Pete Townshend (born 19 May 1945) is an English musician, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, known principally as the guitarist and primary songwriter for the rock group the Who. His career with the Who spans 50 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 1960’s and 1970’s. Although known primarily as a guitarist, he also plays other instruments such as keyboards, banjo, accordion, harmonica, ukulele, mandolin, violin, synthesizer, bass guitar, and drums. He is self-taught on all of the instruments he plays and has never had any formal training. Townshend was ranked No. 3 in Dave Marsh’s list of Best Guitarists in The New Book of Rock Lists. (More from Wikipedia)
Link Wray’s influence is front and center on a good 50% of the records that I play, because he is credited with introducing the “power chord” on electric guitar to rock and roll, a technique whose effect is often enhanced by distortion.
Writing for Allmusic, Cub Koda calls the power chord “the major modus operandi of modern rock guitarists”. I will spare you the technical details – not least because I don’t really understand them myself – but Ray Davies of the Kinks (in their classic “You Really Got Me”) and Pete Townshend of the Who (in “My Generation”) helped popularize the power chord in the early years of the British Invasion. When Townshend is performing his famous windmill guitar technique, he is typically playing power chords.
Pete Townshend has been quoted as saying: “He is the king. If it hadn’t been for Link Wray and ‘Rumble’, I would have never picked up a guitar.” More recently, concerning another Link Wray classic, Dan Auerbach of the Black Keys said: “I would listen to ‘Some Kinda Nut’, over and over. It sounded like he was strangling the guitar – like it was screaming for help.”
(February 2013)
Opposition to the unfair imprisonment of two women in Pussy Riot became a cause célèbre of many Western celebrities plus musicians from every genre imaginable: Bryan Adams, Beastie Boys, the Black Keys, John Cale, Peter Gabriel, Green Day, Nina Hagen, Kathleen Hanna, Paul McCartney, Moby, Yoko Ono, Pet Shop Boys, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Patti Smith, Sting, Pete Townshend, etc. Pussy Riot was featured on 60 Minutes as well.
For their part, the bandmembers in Pussy Riot that were not in prison distanced themselves from all of this attention and were quoted as saying: “We’re flattered, of course, that Madonna and Björk have offered to perform with us. But the only performances we’ll participate in are illegal ones. We refuse to perform as part of the capitalist system, at concerts where they sell tickets.”
(December 2013)
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Pete Sears of the Sons of Fred briefly played keyboards for the British freakbeat band Les Fleur de Lys; according to Wikipedia, his sole recording with the band was the “A” side of their second single, “Circles” (written by Pete Townshend).
(March 2014/2)
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After appearing only at the Concert for Bangladesh that George Harrison organized in 1972, Pete Townshend of the Who brought together an allstar line-up for a 1973 concert intended to bring Eric Clapton out of hiding and to help him kick his habit. Known as the Rainbow Concert, musicians on hand include Rick Grech and Stevie Winwood from Blind Faith, Jim Capaldi (who had co-founded Traffic with Winwood), Anthony “Reebop” Kwaku Baah (a percussionist from Ghana who played with Traffic and also the German band Can), Ron Wood (then in Faces), and drummer Jimmy Karstein (who was on hand for the final album by Buffalo Springfield).
(May 2014)
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