The Who | Rolling Stone artists > T > The Who > Bio The Who Bio Along with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, the Who complete the holy trinity of British rock. The group began as fashionable London mods, playing a self-styled brand of "Maximum R&B," but became much more: the pioneers of rock opera, a powerhouse arena act, and among the first rock groups to successfully integrate (rather than merely fiddle with) synthesizers. Their smashed guitars and overturned (or blown up) drum kits symbolized the violent passions of a band that mixed four distinct and powerful sounds: Pete Townshend's alternately raging or majestic guitar playing, Keith Moon's nearly anarchic drumming style, John Entwistle's facile, thundering bass lines, and Roger Daltrey's impassioned vocals. Ever since guitarist and main songwriter Townshend declared in "My Generation," "Hope I die before I get old," he has been embraced as a high-minded spokesman for rock & roll, a role he assumed (he claims) reluctantly.

Nonetheless, for the much of his career with the Who Townshend explored rock's philosophical topography, from the raw rebelliousness of "My Generation" and adolescent angst of "I Can't Explain" to such ambitious songs as "Love Reign O'er Me." That the Who continued to perform (and repackage their catalogue) well into the new millennium irked critics and old fans, but respect for the band's classic work has never waned. All four band members grew up around London – Townshend, Daltrey, and Entwistle in the working-class Shepherd's Bush area. Townshend's parents were professional entertainers. He and Entwistle knew each other at school in the late-1950s and played in a Dixieland band when they were in their early teens, with Townshend on banjo and Entwistle on trumpet. They played together in a rock band, but Entwistle left in 1962 to join the Detours. That band included Roger Daltrey, a sheet-metal worker.

When the Detours needed to replace a rhythm guitarist, Entwistle suggested Townshend, and Daltrey switched from lead guitar to vocals when the original singer, Colin Dawson, left in1963. Not long after that, drummer Doug Sandom was replaced by Moon, who was then playing in a surf band called the Beachcombers. By early 1964 the group had changed its name to the Who, and not long after, the excitement inspired by Townshend's bashing his guitar out of frustrating during a show ensured it would become a part of the act. Shortly thereafter, the group came under the wing of manager Pete Meaden, who renamed them the High Numbers and gave them a better-dressed Mod image. The High Numbers released an unsuccessful single, "I'm the Face" b/w "Zoot Suit" (both written by Meaden), then got new managers, former small-time film directors Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. By late 1964 the quartet became the Who again, and with Lambert and Stamp's encouragement they became an even more Mod band, with violent stage show and a repertoire including blues, James Brown, and Motown covers, solely because their Mod audiences loved that music.

In fact, despite the billing, the Who's original songs were anything but classic R&B. The group's demo of "I Can't Explain," with sessionman Jimmy Page adding guitar, brought them to producer Shel Talmy (who had also worked with the Kinks) and got them a record deal. When "I Can't Explain" came out in January 1965, it was ignored until the band appeared on the TV show Ready, Steady, Go. Townshend smashed his guitar, Moon overturned his drums, and the song eventually reached Number Eight in Britain. "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" also reached the British Top Tem, followed in November 1965 by "My Generation." It went to Number Two in the U.K. but only reached Number 75 in the U.S. But the Who were already stars in Britain, having established their sound and their personae. Townshend played guitar with full-circle windmilling motions, Daltrey strutted like a bantam fighter, Entwistle (whose occasional songwriting effort revealed a macabre sense of humor) just stood there seemingly unmoved as Moon happily flailed all over his drum kit.

After the Who's fourth hit single, "Substitute" (Number 5 U.K.), Lambert replaced Talmy as producer. Their second album, A Quick One (While He's Away) (Happy Jack in the U.S.; Number 67, 1967), included a 10-minute mini-opera as the title track, shortly before the Beatles' concept album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band. The Who also began to make inroads in the U.S. with "Happy Jack" (Number 24, 1967) and a tour that included the performance filmed at the Monterey Pop Festival in June. The Who Sell Out (Number 48, 1967) featured mock-advertisement songs and genuine jingles from offshore British pirate radio stations; it also contained another mini-opera, "Rael," and a Top Ten hit in England and the U.S., "I Can See for Miles." In October 1968 the band released Magic Bus (Number 39, 1968), a compilation of singles and B-sides, while Townshend worked on his 90 minute opus, Tommy.

The story of a deaf, dumb, and blind boy turned pinball champion-pop idol turned autocratic messianic guru was variously considered both pretentious and profound. Most important, however, Tommy was the first successful rock opera. The album hit Number Four in the U.S., and its first single, "Pinball Wizard," went to Number 19. The band would perform Tommy in its entirety a handful of times – -at London's Coliseum in 1969, at New York City's Metropolitan Opera House on June 6th and 7th, 1970, and on some dates during its 1989 reunion tour. Excerpts, including "See Me, Feel Me," "Pinball Wizard," and the instrumental "Underture," were thereafter part of the live show. Troupes mounted productions of it around the world (the Who's performances had been concert versions), and Townshend oversaw a new recording of it in 1972, backed by the London Symphony and featuring Rod Stewart, Steve Winwood, Sandy Denny, and Richard Burton, among others.

In 1975 Ken Russell directed the controversial high-pop film version, which included Eric Clapton ("Eyesight to the Blind"), Tina Turner ("Acid Queen"), and Elton John ("Pinball Wizard"), as well as Ann-Margret, Oliver Reed, and Jack Nicholson. Moon (as the lecherous Uncle Ernie) and Daltrey (in the lead title role) also appeared in the film. Bits of Tommy turned up on Live at Leeds (Number Four, 1970), a juggernaut live set, which was followed by Who's Next (Number Four, 1971), a staple of FM rock radio. It included Townshend's first experiments with synthesizers – "Baba O'Riley," "Bargain," "Won't Get Fooled Again" – three songs that Townshend originally conceived as part of another rock opera entitled Lifehouse. The singles comp Meaty, Beaty, Big, and Bouncy (Number 11, 1971) was followed two years later by the Who's second double-album rock opera, Quadrophenia (Number Two, 1973), a tribute to the tortured inner life of the Mods.

It too was a hit and became a movie directed by Franc Roddam in 1979, with Sting of the Police in the wordless role of the bellboy. While the Who were hugely popular, Quadrophenia signaled that Townshend was now a generation older than the fans he had initially spoken for. As he agonized over his role as an elder statesman of rock — as he would do for years to come — the Who released Odds and Sods (Number 15, 1974), a compilation of the previous decade's outtakes. The Who by Numbers (Number Eight, 1975) was the result of Townshend's self-appraisal ("However Much I Booze"); it lacked the Who's usual vigor, but yielded a hit single in "Squeeze Box" (Number 16, 1975). The band could dependably pack arenas wherever it went, but it took some time off the road after By Numbers. The group members — whose personality clashes are almost as legendary as their music — began pursuing more individual projects.

Moon released a novelty solo disc, Two Sides of the Moon, which featured guest stars galore; Entwistle recorded two solo LPs with bands called Ox and Rigor Mortis. Daltrey also recorded solo; his first two efforts are widely regarded as mediocre and he only had one Top 40 hit in the U.S., "Without Your Love," from the McVicar soundtrack. The Townshend-penned "After the Fire" received substantial video exposure when released in 1985. Daltrey found considerably more success as an actor. Besides Tommy, he starred in Ken Russell's over-the-top "biography" of composer Franz Liszt, Lisztomania (1975) and McVicar (1980), the true story of the famous British criminal John McVicar. In the mid-1980s he played the double role of the Dromio twins in a PBS production of Shakespeare's A Comedy of Errors. He's also appeared on the London stage (The Beggar's Opera, 1991) and on British television (The Little Match Girl, 1990).

In 1999 he played Scrooge in a stage version of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol in New York City. In 1970 Townshend contributed four tracks to Happy Birthday, a privately released, limited edition album recorded as a tribute to Townshend's guru, Meher Baba. The following year, I Am, a similar limited-edition Baba tribute album, was released. It contained another Townshend track, a nine-minute instrumental version of "Baba O'Riley." As both these records were heavily bootlegged, Townshend's response was to create an "offical" version of both albums. The result, Who Came First (Number 69, 1972), was Townshend's first "real" solo album.

It included the tracks from Happy Birthday and I Am, plus new songs, and demos of the Who tracks "Pure and Easy" and "Let's See Action." His second solo release was a collaboration with ex-Faces Ronnie Lane, Rough Mix (Number 45, 1977), which featured a number of FM/AOR radio staples: "Street in the City," "My Baby Gives It Away," and "A Heart to Hang on To." Meanwhile, punk was burgeoning in Britain, and the Sex Pistols among others were brandishing the Who's old power chords and attitude. Townshend's continuing identity crisis showed up in the title of Who Are You (Number Two, 1978), but the title song became a hit single (Number 14) that fall, and the album went double platinum. It was the last and highest-charting album of the original band. The next few years brought tragedy and turmoil, and in a sense, the end of the Who in the death of Keith Moon. Moon always reveled in his reputation as the madman of rock, and his outrageous stunts, onstage and off, were legend.

His prodigious drinking and drug abuse (he was once paralyzed for days after accidentally ingesting an elephant tranquilizer) had begun to diminish his playing ability. In 1975 he left England for L.A., where he continued to drink heavily. He returned to England and was trying to kick his alcoholism, but on September 7, 1978, Moon died of an overdose of a sedative, Heminevrin, that had been prescribed to prevent seizures induced by alcohol withdrawal. Although the group continued for another three years, each of the three surviving original members has stated repeatedly that the Who was never the same again. In 1979 the Who oversaw a concert documentary of their early years, The Kids Are Alright (soundtrack, Number Eight, 1979), and worked on the soundtrack version of Quadrophenia (Number 46, 1979), which also included a number of Mod favorites performed by the original artists (such as Booker T. & the M.G.'s' "Green Onions" and James Brown's "Night Train").

Kenney Jones, formerly of the Small Faces, replaced Moon, and session keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick began working with the Who. The new lineup toured, but tragedy struck again when 11 concert goers were killed — trampled to death or asphyxiated — in a rush for "festival seating" spots at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum on December 3, 1979. The incident occurred before the show, and the group wasn't told of it until afterward. After 15 years with Decca/MCA, the Who signed a band contract with Warner Bros., and Townshend got a solo deal with Atco. His Empty Glass (Number Five, 1980) included the U.S. Top 10 hit "Let My Love Open the Door" and "Rough Boys," a song long believed to have been an angry reply to a punk musician who had insulted the Who during an interview. Much later, in a 1989 interview with writer Timothy White, Townshend denied that was the case, saying, "It's about homosexuality," and adding that "And I Moved" was as well.

Townshend's admission of having "had a gay life," and the statement "I know how it feels to be a woman because I am a woman," came as a surprise to many, including his band mates. In 1981 Townshend performed solo with an acoustic guitar at a benefit for Amnesty International, which was recorded as The Secret Policeman's Ball. His falling asleep onstage was the first public sign of his deepening drug addiction. Since the year before, Townshend had been abusing alcohol, cocaine, and freebase cocaine mixed with heroin. He subsequently developed an addiction to Ativan, a tranquilizer he was prescribed during treatment for alcoholism. Ativan combined with freebase and heroin resulted in a highly publicized, near-fatal overdose during which he was rushed to the hospital from a London club. Townshend subsequently underwent electro-acupuncture treatment and cleaned up in 1982. Amid all this, the revamped Who soldiered on.

Face Dances (Number Four, 1981) included the hit single "You Better You Bet" (Number 18, 1981) and "Don't Let Go the Coat." But Townshend later called the new lineup's debut album a disappointment. One month after Face Dances came out, the Who's former producer/manager, Kit Lambert, died after falling down a flight of stairs; he was 45. (Pete Meadon had died three weeks before Moon, in 1978.) Townshend released the wordy All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (Number 26, 1982), and soon followed it with the group's It's Hard (Number Eight, 1982), an album Daltrey has since been quoted as saying should never have been released. It produced the group's last Top 30 hit to date, "Athena" (Number 28). The Who then embarked on what they announced would be their last tour, ending with a concert in Toronto on December 17, 1982. Although the group officially broke up then, the Who have reunited to perform several times since.

They appeared at Live Aid in 1985 and at a U.K. music-awards program in 1988. They celebrated the group's silver anniversary in 1989 with a 43-date tour of the U.S. which included guest-star-studded performances of Tommy in L.A. and New York, and later in London. For this tour Jones was replaced by session drummer Simon Phillips. It was also during this tour that Townshend, whose hearing was extremely damaged from years of listening to loud music through headphones, had to play standing behind a plastic baffle to block the onstage noise. Townshend also released a number of solo projects throughout the 1980s: Scoop (Number 35, 1983) and Another Scoop (Number 198, 1987) collect demo tapes, home recordings, and sundry tracks of historical interest to fans.

White City — a Novel (Number 26, 1985) is a concept piece, the soundtrack to a long-form video of the same title and includes "Face the Face"; The Iron Man: The Musical is the star-studded (Daltrey, Nina Simone, John Lee Hooker) soundtrack to Townshend's rock opera based on a children's story by poet Ted Hughes. Deep End Live!, released with an accompanying live video, barely scraped into the Top 100. Townshend wrote in the liner notes to the 1994 box-set career retrospective Thirty Years of Maximum R&B: "I don't like the Who much . . . " Through the years of his derisive attitude toward the group has rung false at worst, disingenuous at best. In fact, Townshend's pride (and joy) in performing with the Who was abundantly clear during the band's 2000 tour, when he introduced it, happily, as "the fucking Who." Despite Townshend's other projects and endeavors, including an editorship with book publisher Faber and Faber and publication of his collected stories, Horse's Neck (1985), the Who legacy endures.

In 1993 the Broadway production of Tommy won five Tony Awards, including one for Townshend for Best Original Score. The next year saw the release of Townshend's PsychoDerelict (Number 118, 1994), a concept album that includes pieces written originally for the Lifehouse project. An examination of rock stardom's ravages, PsychoDerelict was also performed as a theater piece and filmed (it was subsequently broadcast on PBS). That year he also embarked on his first solo tour with a set list that included a number of Who classics, including "Won't Get Fooled Again." In February 1994 Townshend, Daltrey, and Entwistle reunited for Carnegie Hall performances in celebration of Daltrey's 50th birthday. Accompanied by a 65-piece orchestra, the trio was also joined by guest stars including Sinéad O'Connor, Eddie Vedder, and Lou Reed, and the show was filmed for cable television.

Two years later, the group recruited drummer Zak Starkey (son of Ringo Starr) along with a 12-piece backing band and embarked on a series o dates in which they performed the Quadrophenia album in its entirety for the first time. Townshend again stuck to rhythm guitar to preserve his hearing, leaving electric guitar duties to his brother Simon Townshend. In 1999 Townshend reunited the band again for a charity concert at the House of Blues in Chicago, which led to yet another reunion tour the following year. This time around, however, the Who toured as a quintet: Townshend, Daltrey, Entwistle, Starkey, and John Bundrick on keyboards, with Townshend returning to electric guitar. The no-nonsense approach resulted in glowing reviews hailing the group's 2000 shows as some of their best in nearly two decades. A live album, Live: The Blues to the Bush/1999, was issued online via a partnership with Musicmaker.com, and the band even began talking about the possibility of a new studio set in the future. To cap their year, the Who received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 43rd annual Grammy Awards.

In the midst of all the Who activity in late 1999 and 2000, Townshend returned yet again to his lifelong Lifehouse project. The BBC broadcast a Lifehouse radio play in December 1999, and in February 2000, Townshend performed the rock opera himself at London's Sadler's Wells Theater. Shortly thereafter he released a six-disc box set, Lifehouse Chronicles, on his own Eelpie label via his Web site; a single-disc version, Lifehouse Elements, was released in stores by Redline Entertainment. Daltrey has continued planning his pet project, a film biography of the life of Moon. In October 2001, the Who appeared at the Concert for New York City, a 9/11 benefit, where the band was received with the most warmth of any act on the evening's program. But before they could continue on the road again the following summer, John Entwistle died of a cocaine-fueled heart attack in his hotel room. Townshend and Daltrey went out anyway, with session bassist Pino Palladino filling in and Pete's brother Simon handling background vocals and rhythm guitar.

In 2004, Townshend and Daltrey recorded a pair of new songs, "Old Red Wine" and "Real Good Looking Boy," for a compilation. (The Who have released more compilations since their initial breakup than they did studio albums before it.) In July 2005 the Who appeared in London as part of Live 8. In October 2006, the band released Endless Wire, their first new album in 24 years. It reached Number Seven and received middling reviews. November 2007 saw the DVD release of Amazing Journey: The Story of the Who, an extensive band documentary containing new interviews and much unseen archival footage. Tours followed in 2008 and 2009, capped off by an appearance at the Super Bowl Halftime show in 2010. Portions of this biography appeared in The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001). Andy Greene contributed to this story. Keith Moon - YouTube Keith Moon Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded.

Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Jul 24, 2014 Keith John Moon (23 August 1946 – 7 September 1978) was an English musician best known as the drummer of the English rock group the Who. He was noted for his unique drumming style and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour. In 2011, Moon was voted the second-greatest drummer in history by a Rolling Stone readers' poll. His drumming continues to be praised by critics and musicians. Moon grew up in Alperton a suburb of Wembley, northwest London, and took up the drums during the early 1960s. After playing with a local band, the Beachcombers, he joined the Who in 1964 before they recorded their first single. Moon remained with the band during their rise to fame, and was quickly recognised for his distinctive drumming style. He occasionally collaborated with other musicians and later appeared in films, but considered playing in the Who his primary occupation and remained a member of the band until his death.

In addition to his talent as a drummer, however, Moon developed a reputation for smashing his kit on stage and destroying hotel rooms on tour. He was fascinated by blowing up toilets with cherry bombs or dynamite, and by destroying television sets. Moon enjoyed touring and socialising, and was bored and restless when the Who were inactive. His twenty-first birthday party in Flint, Michigan has been cited as a notorious example of decadent behaviour by rock groups. This video is targeted to blind users. Attribution: Article text available under CC-BY-SA Creative Commons image source in video Category Keith Moon, Musical artist • Biography & Facts Keith Moon Musical artist Keith John Moon (23 August 1946 – 7 September 1978) was an English musician best known as the drummer of the English rock group the Who. He was noted for his unique drumming style and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour. In 2011, Moon was voted the second-greatest drummer in history by a Rolling Stone readers' poll. His drumming continues to be praised by critics and musicians.Moon grew up in Alperton a suburb of Wembley, northwest London, and took up the drums during the early 1960s.

After playing with a local band, the Beachcombers, he joined the Who in 1964 before they recorded their first single. Moon remained with the band during their rise to fame, and was quickly recognised for his drumming style, which emphasised tom-toms, cymbal crashes, and drum fills. He occasionally collaborated with other musicians and later appeared in films, but considered playing in the Who his primary occupation and remained a member of the band until his death. In addition to his talent as a drummer, however, Moon developed a reputation for smashing his kit on stage and destroying hotel rooms on tour. He was fascinated by blowing up toilets with cherry bombs or dynamite, and by destroying television sets. Moon enjoyed touring and socialising, and was bored and restless when the Who were inactive. His 21st birthday party in Flint, Michigan, has been cited as a notorious example of decadent behaviour by rock groups.Moon suffered a number of setbacks during the 1970s, most notably the accidental death of chauffeur Neil Boland and the breakdown of his marriage. He became addicted to alcohol, particularly brandy and champagne, and acquired a reputation for decadence and dark humour; his nickname was "Moon the Loon".

After moving to Los Angeles with personal assistant Peter "Dougal" Butler during the mid-1970s, Moon recorded his only solo album, the poorly received Two Sides of the Moon. While touring with the Who, on several occasions he passed out on stage and was hospitalised. By their final tour with him in 1976, and particularly during production of The Kids Are Alright and Who Are You, the drummer's deterioration was evident. Moon moved back to London in 1978, dying in September of that year from an overdose of Heminevrin, a drug intended to curb alcohol abuse. The Hypertext Who › A History of The Who 1961-1964 strict warning: Only variables should be passed by reference in /home6/whofansn/public_html/betathewho/sites/all/modules/captcha/captcha.inc on line 61. 1961-1963 The story of The Who begins with Roger Daltrey (b. Hammersmith Hospital, Acton, London March 1, 1944) who was expelled from Acton County Grammar School in Spring 1959 for refusing to wear his school uniform.

Getting a day job in a sheet metal factory, Roger spent his nights playing or rehearsing with his band The Detours. At this point he was the lead guitarist, not the singer, but in any case, he ruled the band with a ready fist. Needing a bass player in the summer of 1961, Roger approached a former schoolmate who just happened to be carrying a bass guitar he had built (his girlfriend Alison was lugging the amp). He was John Entwistle (b. Hammersmith Hospital, Acton, October 9, 1944) who had been in a number of after-school bands at Acton and played the trumpet and horn. Early the next year, Roger needed a new rhythm guitarist, so John suggested a mate of his that had played with him in his after-school bands. This was Pete Townshend (b. Nazareth House, Ilseworth, May 19, 1945). Pete came from a show business background with parents who had been entertainers during and after World War II. He was also a student, spending his non-band time learning the latest ideas in art, then trekking back to his student flat to listen to blues records.

Pete's mom got them some local bookings through her contacts. Meanwhile departing members and the influence of then hit band Johnny Kidd and The Pirates led Roger to drop the guitar and become lead vocalist, leaving The Detours minus the second guitar that almost all bands then used. To fill the sound, John began picking up some of the guitar part, playing lead guitar on the bass. While this was happening, the English musical world exploded with the arrival of Beatlemania in mid-1963. Before The Detours could join the moptops in pop stardom, some changes were necessary. 1964 The first thing to change was their name, since another group also called The Detours had turned up on national television. At a meeting at Pete's student flat in February Pete, the band members and his flatmate Richard Barnes threw around suggestions. Pete requested a very generic name so Barnes came up with "The Who." It fulfilled the generic quality, was short and looked great on posters and, as the newly christened The Who soon found out, could be used by the press to make clever punning headlines. photo: Dezo Hoffman The next thing to change was the drummer.

Doug Sandom had been The Detours' drummer for a year and a half but after the band failed an audition for Fontana Records on April 9, Sandom was asked to turn in his sticks. At the end of April the drummer for The Beachcombers auditioned and after battering the kit into submission, was brought into the group. This was Keith Moon (b. Central Middlesex Hospital, Willsden, London, August 23, 1946) and even at seventeen he was like no other drummer they'd ever heard. Given only a smattering of training by Screaming Lord Sutch's drummer Carlo Little, Keith did not play drums as much as throw himself at them, arms flailing, supplying fills and washes of cymbals but with only a semblance of a steady beat. In any other band he would have been impossible to play with. In a group with as quirky a musical construction as The Who, however, he fit in perfectly, competing with John to be the lead instrument and competing with Pete and Roger for the audience's attention. photo: Chris Morphet Keith's attention grabbing spurred Pete to greater heights of theatricality.

He started using spectacular motions on stage like spreading his arms wide while his guitar howled feedback (a stance that earned him the nickname "birdman") and swinging his arm at his guitar, smashing his hand into the strings (and often drawing blood), a move called the "windmill." His most spectacular bit, however, started soon after Keith joined the group. Whether by accident (a low ceiling) or by design (witnessing auto-destructive artist Gustav Metzger at art college), Pete began smashing his guitar at the end of his act. Keith, never to be upstaged, started kicking his drums over. The Who were now the loudest and most visually exciting band in England. Time then for an image change. Peter Meaden, a former employee of The Rolling Stones' young manager Andrew Loog Oldham, got himself hired as an adviser by The Who's then manager, Helmut Gorden. Meaden was a member of the cultish British youth movement the Mods that had recently become nationally notorious after a series of seaside riots with their enemies the Rockers.

With more money in their pockets than their parents had ever had, the Mods spent their pounds on four things: the latest fashions, motor scooters, R&B records imported from America and speed pills smuggled from France. It was the latter that filled Meaden's head along with the idea to remake The Who into the quintessential Mod band. The Who had their hair cut short, bought the trendiest clothes and copied the latest dances. Meaden also changed their name to The High Numbers. Despite their counterfeit origins, The High Numbers were accepted by the Mods who gave the band a sizeable and loyal audience. Meaden got the band a one-shot recording deal at Fontana where, in June 1964, they recorded their first single, "Zoot Suit"/"I'm The Face." The lyrics were Meaden's, the melodies were borrowed and the single went nowhere. It was while they were The High Numbers that the band met the team that brought them to stardom. A pair of low-level workers in the British movie industry, Kit Lambert and his partner Chris Stamp, had been looking for an unknown group to be the subject for a movie of their own.

Lambert, the posher of the pair, was from the well-to-do Lambert family and his father was the classical composer Constant Lambert. Stamp's background was working class but his family ties were just as famous as Kit's thanks to his brother, then super-hot actor Terence Stamp . Lambert was the first to happen upon The High Numbers, attending a show at the Railway Hotel in mid-July. After he received word from Lambert, Stamp left Ireland, where he was working on the movie Young Cassidy and saw this band for himself. Equally impressed by the High Numbers' potential, he and Lambert soon began maneuvers to take over the band's management. Nullifying Gorden's contract -- he had signed the band members before they were of legal age -- these two cocky novices made themselves overnight into the new Brian Epsteins, filming a show at the Railway Hotel, getting the band a support position on a national tour and setting up auditions for a record label. The auditions consistently failed, mostly because of a lack of original material.

Since Pete was the art student and had already written a couple of songs for The Detours as part of a class assignment, Lambert and Stamp loaded up Townshend with a Nagra tape machine and told him to compose some songs. Pete, a whiz with electronics, quickly mastered multi-tracking, allowing him to make demos of himself playing all the instruments. No one in rock was then using this technique. Until that point pop composers had usually auditioned their songs by playing them live on piano or guitar. Pete's demo technique provided The Who with a blueprint for the finished recording while giving him greater control over how his songs were to be performed. His first two compositions using home-recorded demos were "Call Me Lightning" and "I Can't Explain," the latter a copy of the new sound The Kinks had introduced with their hit "You Really Got Me." It was a deliberate steal since Lambert and Stamp meant to use the demos to get the interest of The Kinks' producer, Shel Talmy. Talmy signed the band to a multi-year recording contract.

In November 1964, their name having reverted back to The Who, the group entered IBC Studios (or Pye according to Talmy) to record their first single under that name, "I Can't Explain." On November 24th, the band landed a career-launching gig on Tuesday nights at the Marquee Club in London. Pete's friend Richard Barnes designed posters to promote the shows, jet black with the image in white of a windmilling Pete, The Who with arrows coming out of the letters, and the words "Maximum R&B." It became the band's most iconic image. Keith Moon - New Songs, Playlists & Latest News - BBC Music Read more about sharing. Keith Moon Biography (Wikipedia) Keith John Moon (23 August 1946 – 7 September 1978) was an English drummer who played with the English rock band the Who. He was noted for his unique style and his eccentric, often self-destructive behaviour. His drumming continues to be praised by critics and musicians.

He was posthumously inducted into the Modern Drummer Hall of Fame in 1982, becoming only the second rock drummer to be chosen, and in 2011, Moon was voted the second-greatest drummer in history by a Rolling Stone readers' poll. Moon grew up in Alperton, a suburb of Wembley, Middlesex, and took up the drums during the early 1960s. After playing with a local band, the Beachcombers, he joined the Who in 1964 before they recorded their first single. Moon remained with the band during their rise to fame, and was quickly recognised for his drumming style, which emphasised tom-toms, cymbal crashes, and drum fills. He occasionally collaborated with other musicians and later appeared in films, but considered playing in the Who his primary occupation and remained a member of the band until his death. In addition to his talent as a drummer, however, Moon developed a reputation for smashing his kit on stage and destroying hotel rooms on tour. He was fascinated by blowing up toilets with cherry bombs or dynamite, and by destroying television sets. Moon enjoyed touring and socialising, and was bored and restless when the Who were inactive.

His 21st birthday party in Flint, Michigan, has been cited as a notorious example of decadent behaviour by rock groups. This entry is from Wikipedia , the user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors and is licensed under an Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons License . If you find the biography content factually incorrect or highly offensive you can edit this article at Wikipedia . Find out more about our use of this data. Show more The Who - Biography - IMDb Biography Jump to: Mini Bio (1) | Trivia (9) Mini Bio (1) Roger Daltrey formed the Detours in 1962, with several member changes and role swaps abound, John Entwistle joined. Sometime later, on John's recommendation, Pete Townshend was added to the line up. In the meantime, The Detours had become a four-piece band; the drummer was changed with Keith Moon during early 1964. The High Numbers, as the four musicians were now calling themselves, had become a Mod band, with the help of new manager Pete Meaden. The name fluctuated between The High Numbers and The Who; the High Numbers was quickly abandoned and The Who was born.

As their popularity gained momentum, by being one of the better live acts on the circuit and with Pete destroying his guitars, and Keith with his drums too, on stage, this gave them maximum publicity with the predominantly working class audience that had come to see them. As the sixties drew to a close, the Hippy movement had swamped the World, with its ideology of Tune In, Turn On and Drop Out. This was to climax in one of the World's most famous of music festivals, Woodstock the Music and Arts Fair, in August 1969. The Who played here, in front of an average crowd of 300,000 plus. This performance catapulted them into the American market and World domination, mainly because the whole festival was filmed and released in major cinemas within the year. This was also done with the help of their highly controversial double concept album from 1969, Tommy. What followed was a live album, Live at Leeds, from Leeds University, England, and recorded on Valentines Day night, 1970. Quadrophenia, the concept album about a 1960s Mod, came out in 1973.

This double album came with its own problems, such as playing with backing tapes at the live concerts. It was soon abandoned. Other albums followed as well as concerts, during the earlier 1970s. But as the money came pouring in, the four members took individual lives and sometimes concerts and albums were far between, the most noticeable difference was with Keith Moon , his over indulgence in drugs and drink were taking their toll. He put on too much weight and his lifestyle showed his drumming was becoming unpredictable. Keith made his only solo album, Two Sides of The Moon, in 1975 while living in California, for MCA Records. At the age of just 32 years, he died; it was an accidental overdose of prescribed medicine, which was to help him cut down on his alcohol addiction. An irony if there ever was one. After a short reprise, with Kenney Jones on the drums, The Who officially split up in 1982. Reforming for the 1985 Live Aid Concert at Wembley Stadium, then with a World tour of Tommy during the late eighties. There was also a tour of an an updated Quadrophenia during the mid nineties.

With the three remaining players, they toured under the name of The Who, a fine idea, until the death of John Entwistle in a Las Vegas hotel room on June 27th, 2002. "Ladies and Gentlemen: A nice Rock n' Roll band from Shepherd's Bush London, The OO, thank you very much." - IMDb Mini Biography By: Cinema_Fan Trivia (9) The Who on Apple Music To preview a song, mouse over the title and click Play. Open iTunes to buy and download music. Biography Few rock & roll bands were riddled with as many contradictions as the Who. All four members had wildly different personalities, as their notorious live performances demonstrated: Keith Moon fell over his drum kit while Pete Townshend leaped into the air with his guitar, spinning his right hand in exaggerated windmills. Vocalist Roger Daltrey prowled the stage as bassist John Entwistle stood silent, the eye of the hurricane. They clashed frequently, but these frictions resulted in a decade's worth of remarkable music. Though it took a while to find their audience, by the late '60s the Who rivaled the Rolling Stones as a live act and in album sales.

Key figures of the British Invasion and the mid-'60s mod movement, the Who were an undeniably powerful sonic force. They exploded conventional rock and R&B structures with Townshend's furious guitar chords, Entwistle's hyperactive basslines, and Moon's vigorous, seemingly chaotic drumming. Unlike most rock bands, the Who based their rhythm on Townshend's guitar, letting Moon and Entwistle improvise wildly over his foundation, while Daltrey belted out his vocals. The Who thrived on this sound in concert, but on record they were a different proposition: Townshend pushed the group toward new sonic territory, incorporating pop art and conceptual extended musical pieces into the group's style. He was regarded as one of the era's finest British songwriters, as songs like "The Kids Are Alright" and "My Generation" became teenage anthems, while his rock opera Tommy earned respect from mainstream music critics. However, the rest of the Who, especially Entwistle and Daltrey, weren't always eager to follow his musical explorations. They wanted to play hard rock instead of Townshend's textured song suites and vulnerable pop songs.

The Who settled into their role as arena rockers in the mid-'70s, continuing on this path after Moon's death in 1978 and following it through various disbandments and reunions in the '80s and '90s. Nevertheless, at their peak, the Who were one of rock's most innovative and powerful bands. Townshend and Entwistle met while attending high school in London's Shepherd's Bush area. In their early teens, they played in a Dixieland band, with Entwistle on trumpet and Townshend on banjo. By the early '60s, the pair had formed a rock & roll band, but in 1962 Entwistle joined the Detours, a hard-edged group featuring a sheet-metal worker named Roger Daltrey on lead guitar. By the end of the year, Townshend joined as a rhythm guitarist, and in 1963 Daltrey became the group's lead vocalist after Colin Dawson left the band. The group's sound evolved rapidly, influenced not only by American acts such as James Brown, Booker T.

& the MG's, and Eddie Cochran but also one classic British act, Johnny Kidd & the Pirates, who rocked the British charts with an original called "Shakin' All Over" (which Townshend and company added to their set list). They built their reputation on fierce renditions of American-style R&B, which relied on a lean single guitar/bass/drums approach with the guitarist playing lead and rhythm, a rarity in England at the time. Townshend, realizing that approach suited him, became the band's lone guitarist. A name change also followed; with the Beatles burning up the charts, they needed something more striking than the Detours. Daltrey and Townshend settled on the Who, which confused people in conversation initially, but worked memorably on posters. Amid these changes, original drummer Doug Sandom -- who was married and considerably older than the others -- parted ways with the band just as they were about to attempt cutting a record. The group replaced him with Keith Moon, previously the drummer for the surf-rock group the Beachcombers. As the group struggled to get a break, Townshend attended art school, while the remaining three worked odd jobs.

The band became regulars at the Marquee Club in London and attracted a small following, leading to the interest of manager Pete Meaden. Under his direction, the Who were renamed the High Numbers and dressed in sharp suits to appeal to style- and R&B-obsessed mods. Many R&B-oriented groups tried to cultivate relationships with the mods, who could fill clubs and help propel a record onto the charts -- among those who succeeded best, besides the Who, were the Small Faces ("face" being a part of mod slang) and the Move. The High Numbers released one single, "I'm the Face." After it bombed, the group began working with Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, two fledgling music business entrepreneurs. Lambert was the son of composer/arranger Constant Lambert; Stamp was the brother of actor Terence Stamp, and both wanted to make their mark on England's percolating music scene. Lambert spotted the group playing at the Railway Hotel in the wake of "I'm the Face" and brought in Stamp. Lambert and Stamp encouraged them to embrace the mod movement, advising them on what to play and wear, including the target T-shirt that became a visual signature.

The group reclaimed the Who name and began playing a set consisting entirely of soul, R&B, and Motown -- or, as their posters said, "Maximum R&B." During this period, Townshend smashed his first guitar at a gig at the Railway Hotel -- by accident. A temporary stage extension built by the band caused him to hit the ceiling with his guitar; frustrated by the damage, and the crowd's reaction, he struck it until it was in pieces; he was only able to finish the show by using a recently acquired 12-string Rickenbacker. The following week, he discovered that people had come to see him smash his guitar. He eventually obliged with encouragement from Keith Moon, who attacked his drum kit. At first Lambert and Stamp were appalled, but Townshend soon demolished another guitar as part of Lambert's publicity campaign (and it worked, even though the journalist for whose benefit he committed the destruction never actually saw it). He didn't smash guitars at every show in those days; what he was doing in terms of generating feedback sufficed in most audience's minds. It did enhance their status with the mods: by late 1964, they'd developed an enthusiastic following -- mods loved destruction as part of an act.

At the end of 1964, Townshend presented the group with an original song called "I Can't Explain," which owed a little to the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," but had lots of fresh angles. Townshend's lyrics gave a vivid impression of teenage angst perfect for Daltrey's powerful vocals and the band's full-bore attack. The result was equally punchy, sensitive, and macho, with a mean lead guitar and even some harmonies. The band and their managers thought it seemed like a great potential debut single for the newly rechristened Who. So did producer Shel Talmy, an American based in England who was 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 it with a contract with English Decca (the two companies were divided into separate entities at the time). Though the Talmy-produced single arrived to little attention in January 1965.

After the group's incendiary performance on the television program Ready, Steady, Go -- which featured Townshend and Moon destroying their instruments -- "I Can't Explain" reached the British Top 10. Their next single, that summer's "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," declared the mod ethos to the world: "I can go anywhere (where I choose)." While it wasn't far removed from the mentality behind early rock & roll anthems, the Who made it sound resolutely English. That fall, "My Generation" climbed to number two on the charts, confirming their status as a British pop phenomenon. An album of the same name appeared at year's end, featuring various R&B covers and some interesting originals (mostly by Townshend) on the U.K. Brunswick label. Early in 1966, "Substitute" became their fourth British Top Ten hit. Produced by Kit Lambert, the single marked the band's acrimonious split with Talmy 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 signed to Polydor in England, and issued on Reaction. For a time, there were rival releases on Brunswick and Reaction, 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 without a rival release on Brunswick, and it showed just how far the band and Townshend had come in 18 months. During this period, Lambert introduced Townshend to a huge range of classical music that broadened his way of thinking about composition, songs, and subject matter: "I'm a Boy," about a teenage boy forced to dress and act like a girl by his dominating mother, carried an amazing amount of exposition, but left plenty of room for the band's furious attack. In their own way, the Who were having as profound effect on rock & roll as the Beatles or the Rolling Stones: They generated immensely popular English singles that redefined the acceptable content and boundaries of pop/rock music and were also some of the era's hardest -- yet most melodic and complex -- songs. The story in the United States was very different.

"I Can't Explain" barely created a ripple, and "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere" did little better, despite publicity on the ABC television rock & roll showcase Shindig. Even with Decca getting behind "My Generation" for a major marketing push, it only got to number 74, a shadow of what it did in England. British success was all well and good, but it wasn't enough. The instrument-smashing routine and the attendant effects (often involving flash-powder and damage to Moon's drums, as well as Townshend's guitars) were frightfully expensive, and the band was carrying an ongoing debt that drove expenses through the roof. Financial ruin was never far from the thoughts of their management, despite the fact that Lambert and Stamp now had their own Polydor imprint, Track Records -- which 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, was essential. For the Who's second album, Lambert, Stamp, and the band had a more ambitious agenda.

Townshend's success at writing singles inspired the Who's managers, and it was decided that this time, every member of the band would contribute songs to generate more revenue. Although this meant A Quick One was uneven, Lambert's presence allowed Townshend to write the title track as a ten-minute mini-opera. "A Quick One While He's Away" found Townshend writing (and the Who singing and playing) in idioms far beyond rock & roll, including faux Western and faux operetta. Getting dedicated rockers Daltrey and Entwistle to throw their full talents into the music, and the track's successful extended narrative, showed Townshend and company that this idea had potential. A Quick One also provided a canvas for Entwistle's blossoming songwriting: His macabre humor shone through on the catchy "Boris the Spider" and "Whisky Man," the latter showing off his skills on the French horn.

Moon's "Cobwebs and Strange" was also a suitable moment of light humor, and even Daltrey -- whose songwriting aspirations never rated much of his attention -- contributed "See My Way." A Quick One had a diversity of sounds and creative voices, though the Who got relatively little recognition for it at the time. Upon its 1966 release, A Quick One became another British hit, and also provided a minor American breakthrough. Retitled Happy Jack, its title track reached the Top 40 in early 1967. To do that, the Who played the U.S. as part of a package tour organized by DJ-turned-impresario Murray the K. Booked alongside Cream, folkies Jim & Jean, and Wilson Pickett, doing short sets five times a day, the group got the necessary exposure to a wider public, even though "Happy Jack"'s vocal harmonies and relatively restrained guitars made it an atypical Who song. Their next major U.S. milestone was playing the Fillmore in San Francisco.

For that occasion, they had a problem that was the reverse of the Murray the K performances -- the latter had been too slight at 15 to 20 minutes, but their usual 40-minute sets were too short for the Fillmore. In the Richard Barnes book Maximum R&B, it was recalled that to lengthen their set, they learned the entire mini-opera and the rest of A Quick One, which they hadn't performed live. After the Fillmore gig in June 1967, they played their most important American show yet, the Monterey International Pop Festival, which put them in a duel with labelmate Jimi Hendrix to see who could end their set more outrageously. Hendrix won with his incendiary performance, but the Who acquitted themselves admirably with a dramatic destruction of their instruments. Reverting to their old stage act was especially awkward, as they'd finished an album and single that represented a new phase. Constructed as a mock-pirate radio broadcast, The Who Sell Out was a concept album and a loving tribute to England's pirate radio stations, which had been closed in a government crackdown.

The group threw everything they had into the album in order to solidify their position in England and finally crack the U.S. market, including the classic "I Can See for Miles." An explosion of excitement and controlled tension, it seemed like a certain chart-topper. Daltrey's performance was the best of his career to date, matched by Townshend's slashing guitar, Moon's frenetic drumming, and Entwistle's anchor-like bass. It took a lot of work at three different studios -- including Los Angeles' Gold Star -- on two continents and two coasts to get that sound; as a consequence, it was so difficult to perform that it became the only hit that they abandoned playing live. It became their first Top Ten hit in America, and reached number two in England, but that wasn't sufficient for what the band or their management needed. The group spent much of 1968 seeing the singles "Call Me Lightning," "Magic Bus," and "Dogs" -- inspired by Townshend's interest in dog racing -- fail to meet expectations. Track Records, squeezed for cash even with Hendrix's burgeoning sales, assembled Direct Hits, which compiled the band's recent singles (minus the Shel Talmy-produced Brunswick sides).

In the United States, Decca Records -- with only two actual "hits" by the group to work with, plus "Magic Bus" (which did unexpectedly well on that side of the Atlantic) -- released Magic Bus, an unacknowledged compilation album built around the hit and drawn from U.K. singles, EPs and recent album tracks. It was misleadingly subtitled "The Who on Tour," and that's a lot of what they did in 1968, especially in the United States, but not the way they did in 1967; this time, they were playing places like the Fillmore East, where they recorded one show for a possible live album. This plan went awry when the show wasn't quite good enough to represent the group, and was abandoned entirely with the vast changes in their songbook in 1969. While making their first serious long-term headway in the U.S., the band -- mostly Townshend, in collaboration with Lambert on the early libretto -- were devising and recording a large-scale work. Tommy arrived in May of 1969, more than a year and a half after The Who Sell Out.

However, it was still unfinished -- the band wanted to add more instruments on certain songs, and Entwistle was particularly upset at the bass sound on the released recording. But they were out of money and options, so Tommy was released as a work-in-progress. And for the first time, the stars lined up in the Who's favor, especially in the United States. The serious rock press seized on the album as a masterpiece, while the mainstream press started to take rock music seriously. The Who were new and fresh enough, and Tommy ambitious enough, that it became one of the most widely reviewed and written-about albums in history. Tommy climbed into the American Top 10 as the group supported the album with an extensive tour where they played the complete opera. In some respects, Tommy became too successful. Audiences expected it to be done in its entirety at every show, and suddenly the Who were routinely playing for two hours at a clip. The work soon overshadowed the Who; it was performed as a play, redone as an orchestrated all-star extravaganza (starring Daltrey and featuring Townshend's guitar), and would eventually be filmed by Ken Russell in 1975 (the movie starred Daltrey).

In 1993, Townshend turned it into a Broadway musical with director Des McAnuff. While Tommy kept the band busy touring for almost two years, how to follow it stumped Townshend. As he worked on new material, the group released Live at Leeds in 1970 (which yielded the hit single "Summertime Blues"), as well as the single "The Seeker," giving them some breathing room Eventually, he settled on Lifehouse, a sci-fi rock opera strongly influenced by the teachings of his guru, Meher Baba, that pushed the group into new sonic territory with electronics and synthesizers. The rest of the Who wasn't particularly enthralled with Lifehouse, claiming not to understand its plot, and their reluctance contributed to Townshend suffering a nervous breakdown. Once he recovered, the group picked up the pieces of the abandoned project and recorded Who's Next with producer Glyn Johns.

Boasting a harder sound, Who's Next was a major hit, and many of its tracks -- including "Baba O'Riley," "Bargain," "Behind Blue Eyes," and "Won't Get Fooled Again" (which were both issued as singles), and Entwistle's "My Wife" -- became cornerstones of '70s album-oriented FM radio. The Who's Next tour solidified the band as one of the two top live rock attractions in the world along with the Rolling Stones. Suddenly their history was of interest to millions of fans; Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, a 14-song retrospective of their singles, also sold in massive numbers. Who's Next's success spurred Townshend to attempt another opera. With Quadrophenia, he abandoned fantasy to sketch a portrait of a '60s mod. He stopped working with Kit Lambert, who lost influence with the group in Tommy's wake; the band also left Lambert and Stamp's management. As Townshend wrote the album in 1972, he released Who Came First, a collection of private recordings and demos he made for Meher Baba.

Entwistle began his own solo career with Smash Your Head Against the Wall, which he followed with Whistle Rhymes, released the same day as Townshend's album. A double-album, Quadrophenia, sold extremely well, but it proved to be a troublesome concert piece. It was difficult to play live, and few outside of England were familiar with its mod subject matter. It soon became clear that audiences hadn't had the time to familiarize themselves with the work, leading to a lukewarm response on tour. After some retooling, the group performed an abbreviated version of Quadrophenia with some success. The Who began to fragment after Quadrophenia's release. In public, Townshend fretted over his role as a rock spokesman; in private, he sank into alcohol abuse. Entwistle concentrated on his solo career, including recordings with his side projects Ox and Rigor Mortis. Meanwhile, Daltrey approached the peak of his powers: he had become a truly great singer and was surprisingly comfortable as an actor as he alternately pursued a film career and solo albums. Moon continued to party, celebrating his substance abuse and releasing the solo album Two Sides of the Moon.

During this hiatus, the group issued the rarities collection Odds & Sods (1974), which surpassed existing bootleg collections and charted like a new release. Meanwhile, Townshend worked on new songs, resulting in 1975's disarmingly personal The Who by Numbers. The album was a hit, though its number eight placement in the U.S. reflected listeners' modestly diminishing enthusiasm (Quadrophenia, despite being a rather expensive double-LP built around a somewhat outré subject, reached number two on both sides of the Atlantic). Following the Who by Numbers tour, the band took an extended hiatus. During the late '70s, the band started to succumb to age and the rock & roll lifestyle. After years of playing live, Townshend permanently damaged his hearing. On their 1976 tour, Moon collapsed on-stage just a few minutes into a show at the Boston Garden -- he recovered and seemed to laugh off the incident, while an audience member sat in behind the drumkit to allow the band to finish playing. He continued partying and even suggested a possible successor, ex-Small Faces/Faces drummer Kenney Jones.

The Who reconvened in early 1978 to record Who Are You, which was released that August, accompanied by a stunning promotional/performance video of the title song. Instead of responding to the insurgent punk movement, which labeled the Who as has-beens, the album represented the group's heaviest flirtation with prog rock since Quadrophenia. It was a huge hit, peaking at number two in the American charts and earning a platinum sales. Instead of being a triumphant comeback, however, Who Are You became a symbol of tragedy: on September 7, 1978, Moon died of a drug overdose. Since he was such an integral part of the Who's sound and image, the band debated carrying on. Though they continued, all three surviving members later claimed they felt the Who ended with Moon's death. They took Moon's suggestion and hired Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones as his replacement, as well as keyboardist John "Rabbit" Bundrick, and began working on new material in 1979. Before they released a new record, they released the live documentary The Kids Are Alright and contributed music to Franc Roddam's cinematic adaptation of Quadrophenia, which starred Phil Daniels.

The Who began touring later that year, but the tour's momentum was destroyed when 11 attendees at the group's December 3, 1979, concert at Cincinnati's Riverfront Coliseum were trampled to death in a rush for choice festival seating. The band wasn't informed of the incident until after the concert, and the tragedy deflated whatever good will they had. Following the Cincinnati concert, the Who slowly fell apart. Townshend became addicted to cocaine, heroin, tranquilizers, and alcohol, suffering a near-fatal overdose in 1981. Meanwhile, Entwistle and Daltrey soldiered on in their solo careers. The band reconvened in 1981 to record their first album since Moon's death, Face Dances, a hit that received mixed reviews. The following year, they released It's Hard and embarked on a supporting tour billed as their farewell to fans, with the live Who's Last arriving in 1984 as a commemoration of the tour. The farewell tour wasn't the Who's final goodbye. While Entwistle and Daltrey's solo careers lost momentum in the '80s, Townshend continued recording to relative success.

However, the Who still haunted him. The group reunited to play Live Aid in 1985, and three years later, they played a British music awards program. In 1989, Townshend agreed to reunite (minus Jones, who was replaced by session drummer Simon Phillips) for a 25th anniversary American tour, which was perceived as a way to make a lot of money -- which Daltrey and especially Entwistle needed. They followed it with a live album, Join Together. The Who reconvened in 1994 for two concerts celebrating Daltrey's 50th birthday, commercial success that helped Townshend's effort to bring Tommy to the Broadway stage. It became a huge hit and revived interest in the album. Townshend revived Quadrophenia in 1996, reuniting the Who to perform it at the Prince's Trust concert in Hyde Park that summer, and it was followed that fall by an American tour that proved to be a failure. The following summer, the Who launched an oldies tour of America that was ignored by the press.

In October 2001, they played the Concert for New York City benefit for families of the victims of the September 11 attacks. In late June 2002, the Who were about to kick off a North American tour when Entwistle died at the age of 57 in Las Vegas' Hard Rock Hotel. In 2006, Townshend and Daltrey released the mini-opera Wire & Glass, their first collaboration as the Who in over 20 years. The full-length Endless Wire, which included the EP, was released later that year to the best reviews of any Who album since Who Are You 28 years earlier; the accompanying tour was similarly well-received. On December 7, 2008, at a gala ceremony in Washington, D.C., Townshend and Daltrey received Kennedy Center Honors for the Who's lifetime contributions to American culture. Townshend rumbled about the Who writing and recording new material, but instead, he and Daltrey turned their attention to Quadrophenia, once again touring the album in its entirety.

After a full performance in 2010 to benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust, a Quadrophenia and More tour began in the summer of 2012 and ran for over a year, culminating with a July concert at Wembley Arena that was later released as the live package Quadrophenia: Live in London. This 2014 release was the opening salvo in a farewell tour, with dates during 2015 in cities they'd never played previously. Also, a hits compilation appeared late in 2014; titled The Who Hits 50!, it included the band's first new material in almost a decade, "Be Lucky." ~ Bruce Eder & Stephen Thomas Erlewine Top Albums

Question: Who joined The Who as drummer in 1964 before they recorded their first single?
Answer: KEITH MOON