Roger Daltrey

As he comes across in the pages of Thanks A Lot, Mr. Kibblewhite: My Story, Roger Daltrey is a personable, engaging fella. It's a rather slender book to cover such a long and prolific career, but Daltrey writes in a brisk conversational tone that was fun to read. I particularly enjoyed the sections on his childhood, his early bands, his family, and his complicated relationship with Pete Townshend. Prompted me to listen to some albums by The Who, which I hadn't done in a while. I didn't realize how much solo work Daltrey's done; I'll have to give some of that a listen as well. In short: good book, enjoyable and a quick but engaging read.… (more)

After reading Pete Townshend's [b:Who I Am|13609867|Who I Am|Pete Townshend|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1334931711l/13609867._SY75_.jpg|19207504] I was expecting a gruff tale about Roger punching people in the face in between singing. This is not what I got at all. In fact, I was a little shocked at how sincere and inspiring this book was. On one hand, he left a trail of illegitimate children in his wake (and didn't really feel particularly apologetic about it), but on the other hand he claimed and connected with those children on some level and still managed to keep his second marriage together. More important than all of that is the real sense of a blue-collar success story. He never shies away from the hard work, and there's something especially charming about a man who still spends his time putting in manual labor around his house in between making albums that are some of the most important works in rock and roll history.

Now, Roger doesn't get deep into most of the stuff he discusses like Pete does, but I got the sense that that's just who Roger is--straightforward and rolling with the punches. I *did* find it pretty interesting where Pete's story and Roger's story deviate slightly, but I'll just chalk that up to all the substances that were being used at the time (though, again, Roger is surprisingly chaste in that department, relatively speaking). There are moments where you can get a sense that there's still some resentment toward some situations, but he doesn't seem to let that get in the way of forming important bonds with the people in his life. All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this, and it makes listening to The Who all the sweeter.

By the way, he mentions pairing Ox with The Chieftains twice in this book, and encourages us to look up the performance online. I did. Wow. Just wow. Probably the absolute best version of "Behind Blue Eyes" in existence...go check it out!… (more)