Tommy and Who Influenced Who (no pun intended, really)

[Clarence Over <00CHERRY@cua.edu>]

Colleen,

I agree in some ways that the original Tommy album is incredibly frustrating.
If you go through the interactive CDROM that is out now, it DOES clear a 
lot of it up.  THe movie doesn't help much in that regard, but I believe
the Broadway show does.  It's certainly not my favorite album, but I do
recognize it as a pretty brilliant concept, even if it was hard for them
to polish off and make comprehendable.  I don't think that Quad would have been
anywhere near as good if that had come before Tommy.  They really needed to
make one before they could do one that actually made sense.

On the influences of different groups on the Who, Pete Townshend said in 
an interview in a guitar magazine that it was actually 1950's American music
that played a great deal of influence on him.  The whole idea of a vignette,
little sketches of life, played an important role, as can be seen on Sellout,
which obviously worked its way up into Tommy and Quadrophenia.

I, too, thin the Who don't get enough credit.  I mean, hell, everyone
know the WGFA power chord deal--Van Halen covered it note for note on
their live album; Springsteen played MG in concert; there's that 7-Minute
Tommy thing out by a bunch of people--THAT is influence.

My 2 cents.

Kevin Cherry
00cherry@cua.edu