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Re: Tommy Soundtrack/Sell Out



In a message back on 96-03-07, jboswel@emory.edu (James Marshall Boswell)
wrote:

>I was struck by a strange, heretofore never-considered piece of Who trivia.
 The Who 
>serve as "backing band" on only a handful of the tracks on the sountrack
album, 
>most of which are either instrumentals or feature Pete/Roger on lead vocals.
 Basic, 
>good-old-fashioned Who tracks, in other words, augmented by Pete's
"Quadrophenia"-era string synthesizers.  With one interesting exception:
"Champagne," 
>a song specifically composed for the film and never reprised in any
subsequent version 
>of "Tommy," features The Who, with Daltrey on a "See Me Feel Me" reprise and
. . . 
>Ann-Margret on lead vocal.  To my knowledge, this marks the only known,
recorded 
>instance of The Who performing with someone other than a full-fledged member
of The 
>Who singing lead.  Am I wrong?  Is (and can it be so?) Ann-Margret the only
living 
>person who can claim to have sung lead vocals with the Keith-Moon-era Who?
 I 
>mean, think about that: Ann-Margret.

I don't think anyone replied to this, but for some odd reason I happened to
be thinking about this question/comment again.  Since the "Moon-era" Who was
specified, that eliminates the voices of the Old Farmers on "Dig" and the
guest celebrities on the 1989 Tommy video.  None of the songs on the 1972
London Symphony Orchestra version of Tommy is credited to The Who.
 Psrox@aol.com recently pointed out to me that there's a Mike Heron song that
at least two of the four lads played on, but I'm pretty sure not under "The
Who" name.

That leaves The Who Sell Out as the only possibility I can think of.  You've
got a woman singing lead, for example on the Radio London commercial that
leads into Tattoo.  I know that The Who did many of these commercials, but I
guess I've never given it much thought as to whether they played on them all.
 Quick researching didn't reveal if some of these were stolen directly from
Radio London.  I assume somebody out there knows for certain!  Otherwise,
Ann-Margret may indeed have the distinction of being the only person to share
lead vocals on a song recorded by the original 'dirty old men.'

Rich B.

NP:  "Jaguar"