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Kit Lambert's revenge



Interesting bottom paragraph in an advancer on a
Houston, Texas production of Ray Davies' "Soap Opera."
I'd say there's some truth to this:

The Who's Tommy is a classic example. Though not the
first rock opera (that honor goes to the Pretty
Things' S.F. Sorrow), it is among the most famous.
According to British author and music business mogul
Simon Napier-Bell, Tommy was the brainchild not so
much of Pete Townshend, but of the Who's vengeful
manager, Kit Lambert. Kit's father, Constant Lambert,
had been a classical composer whose last substantial
work was panned mercilessly by the London critics, and
according to Napier-Bell, the elder Lambert drank
himself to death six weeks after its disastrous
opening. "For Kit, the Who doing Tommy at the Met was
some sort of revenge with the traditional music
establishment," Napier-Bell wrote Racket via e-mail
from London. 

On line at:
http://www.houstonpress.com/issues/2002-11-07/racket.html/1/index.html


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