This is an impressive scrap book of articles and photos that have been collected and arranged in chronological order.
The book is well organized and cleanly laid out. Each year is treated as a chapter with an introduction spread that includes a timeline of events from that year. And every article is identified with a date and publication or location. Some of the articles appear as though they’ve been scanned at low resolution and a handful are difficult to read but the sheer volume and variety of unique and interesting material more than make up for that. At 740 pages this thing is thick & heavy (about 1.5 inches / 4cm thick) with hundreds of articles. It is self published;
available here
Pete Townshend’s autobiography.
Left to right: UK hard cover, US hard cover, Paperback, Audio book.
(The audio book is read by Pete Townshend)
This book attempts to describe every audio and video recording (including studio, live, TV, radio, etc) of
The Who available commercially or otherwise that is currently circulating in the collector community.
This first volume includes about 210 entries in chronological order from the first seven years of the bands history.
Each description includes the date of the recording, the length of the recording, a quality grade (A, B or C), song titles,
the authors personal remarks and, in the case of videos, screen shots. The author acknowledges errors and
omissions may be present, nevertheless serious Who collectors will find this book an interesting read.
A interesting look at the development of the two albums that followed Tommy; Who’s Next (which started out as Lifehouse)
and Quadrophenia. The author digs through piles of research (most of it carefully annotated) and numerous interviews
(some conducted for the book, many from back when the projects were being conceived) to tell the story. The narrative takes
the reader through Pete Townshend’s struggles to create two significant albums while dealing with absent management,
concerned band-mates, confused journalists, impatient fans and a bit of self-doubt. The book explores many details about
the two albums and uncovers a few new and interesting facts. Anyone interested in the subject may find the book hard to put down.