The Who Album-By-Album (& Single-By-Single) Thread

Wow, that's a great summary and awesome information. I can't wait to see the analysis as this thread unfolds. Thanks devotional!

 

I agree completely, and I did not use this term...someone else did.

I'm glad this thread was started too, and I will also defend anyone's right to make arguments in favor of his point of view.

However, part of that process is, in fact, defending that point of view against "plausible" arguments that are made to counter it.

When the person on the other side of the aisle makes several plausible arguments for his case and against yours, and you completely ignore those arguments, pretending that they simply don't exist -- that too, is "rude."

This is part of the give and take of any conversation...whether it's a debate over a point or not. You don't just pretend that the other person hasn't said anything. To do so weakens your own case, rather than strengthening it. If your points are valid, they should be able to stand up to a challenge.

The least you can do, if you don't have a counter argument, is to acknowledge what has been said with "I see your point" or something like that.

For someone who has often been relentless in pressing his point of view and demanding supporting statements in other threads -- despite frequent opposition -- to suddenly take umbrage and pout when the tables are turned on him seems a bit hypocritical.

I don't disagree with your last statement. But arguing for it being Pete who plays the "I Can't Explain" solo is:

1. Shel Talmy says Pete played it.

2. Pete says Pete played it.

3. While saying this, Pete is dismissive of it (in so many words, "It was so simple even I could play it"), so the argument that the solo is a matter of pride for Townshend isn't too persuasive.

4. The style of the solo is very much in concert with Pete's general style of playing at the time, i.e., mostly block chording, with few single-string riffs. (And what little single-string riffing there is seems a bit awkward and ham-handed...rather unworthy of Page's skills at the time.)

5. To me, most importantly, if you say Page played the solo, then you absolutely MUST say that he played the entire song, and that Townshend is not present on "I Can't Explain" at all. There is only ONE guitar throughout "I Can't Explain." The tone of the solo is exactly the same as the tone on the chords. There is no discernible punch-in when the solo enters, and no guitar chording underneath the solo that would indicate an overdub, or two players playing. So it's either all Townshend, or all Page.

6. Factor in the story about Page not letting Townshend use his fuzz box, and Townshend retaliating by not allowing Page to play his Rickenbacker, and the whole thing seems pretty clear-cut to me.


I'll gladly listen to any counter-arguments to these points. And I promise to acknowledge each and every one.

If everyone would take this approach, there would be no strife in this thread.

 

You do make a strong case for Pete playing the solo on ICE. I don't know what Jimmy Page's position is on the solo now, whether he wants credit for it or not. I also don't put much trust in what Shel Talmy says about these sessions (particularly if they were made years after the fact). "Waltz for Pig" was aptly dedicated.

 

That is quite an achievement for a single that is merely 2:05 long.

 

"I listened to both discs of the My Generation deluxe edition last night, and Pete doesn't come close to attempting another solo like the one on "I Can't Explain" at any of the band's 1965 sessions.

I have to conclude that Page played that solo."

***********************************************************

Yeah, so I'm rude. The above comment is what got me in that frame of mind. The thread starter forgot that AAA was recorded in 1965? I pointed that out but was completely ignored. My position stands, I defend the fact that Pete played the lead on ICE and feel in know way do I need to apologize.

 

I started listening to the Who so early (I must have been about 7 or 8 years old) I can't even recall where I first heard "Anyhow, Anyway, Anywhere". But I know I liked it even then, a catchy little power pop tune with a signature section of feedback and intensity. Because I grew up in the album era, I find it hard to think of The Who in terms of singles, but had I been around in the '60s I would have said this was an even better follow-up to "I Can't Explain".

As for the B-sides, those songs really were throwaways back in this day, weren't they?

 

OK corrected ...That said "Less is More" For it's era it was about the 3 minute 45.

 

So is that clip. Actually, it wasn't that bad. I've seen/heard much worse from "The Two". (i.e., The Endless Wire DVD. Now that is pathetic. )

Anyway, regardless of who plays the solo, "I Can't Explain" is a pretty great first song by Pete. It also proves The Who were never the same without Keith Moon.

 

Representative of what, exactly?

Not of when Pete after many years again picked up the electric with a vengeance, the band was stripped down to its most powerful elements - and, most importantly, John was still alive.

Honestly, can you make a post without sniping at someone else?

 

Do you really think this version is more definitive than when Keith was in the band? It sounds ok, but a bit Vegasy to me. I don't feel the brute force of when they performed this live in the 60's at all. Pete wanks his guitar too much, & Daltrey is already struggling with the vocals. Here's an early live version (1966?) that destroys the latter day Who IMO. It's really a different band.

Not the best quality, but it makes the point...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNMB88gxCTE&feature=related

 

Oh, definitely not - my point was that all these years later (well, at least in the '99-00 incarnation) that they could still totally shred these songs. IOW, they still have it.

 

Devotional......great post.

Just wanted to add that when I want to listen to The Who, doing their early Maximum, , R&B, there's nothing for me, quite like the bonus tracks on MG Deluxe - Leaving Here, Daddy Rolling Stone, Motoring, Lubie, and Heatwave, as well as the proper MG album tracks of course, AAA, ICE from MGD, additional tracks from '66 like Barbara Ann and Run, Run, Run, and even the less combustible High Numbers Keith's style and sound is just incredible, right up there alongside some of the greatest drummers, like Philly Joe Jones, Elvin Jones, and Art Blakey, a real mover and shaker, , quick striker. The momentum and force he generates, the propulsiveness he produces, in those performances and on those recordigns, is a complete high for me, a thrillride, and the guy sounds musically aware of everything going on in those songs, exactly when to play what, where to play it, and how, rolling and tumbling along.

 

Pete's 12-string

One more word on "Can't Explain": MikeM can feel free to disagree, but there's plenty of musical evidence to suggest Pete isn't the only guitar on this track. To my ear, the rhythm guitar sounds overdubbed - it sounds like an ace 6-string player overdubbed & added to Pete's rhythm chops. It could've been done much later, even without Pete's knowledge. Believe me, that happened a LOT.

I can't speak to the solo - it doesn't sound like '65 Pete to me but he could've stepped up to the plate! Still, does MikeM know how easy it is to punch in a guitar solo later, 12-string and all??

As to Mike's disbelief that band members were regularly replaced with session players, this is simply a fact. Why are the Stones (and others) an exception? Easy: their players suited the tracks (Charlie Watts anyone?) and the Stones' brilliant-but-green manager/producer probably wasn't in that mindset. (There's a wonderful story of how he didn't even know what mixing was when the time came.)

 

I will gladly listen again with headphones, but if what you say is true, then the question becomes: Why isn't this second rhythm guitar heard during the solos, when you would logically think it would continue to carry the chord pattern beneath the lead work?

This is and has always been the great challenge with the one guitar/bass/drums configuration: when the guitar solos, all chords behind it go away. The Who's rhythm section obviously made up for this deficiency better than any other such combination in history. But in the studio, it wouldn't be necessary.

I challenge you to listen with headphones and tell me whether there is anything else playing during the solos other than one 12-string guitar, bass and drums.

So again: where is your phantom rhythm player during the solo? Did he just stop playing, only to resume again when the verse came back in?

I think what you're hearing as two guitars is in fact the very full sound that results from the Rickenbacker 12-string...particularly when you play barre chords up the neck as Pete does on this song (x7999x -- x5777x/x5777x -- 57765x -- x7999x/x7999x).

Remember that the first 4 strings are doubled an octave higher, so you're hearing three (and in once case four) more notes than you would be if this were a single six-string playing.

Finally, while Pete Townshend's guitar skills certainly increased dramatically over the years, to say that executing this simple three-chord riff was beyond his capabilities in 1965 is pretty insulting. Do you imagine that there was any perceived lack in the rhythm guitar department when The Who played this song live? Recorded evidence suggests clearly that there was not.

Relatively easy, yes, but a far less common practice on a band's first recording session, I would imagine.

I'd like you to go back to my earlier posts and cite any passage in which I said I "disbelieved" that band members were regularly replaced with session players.

Of course I realize this was a frequent practice...but this doesn't mean it was a universal one.

The OP stated that because Andy White replaced Ringo on the LP version of "Love Me Do," this "increased the probability" (his exact words) that Jimmy Page replaced Pete on "I Can't Explain."

That's just plain ridiculous, and I said so. Producers made the decision on a case-by-case basis, depending on what they were confronted with. What happened at someone else's earlier session (some three years ago, no less!) had nothing to do with it.

I also noted that if you truly believe that an earlier recording session increases the probability that a later one will be done in the same way, then the fact that no session players were used on Stones, Hollies, Searchers and Beau Brummels sessions must "increase the probability" that no session players were used on the first Who session.

I don't know that they are an exception...and neither do you -- unless you've compiled an exhaustive list of all UK and US recording sessions from the first half of the 1960s and compared the ratio of session players to group members on those sessions.

 

The second guitar sound "effect" of the early Who fooled a lot of people. No one before or since has played bass guitar like John Entwistle.

 

True but I don't think that applies to the studio version of Can't Explain. I don't think anyone will mistake the bass in that song for an electric guitar.

 

I think our views coincide more than you think. I will approach this from the standpoint of having worked with many guitar bands in the studio. As always, feel free to disagree.

The "doubled" guitar is there to emphasize the intros and verses only. It drops out - of course - to make room for the solo. That's perfectly logical from an arrangement standpoint.

Yes, exactly. I've done it many times.

That's a solid possible answer, but to me the "Can't Explain" sound is unique to that session. Most of Townshend's choppy sounds were much thinnner, brasher - "Anyway Anyhow" is a perfect example.

More importantly, I think "someone" (a producer) wanted a fatter sound than Pete was willing or able to give with his rig. And the chops do sound more precise, to me, than Pete's live playing at that time.

Completely disagree. A band's first single is make-or-break. Anything that makes it a hit is to be considered. AFTER the band has a base, more flexibility is given: they have proved themselves.

In the flick "Absolute Beginners" there's a classic scene of a typical session of a new band, recording their new single in the studio as the press watches. The camera passes into the next room where, unseen, a group of studio musicians is actually playing the track.

The Stones are one very well documented exception to this. No one covered for them.. You can HEAR it.

Anyway no worries. I just happen to believe bands' first sessions were subject to this sort of manipulation all the time, and in my opinion that's what I hear in the intros and verses of "I Can't Explain". Carry on!

 

John tuned his bass extra trebly/Twangy in the early days often trailing Townsend on the leads and driving the bottom of the rhythm.

 

I reposted and added to the body of my original post and more.

The guitar stylings Townshend uses, even at that early stage, heard moreso a few months later on Daddy Rolling Stone, and in the other April 1965 sessions, and later again in the measures of chordal tones and simple single line riffs and 'solos' throughout multiple songs on the debut record, and even before that with the jazzy solo in the '64 High Numbers tune, Zoot Suit, are all related to and indicative of his playing in the Can't Explain solo, which in itself is more akin to incorporating a few pickup and grace notes as an addendum to a chordal progession, and it's only the very last measure, at 1:40 seconds in, he plays the nifty 'lick' of the tagged ascending notes that even makes it more of a real 'solo.' It's all part and parcel of his guitar vocabulary at the time. The studio version of Daddy Rolling Stone is not uploaded, which is another example of a simple but fluid riff driving the song followed by a bouncy and rhythmic solo, but here is Leaving Here and Motoring. Can't Explain is simply an amalgamation of the kinds of things he was playing in all his solos, riffs, rhythm and lead work in 1964-65.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkEpopoiqtw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MohtF-z2z8I

In addition, with Can't Explain, what Pete plays, and as importantly how he plays it, and what it sounds like, is most evidently him, in the context of the songs above and the entire first album, and can be specifically heard in Can't Explain, between 47 seconds to 49 seconds in, then again during the whole first chordal solo, especially from 1:02 to 1:05, again during the chorus from 1:23-1:26 (this is all so of the same piece as the guitar work in TKAA and The Good's Gone, et cetera.) and once again from 1:36-1:40 (AAA, and others).

 

Again, I can believe the solo is Pete, whether or not it's what I'd expect. Producers are adept at coaxing, sometimes even surprising the players themselves. But - to me - the rhythm guitar sonics are as unique to The (early) Who as are the background vocals - that is to say, unique to this one track only. Hence my suspicion that they got a little "help" for their critical first outing.

 

Lmao, the first link in previous post is a gaffe on my part, .

Here is the correct one for Leaving Here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jtCt7y8d9k

 

I won't have time for a complete response till later, but I wanted to clarify one thing...

In response to your (Olsen's) question "Why are the Stones (and others) an exception?" I wrote:

I believe you've misunderstood my meaning.

Something can be "an exception" only if it's a relatively rare instance that deviates from the more prevalent norm. Thus your statement implies that The Stones (and others) are rare exceptions to the norm of first-time recording sessions routinely featuring session players.

My point was that we don't know for sure what "the norm" is -- unless, as I said, someone has compiled the exhaustive list of all UK and US recording sessions I spoke of.

I'm well aware of the documented instances of session players appearing on some records. And I'm well aware that The Stones played on their own sessions...as did the other artists I mentioned.

So I wasn't disputing the accuracy of the information about The Stones...I was merely calling into question whether it truly was an "exception" -- since, absent a comprehensive survey of all recording sessions, we don't really know what the more widely followed practice was.

 

My response was the tongue-in-cheek reference to "Absolute Beginners". The scene portrayed a typical hot new teen band sensation from the 60's. All the British press was there to wish them well as they cut their first single. And this "typical" scene included ghost players in the back room. It's illuminating that a British film would portray it's young rock superstars in this way.

I think bands were looked at as parrots. For a young band to take charge, first session out, was quite atypical. The Stones were one such "exception"!

That's why it's easy for me to imagine that Page laid down a fatter rhythm chop to ICE, after the "kids" had all gone home. How to explain it to Pete? "We fixed it in the mix..."

All speculation on my part of course. Carry on.

 

I don't find it illuminating at all. The record of cinema actually getting much right when portraying rock 'n' roll is pretty dismal. Even when they're relatively true to the "feel" of the times or the characters -- e.g., The Buddy Holly Story -- they nearly always deliberately distort or out-and-out falsify the details, giving us Hollywood's (or London's) usually uninformed version of rock 'n' roll. (Does anyone believe Buddy Holly's Decca recording session really went down the way it was portrayed in the film?)

So while it's fine that your response was tongue-in-cheek, it doesn't add anything helpful to this discussion.

Once again, you have absolutely nothing other than your admitted "speculation" to back this bald assertion up. And let's remember that who "took charge" is not under discussion...merely who played.

Some producers used session players; others did not. The ratio of one to the other is unknown to you.

As were the four bands I mentioned in my earlier post, plus The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Pretty Things, The Lovin' Spoonful, The Beach Boys (ironically, session players came on the scene for them later in their career!), and probably a great many others I could name if I put some time into it.

Even some long-time, knowing assertions of the use of session players have been called into question. Several members of Them (who, more than any of us, have the advantage of actually having been there) hotly deny the long-held belief that Jimmy Page plays the riff on "Baby Please Don't Go," and provide names and details from the recording session to bolster those claims.

Out of idle curiosity, do you believe that Page plays right from the very beginning of the song (the opening, unaccompanied riff)? Or does he only join in with the bass?

How is it that I hear only one guitar texture throughout the song? Do you believe it's possible to play two different guitars and have them sound absolutely identical in terms of tone and attack?

You mind repeating that just a little bit louder, please?

 

Here is a collection that features some of Jimmy's early session work. Perhaps his playing on a cover of "Circles" has fed into the speculation that he did session work on 'ICE"?