On This Date, February 7th in 1969: The Who recorded “Pinball Wizard” at Morgan Studios in London. Although it was not one of songwriter Pete Townshend’s favorites, it went on to become by far the most popular song from the rock opera, Tommy, reaching #4 in the UK charts and #13 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. “Pinball Wizard” remains part of The Who’s live set to this day. Perhaps they will perform it later today when they provide musical entertainment for the half time show at the Super Bowl (aka The Stupid Bowl), which I will be doing everything in my power to avoid watching!
On This Date, September 7th in 1978: Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, died in London of an overdose of Hemenephirin, a drug he was taking to cure his alcoholism. He was 32. I still remember that day like it just happened; what a fucking tragedy. In an oddly related story, on this same date in 1985, drummer Zak Starkey (son of Ringo Starr) and his wife Sarah welcomed their first child, daughter Tatia Jayne. Starkey has played drums for The Who since 1994, and actually received his first professional drum kit from Moon, who is also his Godfather. That kit later sold at Sotheby’s auction house for £12,000.
Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, was born on this day August 23rd in 1946. The video above is a very nice remembrance of Keith. It still breaks my heart to think he left us so soon.
On this Date, June 25th in 1967: An estimated 400 million people in 26 countries saw The Beatles debut “All You Need is Love” as part of the One World satellite broadcast. Among those who provided backing vocals on the track were Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton and Keith Moon. As a side note, I also very much enjoy The Rutles’ parody of this song, “Love Life” — which you can watch below! Love is the meaning of life/ Life is the meaning of Love…
Pete Townshend, guitarist for The Who and certainly one of the most awesome living Rock Stars ever in the universe of all time, was born on this day, May 19th, in 1945. I’m lucky enough (meaning that I am oldenough now) to have seen The Who live in their prime before the death of Keith Moon. This was way back in March of 1976, at the Anaheim Stadium in Orange County, California where I grew up. I think the ticket was $12. I’d say that show is probably in the top three or four concert experiences of my life, and I do remember it was VERY LOUD, despite being held at an outdoor sports stadium with a capacity of over 55,000 people. My ears still hurt. In fact, according to Who legend, that concert is the one at which Townshend claims to have lost a good percentage of his hearing. “Happy Birthday, Pete!”
