The one guitarist Pete Townshend was happy to copy and cover
There is no doubt that good guitarists deserve a lot of credit. It’s a tricky instrument to master, and to be able to create a sound that isn’t only good, but stands out in what is a pretty crowded field, is incredibly impressive. However, there are good guitarists, and then there are great guitarists. Pete Townshend falls very much into the latter.
What’s the difference between a good and a great guitarist? A good guitarist can play the guitar, but a great guitarist can also play the guitar and seamlessly weave it into various songs. Townshend was fantastic at this; he didn’t see the need to focus on elongated solos and shredding. He was instead happy to ensure that his instrument was a piece of the puzzle, coming together with everything else available to deliver a fully packaged sound.
This was an ethos shared by The Who, as no one wanted to play extended solos, as they preferred creating a full sound where they all bounced off each other. “Drum solos are fucking boring,” said Keith Moon, reflecting the feelings of the band. “Any kind of solo is. It detracts from the group identity.”
Many of Townshend’s contemporaries admire his commitment to the band as much as he does to himself. You get a lot of guitarists who enjoy their time in the spotlight, which means they stand at the front of the stage for 20 minutes each set, playing solos that are a musical flex of the muscles, but that aren’t necessarily interesting after a long period. Then you have Townshend, who wants to write good songs and albums that use every member of the band.
“The thing is, you’ve got your Jimi Hendrix, you’ve got your Eric Clapton, and then you’ve got guys who can play with bands,” said Keith Richards when he was praising guitarists like Townshend, “People get carried away with lead guitars […] and feedbacks. And it’s all histrionics, when it comes down to it.”
However, just because Pete Townshend wasn’t much of a solo player doesn’t mean that he hasn’t learn from guitarists who do enjoy a good guitar solo. There are a number of blues and R&B guitarists whose playing style centred around guitar solos, and while their influence might not shine through in the way that Townshend plays, you can still hear it if you listen close enough.
A great example of this is Bo Diddley. Diddley was a famous R&B guitarist who was no stranger to a guitar solo, and Pete Townshend was a huge admirer of his. When the band were originally working out what sound they wanted, they covered a lot of his music, and Townshend was playing many a solo.
While he might not have taken these solos into his work with The Who, but there are still some mannerisms that you can notice in his playing. One of the most notable is when Townshend drags his pick across the low E string before hitting a chord. It provides a great deal of atmosphere, and when The Who were making their more cinematic concept albums, it came in handy to build tension. It shows that even if you don’t like playing solos, you can still learn a great deal from them.
