The iconic guitarist Pete Townshend can’t stand: “I wouldn’t even attempt”
Guitar gods are never born in the same way. Although there tend to be a few people like Eddie Van Halen or Jimmy Page who arrive fully formed on their first records, hungry to take on the world, the best musicians are the ones who mould themselves into guitar legends over time, whether that’s George Harrison’s lyrical guitar playing or Andy Summers creating sonic textures with The Police.
While Pete Townshend could justifiably be considered the ultimate rhythm player, his taste for guitar playing never centred around one particular guitar legend.
Because listening to Townshend, he was more about creating raw noise half the time in The Who’s early years. He was still an avid fan of everything from rock and roll to R&B, but when listening back to the way he put feedback into ‘Anyway Anyhow Anywhere’ or made his amp sound like a roaring lion on ‘My Generation’, he sounded like he was in a fierce battle with his instrument half the time he played.
And that wasn’t really by accident, either. When thinking about any band’s dynamic, John Entwistle really was the timekeeper of the group while Townshend and Keith Moon went on wild tangents, and as far as the guitarist was concerned, those moments were about taking one chord and bashing away on it for as much emotion as he could.
But that was only going to engage the crowd for a few minutes. What Townshend did had to still be musical, and so began his history of putting together lavish conceptual pieces that everyone fawned over, like Tommy and Quadrophenia. Although he was still using the basis of rhythm guitar in the studio, you can hear him turning himself into one of the most creative lead players in the industry.
Townshend’s relationship with the guitar was always tied more closely to composition than technical mastery. He rarely approached solos as opportunities to showcase speed or dexterity, instead using the instrument as a storytelling device within the broader architecture of a song. Whether it was the crashing suspended chords of ‘Baba O’Riley’ or the windmill-driven power chords of ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, his playing was designed to create momentum and drama rather than dazzle with precision alone.
That philosophy also explains why Townshend became such an influential figure for later generations of punk and alternative musicians. Players from The Clash, The Jam and even Nirvana took cues from his ability to make simple chord work feel explosive and emotionally charged. While virtuosos were busy trying to play faster and more intricately, Townshend proved that conviction and attack could be just as powerful as technical brilliance when wielded in the right way.
After all, people like Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck were bound to rub off on him, and by the time he worked on Live At Leeds, he had started sowing the seeds for what would become punk and heavy metal by how heavy his single-note lines could get. There was certainly some flashiness here and there, but someone like Les Paul was the kind of playing that Townshend wanted to run away from.
Despite being one of the best guitar manufacturers in the world and having some of the greatest chops in the business, Townshend never clicked with Paul’s style of playing with Mary Ford, saying, “I used to listen to people like Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery. And Chet Atkins, clear thinkers. I hated Les Paul. I’ve never liked flash playing, really. I don’t mind flash performers, I don’t mind showmanship or guitar circus. I wouldn’t even attempt to try and approach that and I think it’s impetuous of people to imagine that they can think that fast.”
Granted, Townshend’s putdown does a disservice to some of Paul’s greatest work. He could be flashy and turn the guitar into a spectacle when he wanted to, but listening back to some of his guitar trade-offs with Ford, everything that he played was still tastefully done, usually serving to entertain the audience rather than assault them with a barrage of notes that no one could understand.
Then again, that’s not how Townshend’s brain worked when it came to music. For all of the great chops that Paul had every time he played the guitar, he was never going to take someone on a musical journey in the same way that Townshend did whenever he began playing the first notes of Tommy.
