The only band every member of The Who could agree on: “All of us enjoyed”
There was no rule in The Who saying that they needed to be the best of friends.
Pete Townshend was the one writing some immaculate songs whenever he came up with the band’s lavish concepts, but when the notes rang out at the end of the night, he never claimed to be one of the biggest cheerleaders for their camaraderie or anything. They were only happy to get the job done whenever they played one of their tunes, and even when they were working on their albums, there were always those few names that would divide the room when someone brought them up.
Then again, it’s easy to see why Townshend was interested in something more than just rock and roll. He didn’t want to spend his life following people like Elvis Presley, and since he had an art school background, he would do anything in his power to steer Roger Daltrey away from the traditional rock and roll routes. At the same time, it’s not like Townshend was pushing bacon rock altogether.
He was a diehard fan of The Stones, but not everything that he gravitated towards suited Daltrey’s voice or was interesting enough for John Entwistle to follow. There needed to be some kind of middle ground half the time, and if there was one element that could bring every member of the band back together, it came with songs that had the perfect melody behind them and just the right construction.
And you couldn’t get better than the stone age of rock and roll when talking about a template for The Who. There were pieces of their catalogue that were certainly indebted to R&B like their covers of James Brown songs back in the day, but Townshend was the first to say that he could listen to The Everly Brothers every single day and never get bored listening to them harmonising.
There was something special about the way that their voices blended together, and even if it wasn’t the most complicated thing in the world, there’s no way that anyone could knock what they were doing. The Everlys were taking the best of country and rock and roll and making their own hybrid, and while The Who did have a lot of diverse tastes, Townshend felt that The Everlys were the one common thread between all of them.
They weren’t going to do their own version of ‘Bye Bye Love’ by any stretch, but Townshend felt like those songs were the perfect way for them to come together, saying, “Their interpretation of Roy Orbison’s ‘Love Hurts’ was excellent. Roger, John and Keith loved the tracks as much as I did, so we incorporated [their] songs into our repertoire. There were few artists that all four of us respected and enjoyed, and the Everly Brothers were among them.”
Sure, their style sounded absolutely nothing like the Everlys on any of their records, but if you look at the way they constructed their harmonies, Townshend was definitely taking some cues out of their playbook. Every one of their early tunes was about finding those subtle harmonies everyone could enjoy, and while Townshend could take his cues from Brian Wilson on tunes like ‘I Can See For Miles’, he was also interested in the way he and Daltrey could harmonise like their heroes on tunes like ‘Behind Blue Eyes’.
But beyond being a great duo, the greatest strength that The Everlys taught the band was being able to make music sound vulnerable. It’s not easy for people to connect with their fellow man from the other side of a speaker, but whenever you hear tunes like ‘All I Have To Do Is Dream’, you can practically feel the two brothers pulling on people’s heartstrings for them with every single syllable that they sing.
