The iconic guitarists who influenced Pete Townshend the most: “Everything changed”
There was a stark change that happened across all of music at the dawn of the 1970s.
As music waved goodbye to the previous decade, dominated by The Beatles, a booming change beckoned that would ultimately bring in one of the most diverse eras of music history, with multiple artists snatching at the title for music supremacy and, in the process, sparking a culture of subgenres.
No longer did we exist in a world where rock and roll reigned supreme, and instead we had the expansive worlds of prog and psych rock, as well as the snarling anger of punk, and the glittering rhythms of disco and soul.
But not everybody was like The Beatles, in the sense that this changing decade called time on their band. No, many of the greats, like The Who, weathered that storm and evolved with it. In the 1960s, their exciting brand of rock was built on the traditional landscapes of rhythm and blues music, which perfectly platformed the exciting voice of Roger Daltrey. But at the turn of the decade, the band’s pioneering creative leader, Pete Townshend, had his mind set on innovation.
“From 1971, everything changed,” Townshend remarked. This was the year after their ambitious concept album Tommy, and a year before Who’s Next, which would showcase a starkly different band to the one that captured hearts with ‘My Generation’. But while we may credit that change to the synthesis on ‘Baba O’Riley’, it was in fact Townshend stepping up with his guitar equipment.
He continued, “Alan Rogan helped me track down a lot of cool guitars. Joe Walsh gave me a Gretsch and a Fender Bassman combo with an Edwards pedal to get the Neil Young sound. He also gave me a Flying V, that I am sad to say I sold to help buy my first big boat. He’s never quite forgiven me. I bought two or three D’Angelicos and started to really appreciate what a fine guitar really was.”
The guitar was no longer a singular instrument, designed to provide one anchoring tone for the band’s music. Instead, with the catalogue of guitars Townshend had at his disposal, he could layer sounds and pull upon the multiple influences that he cites as the very reason he got into music in the first place.
He continued, rattling off a lengthy list of greats who he confessed, never strayed too far from his creative process: “My influences when I was young were Wes, Kenny Burrell in his work with Jimmy Smith Jim Hall with Jimmy Giuffre, Buddy Guy, Leadbelly, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Snooks Eaglin, Big Bill Broonzy, Hubert Sumlin with Howlin’ Wolf, Albert King, Steve Cropper, Don Everly, Bruce Welch with The Shadows, Eddie Cochran, James Burton with Ricky Nelson. Among my contemporaries, it was Dave Davies, Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young. At art school, I met Bert Jansch, and realised folk guys used tricks tunings!”
For rock fans, it’s probably heartening to learn that Townshend’s pivot into rock experimentalism was driven by his trusty old companion. And even though some of The Who’s most expansive work sounded like an adventure into space, it never drifted too far from the greats of this world, who carved out the meaning of rock and roll.
