When I put together a playlist of The Who’s Best, I chose enough of Tommy to tell the basic story. “Overture” is the instrumental that opened the record, and introduced us to the major melodies we were about to hear throughout the album. The album has several well known songs, including “Pinball Wizard”, “I’m Free”, “See Me, Feel Me”, and “The Overture From Tommy”. Townshend’s term of “Rock Opera” may seem a bit fanciful, but it is a groundbreaking work. Tommy is one of the first concept albums. The Who consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, drummer Keith Moon, lead guitarist Pete Townshend, and bassist John Entwistle. To clarify who was singing what part of the drama, the lyrics and character names were in a booklet included with the album. There are a lot of characters in the story, but The Who sang all of the parts. Mostly written by Pete Townshend, Tommy was a two-record set that details the mostly tragic life of a boy who was shocked into being deaf, dumb, and blind. It was in 1969 that The Who released what was called the first “Rock Opera”, Tommy. Where they shined was creating two of the most iconic albums of the Rock era…and those I bought. They only had seven other Top 20 hits, and another 8 singles that reached the bottom half of the Top 40.
The band was not especially successful with singles.
The first and only single I ever bought by The Who was also their only Top 10 hit…”I Can See For Miles”…#9 in 1967.
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