Just released is The Who's massive five CD "Super Deluxe" box set chronicling its 1965 debut album, My Generation. A key drawing point for die-hards is the inclusion of three previously unheard demos for the album that the Who never recorded -- "The Girls I Could Have Had," "As Children We Grew," and "My Own Love."
Townshend spoke to Rolling Stone and shed light on the tremendous growth Daltrey experienced when embodying the material Townshend had written for the band's 1969 rock opera, Tommy: "It was only really when we got to Tommy that Roger decided to dig deep and find some other way of performing and singing.
I think I had sung 'See Me, Feel Me, Touch Me, Heal Me' on the recordings, and one day, (our manager/producer) Kit (Lambert) took me aside and he said, 'Do you mind if I ask Roger if he can sing that?' And I said, 'No, of course not. It feels very strange and he's playing the role of 'Tommy,' but I'm kind of singing the inner child here, and I'd just prefer to be the narrator at the beginning; it's clearer.'
And I went in to IBC studios and Roger had found this new voice. And it wasn't exactly a choirboy, but it was a new voice and I think from then on, Roger realized that he had a full range of sensibilities that he could tap into as a singer."
He explained that although not especially a cutting edge singer prior to that, Daltrey was accurately reading and representing Townshend's early material: "Prior to that, he was tapping into mainly anger and maybe something bigger than that.
I don't really know where it came from to be honest, but I think the thing about the dynamic behind the Who and its audience at the time in '63, '64 would have definitely been rooted in some post-war disaffection.
We felt disenfranchised and we felt useless but I don't know quite what drove Roger. He was a fighter and not much of a performer either.
He didn't let rip on the stage in the way that Keith (Moon) and I did. I think with when you listen back to the vocals on the actual multi-tracks, Roger was trying to go for a voice somewhere between Wilson Pickett and Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf, a real growl. And he did it brilliantly.”
Pete Townshend admits that it's been tough throughout the years for Daltrey to have to bide his time until he's finished the next song cycle for a new Who project: "This was very frustrating for Roger, who is a fantastic singer of my material. The greatest interpreter that a writer could ever, ever want. Y'know he's a fantastic performer, singer, and brings stuff to my work that I can't bring to it myself. Certainly I've never heard any other singer bring it to it.”
Roger Daltrey told us that singing the Tommy material completely freed him creatively -- both in terms of how he sang and performed in front of an audience: "It means the same to me, I'm just trying to explain to people that I never saw 'Tommy' as an individual. I sang Tommy from the inside, I'm an emoter. So Tommy to me was always my inner journey. It was the journey of my spirit. Y'know, the human condition.”
