Daltrey Interview

Posted on 15. Feb, 2010 by quynhgiao in Actors, Singers

The Shootout guys interview Roger Daltrey and talk about Amazing Journey and making Tommy.

About Daltrey

Roger Harry Daltrey CBE (born 1 March 1944) is an English singer-songwriter and actor, best known as the founder and lead singer of English rock band The Who. He has maintained a musical career as a solo artist and has also worked in the film industry, acting in a large number of film, theatre and television roles and also producing films.

Rock persona

Daltrey, exuberant and confident with his role on stage. October 1976

When Colin Dawson left The Detours, Roger Daltrey took over as lead vocalist, giving up his guitar. The band as a whole acknowledged Moon’s and Entwistle’s innovation and talent on their instruments, and Pete Townshend had begun writing hit songs. Daltrey struggled to find a voice to present their new music flooding throughout England. Daltrey struggled to find a voice to provide an interpretation of their music as well. His expression carried Townshend’s material well enough in recordings, and at the time his live persona suited the small club scene where The Who made their beginnings. However, this presentation lacked the confidence of later years, and he was arguably still a singer seeking a voice.

The Who first toured North America in 1967, appearing at the Monterey Pop Festival, and Daltrey brought back new experiences in dealing with larger venues and stages. 1968 proved a pivitol year with Townshend’s movement beyond the quick three minute single, towards his goal of writing a rock opera. Beginning with “A Quick One While He’s Away“, a nine minute mini opera, Daltrey’s performance in The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus showed him with a new confidence in dealing with Townshend’s material. In 1969 The Who’s first major rock opera Tommy was released, and Daltrey found a voice for the lead character that carried The Who to world stardom at such music venues as Woodstock and the Isle of Wight Festival, and in opera houses around the world in 1969 and 1970. Townshend later remarked on Amazing Journey, that with Tommy, and Daltrey’s adaptation to portraying the character onstage, he evolved from what was essentially a tight, tough guy to one who outstretched his arms, bared his body to the audiences, and began to truly engage them. With this change, the band was at last complete, he sums up. “It was a marriage,” Townshend emphasises, “but it was a good marriage. Those were glorious years”. Daltrey confirmed this, saying, he felt at last accepted, displaying a newly energetic role and sound during live performances.

Daltrey has long been known as one of the most charismatic of rock’s frontmen. His stage persona embraces the audience and projects The Who’s repertoire as heroic anthems and touching ballads that have gripped the emotions and imagination of audiences for forty years. This persona has earned him a position as one of the “gods of rock and roll” and has influenced the development of many other bands since.

His appearance in the early 1970’s included striking, long blond curly hair and a sexually ambivalent look which became more masculine as the seventies progressed. He developed a trademark move of swinging and throwing his microphone through a complex sequence, always trying to match these sequences with the tempo of the song that was being played at the moment. Although Daltrey reduced the athleticism of his performance during later years, his presentation remains dynamic and gripping.