The Who
The Who’s next advertising deal really ought to be with Hamburger Helper–they’ve stretched a career that produced ten studio albums into at least a dozen other compilations, live sets, and retrospectives. At this point, if they’re going to release yet another disc of recycled material, there’d better be a good reason for it. As it happens, their new BBC Sessions–culled from the band’s ten or so performances on “the Beeb” between 1965 and 1973–is fascinating, not for its documentation of a superior band in peak form (for most of it, they’re neither) but for its insight into the peculiar and irreparable flaws that made the Who a great rock band.
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In the beginning, the Who were a kick-ass R & B cover band. The first segment of BBC Sessions, from spring 1965, features covers of some of their favorite American soul singles: the Olympics’ “Good Lovin’” (better known from the Young Rascals’ later version), Eddie Holland’s “Leaving Here,” and the disc’s only significant addition to the Who’s recorded repertoire, James Brown’s “Just You and Me, Darling.” A top 20 R & B hit for Brown, it’s an uncomplicated tune with lots of opportunities for a singer to emote. Roger Daltrey cops the original phrasing wholesale, even if he can’t pull off the Godfather’s larynx-shredding tone. But the band drops a few verses, cranks up the tempo, grafts on a couple piquant guitar solos, and backhand snaps it into orbit. As tough as they sound, though, in the early sessions the only real sign of the rock stars to come is “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” with Pete Townshend wiggling every switch and knob on his guitar for a freak-out solo in the middle.
Even as they hit their peak, the fault lines were widening. Townshend was starting to think about his “Lifehouse” project, which has intermittently preoccupied him for the last 30 years (he’s just released a six-CD set of related material on his own Eel Pie imprint), and his lyrics, though more spiritual and philosophical, were as gangly as ever (i.e., rhyming “Beatles” with “either”). On BBC Sessions Daltrey proves once more that he doesn’t get it, belting out “The Seeker,” a post-Tommy tune about spiritual yearning, like it’s “Land of 1,000 Dances.” Yet he also nails that high note at the end of “I’ve been searching low and high” like it’s no big deal, and Townshend, given the option to double track (which previous BBC sessions hadn’t allowed), packs the recording with tart acoustic flourishes. Their real-time interactions on a cover of “Shakin’ All Over,” a power workout taped a couple months before the Live at Leeds marathon version, beat their studio fussiness flat out, yet the closing selections on BBC Sessions are bizarre renditions of the electronically constipated “Relay” and the leaden anthem “Long Live Rock,” both sung over prerecorded tracks.
