{"id":2325,"date":"2021-10-04T00:55:24","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T00:55:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2325"},"modified":"2021-10-07T00:22:21","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T00:22:21","slug":"from-the-vaults-roger-daltrey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=2325","title":{"rendered":"From the Vaults: Roger Daltrey"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On his fifteenth birthday, March 1, 1959, Roger Daltrey was sent home from school and told to never return.\u00a0 The headmaster, Mr. Kibblewhite, gave him a parting shot he would never forget:\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll never make anything of your life, Daltrey.\u201d\u00a0 Roger could only think to himself, \u201cThanks a lot, Mr. Kibblewhite,\u201d as he headed home to break the news to his parents.\u00a0 The phrase stuck with him for fifty years, long enough for him to subtitle and end his 2018 biography (<\/span>Roger Daltrey:\u00a0 My Story<\/span><\/i>) <\/span>Thanks A Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u00a0That Roger and school were not a perfect match is just as obvious as how wrong Mr. Kibblewhite turned out to be.\u00a0 As a youngster, Roger did very well in school and enjoyed it, at least until the system, as he says, \u201cBeat it out of me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0That World War II was the backdrop for the young Roger Harry Daltrey isn\u2019t a big surprise.\u00a0 Many talented musicians, actors, and artists were products of post-war London.\u00a0 His first memories are being sent off to a farm during the worst part of London\u2019s wartime woes, sharing a room with another family, and returning to the rubble-strewn city to share a flat with an uncle and aunt\u2019s family.\u00a0 His early schooling was a joyful time as the young Roger had the benefit of a special forms teacher named Mr. Blake who taught his charges meaningful lessons and took them on excursions.\u00a0 In his end-of-the-year report filed in 1955, Mr. Blake noted Roger\u2019s potential:\u00a0 \u201cA boy of wide interests – practical, intellectual, musical, and athletic.\u00a0 Daltrey passed his eleven-plus test and was slated to enroll in the Acton County Grammar school.\u00a0 When his father got a new job and the family moved two miles away to Bedford Park, things changed, particularly in school.\u00a0 It may have only been two miles, but it felt like a transfer to Mars.\u00a0 Being the new kid in school is tough enough but it was a life changing proposition for Roger on many fronts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0First there was the issue of his unusual look.\u00a0 He was short and his face was a little misformed from an untreated jaw infection.\u00a0 Roger fell and broke his jaw in three places playing around a construction site.\u00a0 When it was misdiagnosed and he was sent home, the infection worsened until it burst, affecting both the shape of and nerves in his face.\u00a0 Then there was the combination of his distaste for math and the lack of a Mr. Blake to guide his studies.\u00a0 Roger to this day does not understand why students, like himself, who can do basic math are still subjected to trigonometry, calculus, and other higher forms that do not click for them.\u00a0 Being bullied was the last straw for Daltrey;\u00a0 it led to truancy (to avoid it), which put a target on his back (remember Mr. Kibblewhite?).\u00a0 Roger plainly did not like to be told what to do and his constant tweaking of the rules would expedite his departure from the educational system.\u00a0 The end of his formal education came when he brought his air gun to school, pretty much because it wasn\u2019t allowed.\u00a0 Even though it was someone else who picked it up and fired a careening shot that took out the eye of a classmate, it was Roger\u2019s gun.\u00a0 Daltrey was expelled by Mr. Kibblewhite.\u00a0 Yes, the parent\u2019s lament is, \u201cYou\u2019ll shoot yourself in the eye!\u201d and Roger would eventually have his own eye patch moment (we will get to later).\u00a0 The expulsion did not sit well with his parents and within a week, his father had him signed on at the labor office.\u00a0 Daltrey found work on a building site at fifteen years old;\u00a0 a life of hard labor seemed to be his destiny.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Pete Townshend wrote in his own biography that Daltrey had a penchant for starting a lot of fights, but Roger disputes this.\u00a0 Yes, he did get tired of the bullying and put a stop to most of it by smashing one of his tormentors with a chair:\u00a0 \u201cAfter that, they all backed off.\u00a0 The chair had turned the tables.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think I ever became a bully myself.\u00a0 I learned to defend myself and I learned not to put up with any [crap], but I never actively looked for trouble.\u00a0 Pete seems to think I did.\u00a0 Now I\u2019m an incredibly peaceful bloke really, and I think I\u2019m fair as well.\u00a0 But in those days I was quite volatile.\u201d\u00a0 Roger says these moments of violence were like a red mist coming over him, but over time he worked hard to control things that triggered his temper.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Elvis got popular, but the twelve year old Daltrey found he was more taken by Lonnie Donegan after he saw him on the telly.\u00a0 As the skiffle movement gained steam, Daltrey took a job in a laundry to raise the funds needed to build his own guitar.\u00a0 It was a true DIY project as he described it: \u00a0 \u201cIt certainly looked like a guitar and worked like one.\u00a0 On a good day, it even sounded like one and that was enough.\u00a0 Within a couple of weeks I\u2019d mastered the three chords you needed to play pretty much anything you heard on the radio.\u00a0 A couple of weeks after that, I had played my first gig, channeling Lonnie with Elvis hair.\u00a0 The gig was a youth club dance and I didn\u2019t feel nervous.\u00a0 I just climbed up onstage and went for it.\u00a0 <\/span>Heartbreak Hotel<\/span><\/i> full belt.\u201d\u00a0 A week later, the homemade guitar folded in half. \u00a0 Roger\u2019s Uncle John, a carpenter by trade, helped him make \u2018Guitar Two\u2019 and correct the mistakes he had made on \u2018Guitar One\u2019.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Roger and his guitar were now inseparable.\u00a0 Daltrey was introduced to rock and roll via an older cousin\u2019s record collection:\u00a0 \u201cHis name was Graham Hughes.\u00a0 I moved on from Lonnie to Little Richard and, by the time I was fifteen, I was ready to make my first electric guitar.\u00a0 I was going to be a rock star, although there would be a few bumps in the road ahead.\u201d\u00a0 Roger spent a lot of time with Hughes (who was in art school and would become a successful photographer and produce many album covers for The Who and Daltrey\u2019s solo work), hung out with his old Shepherds Bush chums, and practiced with his band.\u00a0 Life outside of school was okay and he was a busy fellow, but Mr. Kibblewhite\u2019s words would not soon be forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Guitar Three would be another homemade job, this one resembling the Fender Stratocaster that Roger had ogled in a music store window.\u00a0 His skiffle band slowly morphed into a dance band that played everywhere they could get booked.\u00a0 When the bass player called it a day, Daltrey ran into a face he remembered from school.\u00a0 He recognized John Entwistle by his angly build and gait, but what caught his attention was the homemade bass guitar he was toting.\u00a0 Roger lured him away from his bass and trumpet duties in a traditional jazz band by telling him they were getting plenty of gigs and getting paid (only half of which may have been true).\u00a0 The Detours, as they had branded themselves, became the in demand band around Shepherds Bush.\u00a0 In January of 1962, the lead singer quit, leaving it up to Daltrey to step forward and front the band.\u00a0 John finally convinced Roger that founding band member Reg was not cutting it as the main guitar player, so he suggested an old school chum of his;\u00a0 another tall, angular art student named Pete Townshend.\u00a0 Along with this latest \u2018gear added to the band\u2019s machinery\u2019, Pete\u2019s mom Betty joined the entourage as their biggest fan and sometime van driver.\u00a0 Betty was the one person who was not afraid to arm-twist a local promoter named Bob Druce to come out and see them play…twice.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After Betty \u2018frog-marched\u2019 Druce to see them, he got the Detours regular gigs on the West London pub circuit.\u00a0 Roger recalled, \u201cYou turned up.\u00a0 You played.\u00a0 If you were rubbish, you got packed off in a hail of bottles.\u00a0 If you weren\u2019t rubbish, you were asked back.\u00a0 That suited us because by now we were pretty good.\u00a0 We started building our own audience.\u201d\u00a0 Two of these now regular gigs stand out as highwater marks in the progression of the band.\u00a0 The Douglas House in Bayswater catered to American officers and they requested, as Daltrey remembers, \u201cA whole cornucopia of American music – everything from Johnny Cash to the Coasters and Roy Orbison.\u201d\u00a0 They even tossed in some Dixieland classics.\u00a0 The Douglas House was where they met \u2018America\u2019 – the American dream flavored by American whiskey, beer, and pizza.\u00a0 The other regular gig was at a club called the Oldfield.\u00a0 There they met Keith Moon.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Detours\u2019 drummer, Doug Sanson, was a bricklayer by day and his wife was getting tired of the thirty something family man never being with his family, so he quit.\u00a0 The band was performing with a hired gun drummer when someone approached the Oldfield bandstand to inform The Detours that his mate could play better than the guy on stage.\u00a0 Moon came up and made an immediate impression;\u00a0 he had tried to dye his hair Beach Boy blond and it came out ginger colored.\u00a0 For added effect, he was sporting clothing of the same color.\u00a0 Moonie kicked off Bo Diddley\u2019s <\/span>Road Runner<\/span><\/i> and before the song ended, Daltrey knew the drum throne was filled:\u00a0 \u201cHalfway through, he started to do his syncopations.\u00a0 It\u2019s all mathematics, isn\u2019t it, drumming, but his mathematics were from another planet.\u00a0 And it gave springboards for John\u2019s little bass guitar flicks and Pete\u2019s power rhythm.\u00a0 It just took things up to the next level.\u00a0 The final gear.\u201d\u00a0 Moon had been taking tips from the first true powerhouse rock drummer of the period, Carlo Little from Screaming Lord Sutch\u2019s band.\u00a0 He learned his lessons well.\u00a0 Keith\u2019s power and unconventional style were indeed the final pieces of The Who puzzle.\u00a0 The band\u2019s rep and Moon\u2019s antics were over the top for the next fourteen years.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Looking back at those days, Roger is still amused that people thought he was a millionaire as soon as they had a few hit records and toured in America.\u00a0 Touring was expensive enough.\u00a0 Having to pay for the damage Keith Moon inflicted cherry bombing toilets and tossing hotel items out of upper story windows kept them cash poor.\u00a0 Wrecking perfectly good guitars and drums was also a shock for Roger who came up appreciating the art of not wasting one\u2019s time or money.\u00a0 Townshend\u2019s first destruction of an instrument was accidental;\u00a0 he misjudged the height of the ceiling above the stage and poked his guitar neck though the tiles above.\u00a0 When a few girls snickered about it, he did not want to look like clutz, so he smashed his guitar to make it look like part of the act.\u00a0 Never one to be upstaged, Moonie followed suit with his drum kit at the next gig and, much to Roger\u2019s chagrin, The Who had a new calling card.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Moon wasn\u2019t concerned.\u00a0 He had no conception of how much things cost. \u00a0 Keith constdantly\u00a0 spent money he did not have (misguided loans from managers and the record label helped fuel his insanity).\u00a0 Pete had revenue coming in as the primary songwriter so he could afford his fits of \u2018artistic destruction\u2019.\u00a0 Roger could not afford to waste cash and as cheaply as he tried to live on the road (\u201cone hamburger per day,\u201d he says now).\u00a0 It was always disheartening to find out they returned from tours in debt.\u00a0 Their management team of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp financed their own lifestyle and drug use with band money, so it only made things worse for Daltrey, Moon, and Entwistle (not so much for Pete).<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One can see the nature of Daltrey\u2019s finances by noting some of his wardrobe choices back then.\u00a0 Some of his outfits came right out of his wife\u2019s closet.\u00a0 The rustic looking chamois shirt was created from two car wash cloths his wife hole punched and stitched together.\u00a0 The DIY shirt looked fancy enough for Miles Davis to have his assistant call and ask about it.\u00a0 Davis asked for some pictures so he could have one made.\u00a0 Roger doubts Davis had his made up from supplies purchased at the car shop.\u00a0 The sarape he wore during their groundbreaking performance at the Monterey International Pop Fest?\u00a0 Daltrey says it was a bedspread he purchased at an antique shop.\u00a0 Before they took their longest hiatus in 1983, Roger was doing okay, but was certainly no millionaire.\u00a0 He scrimped and saved from one U.S. tour so he and his wife Heather would have a down payment for a house.\u00a0 She was not pleased when Roger discovered his mates back home had wrecked his Astin Martin while he was away and used the money to buy a Jaguar at an auction to replace it.\u00a0 To keep the peace and avoid divorce proceedings, the Jag was returned and the house fund was restored (and rightly so Roger says now).\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Who would redefine themselves several times over their career.\u00a0 Never afraid to push musical boundaries, their <\/span>The Who Sell Out<\/span><\/i> album was an experiment, a record album with a theme.\u00a0 In this case, <\/span>TWSO<\/span><\/i> was an ode to the pirate radio stations that operated off the British coast before being legislated out of existence and replaced by the BBC\u2019s own Channel 1.\u00a0 Fake ads interconnected the songs on the album, making it sound like vintage pirate radio fare.\u00a0 The album\u2019s best known song <\/span>I Can See For Miles<\/span><\/i> made the first major radio inroads for The Who in the States.\u00a0 Some of their most over the top work can be found in the rock operas <\/span>Tommy <\/span><\/i>(1969)<\/span>, and Quadrophenia <\/span><\/i>(1973)<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Even\u00a0 the one concept album that failed to come together as an album (<\/span>Lifehouse<\/span><\/i>) still managed to produce songs capable of attracting new fans even today when it was cut down to one LP, <\/span>Who\u2019s Next <\/span><\/i>(1971).\u00a0 <\/span>Live At Leeds <\/span><\/i>(1970) is still touted as the greatest live album ever, but Daltrey says his singing is subpar because Entwistle and Townshend were engaged in a \u2018I have a bigger amp so I can play louder than you\u2019 war.\u00a0 Moon followed suit, adding more volume to the din, which in turn forced Roger to over sing.\u00a0 Slowly but surely, they were becoming one of the biggest bands in the world, but there would be consequences.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Moon\u2019s tragic tale was covered in a two-part FTV (<\/span>Moon the Loon – 5-6-20 & 5-13-20<\/span><\/i>). Suffice to say he succumbed to his own excesses of…everything he indulged in (he died in 1978).\u00a0 John Entwistle stood like a statue on the stage while he pounded out thunderous bass lines.\u00a0 He was quiet but had a bit of a dark streak and a tendency to hold grudges.\u00a0 He and Moon spent money like they thought rock stars should, even when they didn\u2019t have it.\u00a0 He died in his sleep in 2002 on the eve of a tour that had been mounted in part to help him stave off the poorhouse.\u00a0 Townshend is still alive, but the pressure to constantly write the next hit (or the next <\/span>Tommy<\/span><\/i>) saw him cycle between bouts of depression and substance abuse (<\/span>FTV:\u00a0 Who Are You?\u00a0 12-18-19 <\/span><\/i>).\u00a0 Oddly enough, the one band member who has retained some level of stability is Roger Daltrey.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Daltrey certainly has been no angel and his wife has stayed for the long haul even when he has strayed on tour from time to time.\u00a0 The Who were a band of brothers and the two still standing have finally learned that, like two real brothers, they can disagree and yet get along at the same time.\u00a0 Daltrey has had his share of health scares along the way, the latest a bout of meningitis in 2015, but he has always bounced back to perform again.\u00a0 At some point we will have to dig into the complicated history of The Who\u2019s many retirements and resurrections, but that is a story for another day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The other eye-patch incident?\u00a0 It happened on stage during a run through before an all star charity performance of <\/span>Quadrophenia. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0Gary Glitter invaded Roger\u2019s space twirling a fifteen pound mic that nearly took out Daltrey\u2019s eye.\u00a0 Roger was out twenty minutes but they patched him up and he sported a hastily assembled eye patch to cover the wound.\u00a0 That he managed to perform after such a blow seems to be in Roger\u2019s genes, but the crowd just thought the eye patch was part of the act.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As I like to do after reading an autobiography, I will let Roger have the last word about his life:\u00a0 \u201cIt could have gone a million other ways but it went the way it did.\u00a0 In the end, when you come to think of it, when we\u2019re all gone and dust, the music will live on,\u00a0 And I hope people will say about us tht we held to it to the end.\u00a0 And that will do for me.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been lucky.\u00a0 I\u2019ve had a lucky life. Thank you very much, Mr. Kibblewhite.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video:\u00a0 One of The Who’s most iconic performances finds Roger Daltrey and the Who in fine form – this version of Baba O’Reilly was included in the film\u00a0The Kids are Alright<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0On his fifteenth birthday, March 1, 1959, Roger Daltrey was sent home from school and told to never return.\u00a0 The headmaster, Mr. Kibblewhite, gave him a parting shot he would never forget:\u00a0 \u201cYou\u2019ll never make anything of your life, Daltrey.\u201d\u00a0 Roger could only think to himself, \u201cThanks a lot, Mr. Kibblewhite,\u201d as he headed home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,12,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-humor","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2325"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2331,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2325\/revisions\/2331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}