Guitar Tricks Insider April/May Digital Edition | Page 14

CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK

CLASSIC CORNER: BACKTRACK

John Entwhistle told me that Townshend
would teach the band a new song and they
would record it that same day. The reason
Who’s Next is that much better than other
records is because they couldn’t record all
at once; and The Who got a chance to play
the songs beyond the first day Pete taught
them to the band. That’s where your story
comes in. What were you doing when you
got the phone call to come down and do
this?

thing.” He figured out how to use it. They
had to go back to England. Something
didn’t record right. Glyn Johns took over
the production and they rerecorded it. So
now I’m going aw shit, the album’s coming
out without all the stuff I did. But then
they released Who’s Next deluxe edition
decades later.

I had just moved into my apartment on Park
Ave. I was so thrilled. Kit Lambert, one of their
managers, calls me up and he says, “The Who
are recording at the Record Plant and Pete wants
to know if you’d play guitar?” I said, “Pete plays
guitar?” He said, “Yeah but he doesn’t want to
do any overdubs. He’d like to try recording the
songs, because he’d had them all recorded.” I’d
listen to his tape and then we’d go and play it.
I said, “Really? Wow. Sure. I’d love to.” And he
says, “Does Felix play keyboard?” I said, “Yeah,
he played a little organ.” He played bass pedals
from a B-3 or something on “Badge” on Goodbye
Cream. Kit said, “Have him come down.” Okay so
now I tell Felix we’re going to the Record Plant.
This is what’s happening.

Yeah. Maybe a couple of songs I didn’t do
but yeah. I was there for several days with
them. It was the greatest experience in
the world because it’s where we recorded
Mountain Climbing. We go into the other
studio to listen to Pete’s tapes, and then
we come out and Roger was in a vocal
booth. We were actually doing this – no
overdubs. And as we’re doing it in the
middle of a take, Townshend stops and
he says, “I want to be the loudest.” I was
using a 50 watt Marshall head and one 12”
speaker in a Sunn cabinet that Sunn made
for me as a present. One 12” through one
little cabinet. Townshend says I want to
be the loudest. So I said “Okay, I’ll turn
down or you can turn up.” He is using his
big Hiwatt. So afterwards, [it was] ten
minutes later before we started again. He
got the volume the way he lik