaning the picture was lost completely, but the band kept playing. This caused most of the video of "My Generation" and all of "Pinball Wizard" to be missed by the rest of the world, but the audio for "Pinball Wizard" and the remaining songs were transmitted via radio. Transmission resumed with "Love, Reign O'er Me" and "Won't Get Fooled Again".
At 1988 Brit Awards held at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the band was honoured with the British Phonographic Industry's Lifetime Achievement Award. The Who played a short set at the ceremony (the last time Jones worked with The Who). In 1989, they embarked on a 25th anniversary The Kids Are Alright reunion tour which emphasised songs from Tommy. Simon Phillips played drums with Steve "Boltz" Bolton playing lead guitar, as Townshend relegated himself to acoustic guitar and some electric rhythm guitar in order to minimise damage to his hearing. A horn section and backing singers were also included in order to provide sonic richness while keeping stage volumes far lower than previous tours. Newsweek said, "The Who tour is special because, after the Beatles and the Stones, they're IT." There were sellouts throughout North America, including a four-night stand at Giants Stadium. Their two shows at Sullivan Stadium in Foxboro Massachusetts sold 100,000 tickets in less than 8 hours, beating previous records set there by U2 and David Bowie. In all, over two million tickets were sold. The tour included Tommy at Radio City Music Hall in New York and at the Universal Amphitheatre in Los Angeles, with several guest stars at the latter performance. A 2-CD live album Join Together was released in 1990, stalling at No. 188 in the US. A video of the Universal Amphitheatre show was also released and went platinum in the US.
In 1990, their first year of eligibility, The Who were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by U2, Bono saying, "More than any other band, The Who are our role models." The Who's display at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes them as prime contenders for the title of "World's Greatest Rock Band". The Beatles and The Rolling Stones also received a similar accolade there.
In 1991, The Who recorded a cover of Elton John's "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting" for the tribute album Two Rooms: Celebrating the Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin. This was the last time they released any new studio work with Entwistle. In 1994 Daltrey turned 50 and celebrated with two concerts at Carnegie Hall. These included guest spots by Entwistle and Townshend. Although all three surviving original members of The Who attended, they did not appear on stage together except for the finale, "Join Together", with the other guests. Daltrey toured that year with Entwistle and with John "Rabbit" Bundrick on keyboards, Zak Starkey on drums and Simon Townshend filling in for his brother as guitarist.
In 1996, Townshend, Entwistle and Daltrey performed Quadrophenia with guest stars at a concert in Hyde Park, with Zak Starkey as the drummer. The performance was narrated by Phil Daniels who played Jimmy the Mod in the film. Despite technical difficulties the show was a success and led to a six-night residency at Madison Square Garden. Townshend played acoustic guitar exclusively. These shows were not billed as The Who. The success of the Quadrophenia shows led to a US and European tour through 1996 and 1997. Townshend played mostly acoustic guitar, but also electric guitar on select songs. In 1998, VH1 ranked The Who ninth in their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of Rock 'n' Roll.
In late 1999, The Who performed as a five-piece for the first time in concert since 1985, with Bundrick on keyboards and Starkey on drums. The first show took place 29 October 1999 in Las Vegas at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. From there, they performed acoustic shows at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California on 30 and 31 October. Next, they played on 12 and 13 November at the House of Blues in Chicago, as a benefit for the Maryville Academy. Finally, two Christmas charity shows on 22 and 23 December at the Shepherds Bush Empire in London. These were the first full-length concerts with Townshend playing electric guitar for the duration of the show since 1982. The 29 October show in Las Vegas was partially on TV as well as the internet and would later see release as the DVD The Vegas Job. Reviews for the shows were good.
In 2000, VH1 placed The Who eighth in the 100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock. The band, with Zak Starkey on drums, performed The Concert for New York City at Madison Square Garden on 20 October 2001, during which they played "Who Are You", "Baba O'Riley", "Behind Blue Eyes", and "Won't Get Fooled Again". The concert was dedicated to families of fallen New York City firemen and policemen who lost their lives at the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. The Who were also honoured with a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award that year.
Endless Wire was released on 30 October 2006 (31 October in the US). It was the first full studio album of new material since 1982's It's Hard and contained the band's first mini-opera since "Rael" on 1967's The Who Sell Out. Endless Wire debuted at No. 7 on Billboard and No. 9 in the UK Albums Chart. On the eve of its release (29 October), The Who performed part of the mini-opera and several songs from the new album live as the closing act of the BBC Electric Proms at the Roundhouse in London.
In advance of the album, and to support it, The Who embarked upon their 2006–2007 tour. Shows were released on CD and DVD as part of Encore Series 2006 and 2007. Starkey was invited to join Oasis in April 2006, and The Who in November 2006, but he declined, preferring to split his time between the two. On 24 June 2007, The Who topped the bill at theGlastonbury Festival.
In November 2007, the documentary Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who was released. The documentary includes footage not in earlier documentaries, including film from the 1970 Leeds University appearance and a 1964 performance at the Railway Hotel when they were The High Numbers. Amazing Journey was nominated for a 2009 Grammy Award.
The Who were honoured at the 2008 VH1 Rock Honors in Los Angeles. Taping of the show took place 12 July, followed by a network broadcast on 17 July. That same week, a 12-song best-of collection was released for the music video game Rock Band. The Who performed at the Rock Band party at the Orpheum Theater during the 2008 E3 Media and Business Summit. In October 2008, The Who embarked on a tour of four Japanese cities and nine North American cities. In December, The Who were recognised at the Kennedy Center Honors. After other musical celebrities performed their music, the finale was a surprise chorus of police and rescue first responders who had been touched by The Who's performance at The Concert for New York City after the shock of 9–11.
Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend performing in Miami, Florida on 5 February 2010The Who performed at the halftime show of Super Bowl XLIV at Sun Life Stadium in Miami Gardens, Florida on 7 February 2010. They played a medley of "Pinball Wizard", "Baba O'Riley", "Who Are You", "See Me, Feel Me", and "Won't Get Fooled Again".[62]
Townshend told Rolling Stone magazine that the band had planned a tour for early 2010; Townshend later stated this was jeopardised due to the return of his tinnitus. He is experimenting with a new in-ear monitoring system that was recommended to him by fellow rocker Neil Young and his audiologist. The in-ear monitoring system was scheduled to be tested out at the Quadrophenia concert at the Royal Albert Hall on 30 March. Roger Daltrey stated that they had acquired new equipment—earpieces and the like—that he and the band are learning to use to enable Townshend to perform. The Who hoped to hit the road again in 2011, with "a new show," according to singer Roger Daltrey, or possibly a retooled stage presentation of the group's 1973 rock opera Quadrophenia.
On 11 October 2010, The Who's official website announced the release on 15 November 2010 of the Fortieth Anniversary Super-Deluxe Collectors' Edition of their Live at Leedsalbum, including the complete 14 February 1970 performance, and a 2-CD set containing the complete performance of 15 February 1970 at the City Hall in Hull, England.
Roger Daltrey had announced he was producing a biopic about Keith Moon called See Me Feel Me: Keith Moon Naked for Your Pleasure, which was to be released in 2012. Comedian Mike Myers was going to play the main role and would have taken drumming lessons to suit the character. However, according to Daltrey, as of 2011 this project may currently be stalled. The Who performed in London on 13 January 2011, along with Jeff Beck and Debbie Harry for a 'killing cancer' benefit concert.
In July 2011, Townshend revealed on his blog that he will be touring their 1973 rock opera album Quadrophenia with bandmate Roger Daltrey in 2012. Townshend wrote "The reason I am not on the road with Roger is that this is entirely Roger's adventure, one that is bringing him great joy. I don't belong on this 'Tommy' tour. I wish him well, sincerely, and I look forward to playing with Roger again doing 'Quadrophenia' next year".
On 18 July 2012, the band announced a 35-date tour where they will play their album Quadrophenia in its entirety. Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend will be joined by Zak Starkey on drums, Pino Palladino on bass, Simon Townshend on guitar/backing vocals, Chris Stainton on keyboards, Loren Gold on keyboards/backing vocals, and Frank Simes as Musical Director, and on keyboards/backing vocals.
On 12 August 2012, the band performed at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games as the final act, playing "Baba O'Riley", "See Me, Feel Me" and "My Generation". The Kaiser Chiefs covered The Who's song "Pinball Wizard". Controversially, American television network NBC played The Who's performance in a late-night segment of the closing ceremony after an advance broadcast of the new sitcom Animal Practice.
On 12 December 2012, The Who performed at The Concert for Sandy Relief at Madison Square Garden, broadcasted live via television, radio, movie theaters and the Internet across six continents.
Decision: The Who are among the most legendary Rock bands ever but, they only had 16 top 40 hits, and one top 10 hit,"I Can See For Miles". Rock royalty, but not Pop HOFers...
Tomorrow: More 1963 Nominees: The Temptations, Bob Dylan, The Supremes, Marvin Gaye
No comments:
Post a Comment