Re[2]: What if Keith had lived and somebody else died????

[James L Jackson <jacksonj@battelle.org>]

Guys, re:
          
>What if Keith had lived and somebody else died????
          
>This really is a silly discussion. The truth is, no Pete Townshend, no Who. 
>(Why do you think there is no Who now???) I think the same is true with 
>either Roger or John... 

Fang is right that this is a silly discussion, but silly discussions are OK. 
We know it's not gonna change the world. Doing this kind of thing is what 
many academicians get paid to do, so we'll pretend we're them for awhile.
          
>If Roger died, you'd have "The Pete Townshend Band". If John died, the sound 
>of the Who would be VERY different... I liked Roger's idea of replacing 
>Keith with THREE drummers. That would have worked...
          
          It wouldn't have worked for Townshend, I don't believe. The 
          man's goal after Keith's death was to change the Who's 
          sound. As he briefly mentions between songs on the NYC Sept. 
          16, 1979 boot, the horn section and Rabbit's additions were 
          to "help us [the Who] grow."  These guys knew they could 
          have picked any Moon style drummer, or could have gone on 
          with X number of drummers. Townshend simply didn't want to 
          propogate the old Who sound (no matter how much we all loved 
          it).  Hell, he wanted to bring in another guitarist, too. 
          Roger probably refused at that point, so the band we got in 
          1979 was a compromise between Roger and Pete (as long as 
          they toured, I doubt John would have cared too much about 
          the band's structure, provided his bass was mixed loud 
          enough).
          
          jim