The reason Roger Daltrey comically avoided Jimi Hendrix for months
1969 is The Who‘s most pivotal year. Entering their next stadium rock phase in earnest, frontman Roger Daltrey had passed from sharp-suited mod to golden-locked, shammy leathered powerhouse strutter lifting their live show to a greater scope of arresting rock bombast.
Principal songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend’s conceptual ambitions were becoming grander in scope too, conceiving that year’s Tommy rock opera and setting the stage for the widescreen songcraft that pulled The Who away from Swinging London to Led Zeppelin levels of hard rock escapism.
Townshend’s penchant for big, proggyish ideas had already been sown years prior. 1966’s ‘A Quick One, While He’s Away’ was an audacious nine-minute power-pop saga involving lost love and infidelity with the Ivor the Engine driver, but the following year’s The Who Sell Out was a deeper dive into the emerging album format’s expanding conceptual possibilities. Inspired by their affection for pirate radio, The Who’s third LP plays out like a steady FM broadcast, complete with fictitious commercials recorded by PAMS Productions jingles company.
Novel album angles aside, The Who Sell Out‘s notable feature among the band’s back-catalogue is the amount of Townshend lead vocals, ‘Odorono’, ‘I Can’t Reach You’, ‘Mary Anne With the Shaky Hand’, and ‘Our Love Was’ all fronted by The Who’s songsmith. Recording their third LP in Soho’s De Lane Lea Studios, The Who Sell Out sessions encountered an unwelcome crossing of paths with one Jimi Hendrix, whose Experience band was cutting Axis: Bold as Love next door.
“He was using our studio, and at that time Roger’s girlfriend Heather, who became his wife, had been seeing Jimi…,” Townshend let slip to Rock Cellar in 2021. “I think Roger was… I don’t know whether or not this is turning into sort of silly gossip, but I think he wasn’t around as much as he would normally be. He used to enjoy being in the studio, but suddenly he was gone”.
While Daltry had been guilty of going AWOL for the odd gig, it was out of character to simply stand as a no-show for studio time. Forcing Townshend to cut his own vocals, Daltrey’s absence could well be put down to plain old jealousy over the enigmatic Hendrix’s presence and threat toward his wife-to-be. The fact was, rumour had it that one of Hendrix’s biggest hits was amorously penned as an ode to the American model.
“Maybe two or three weeks of sessions that he wasn’t as present as he normally was, and I think it had something to do with him being concerned about Jimi Hendrix stealing his girlfriend, Heather,” Townshend further divulged. “I think Heather is the redhead he wrote ‘Foxy Lady’ for, so I think there was some intrigue going on there”.
Heather can join the ranks of Pattie Boyd in boasting some of the era’s most classic rock songs written in their honour. Whatever Hendrix’s intentions, Daltrey managed to ensure an over 50-year marriage and inadvertently gifted Townshend with some of his most memorable performances in The Who canon.
