![]() The whole album’s lyrics revolve around an overall concept-the underappreciated, struggling musician-well-suited to Daltrey’s emotive powers. The story of a street musician is reprised at the end of the album, giving the album a circular structure. Daltrey’s vocal is characteristically authoritative: As with The Who, he’s as much an actor as singer, inhabiting every lyric. It leads with “One Man Band,” which was also Leo Sayer’s debut single when he finally released his own recording in mid-1974. (At the age of 80, he’s still their manager in 2022.)Īt a svelte 38 minutes in length, Daltrey wastes nothing. It peaked at #45.īefore long, Stamp and Lambert were out and Track employee and tour maven Bill Curbishley moved into Who/Daltrey management, naming his company Trinifold. Some believe they quietly did what they could to scuttle Daltrey at MCA, the label that released it and The Who’s albums in America. They were worried The Who might split, or become a hybrid act in the mold of Rod Stewart and Faces. Despite the huge popularity of The Who in America, Daltrey’s solo success had created a rift between The Who’s managers Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert (who also ran the band’s U.K. the single barely scraped into Billboard’s Hot 100. In April 1973 Roger performed his current top 10 hit single “Giving It All Away” on the BBC’s Top of the Pops television show. Cole’s steel guitar, Dave Arbus’ violin and guitar by Jimmy Page on a track eventually relegated to a B-side, “There is Love.” Del Newman, who had worked with Cat Stevens, Elton John, Rod Stewart and many others, did the string arrangements, and Courtney and Faith were listed as producers on the finished product. There were a few overdubbed instrumental parts, including B.J. We didn’t even have time to tune the piano!”Ĭourtney played that piano, Daltrey a bit of acoustic guitar, Dave Wintour was on bass, and two members of Argent, guitarist Russ Ballard and drummer Bob Henrit, filled out the band. It was fresh and completely unpretentious. It’s still the best solo album I ever made. “We had the album finished in three weeks…with the orchestra and everything,” Daltrey told Charlesworth. What about if you give me three or four songs and I’ll record them?” He figured he might open some doors for Sayer, who was the singer in the writing duo.Ī month or two later, 10 songs were written, assembled and demonstrated on a piano in The Barn. Surprised that Faith had been unable to secure them a record label contract for such “fucking brilliant” material, Daltrey casually said, “We’ve got six demos. ![]() Daltrey, who “had bugger all to do” with no Who project, engineered the Sayer session in October 1972, and was impressed by the songs from these unknowns. Who’s Next had been released in 1971, but Daltrey’s band was now off the road while Pete Townshend developed Quadrophenia. ![]() “I never felt comfortable outside The Who…if I was out there singing but not with The Who, I had to make sure I was singing stuff The Who would never, ever do.”įaith (real name Terence Wright), a ’60s British teen idol and hitmaker who’d turned to managing careers and producing, brought the singer-songwriter team of Leo Sayer and David Courtney (real name David Cohen) to Daltrey’s home studio, set up in a barn on his property in East Sussex, to do some song demos. “I was only doing a favor to help a friend of mine, Adam Faith,” he told the journalist Charles Charlesworth in 1997. The appearance of the 10-song Daltrey LP in April 1973 was the result of serendipity and a little casual work. The Who’s lead singer, Roger Daltrey, never intended to record outside the group, or have any kind of solo career.
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