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The Who Settle Out
ICE Magazine
#178 January 2002
[reprinted without permission]
Fans of The Who have been treated to upgraded, expanded, newly
remastered and bonus-track laden reissues of most of the group's
catalog, with the glaring exception of their 1965 debut album, 'The
Who Sings My Generation'. For that album, consumers have had to be
content with a low-budget first-generation compact disc produced by
MCA Records in the '80s , with sub-par sound and bare-bones, generic
graphics. That's because the album's original producer, Shel Talmy,
owns the master tapes, and had never been able to reach a
satisfactory arrangement with MCA, now the Universal Music Group.
All of that changed in late November with the announcement that Talmy
and Universal have, indeed, finally put aside their differences and
will collaborate on a special, two-CD Deluxe Edition reissue of 'The
Who Sings My Generation' next spring, probably in May. In addition to
the 12 tracks from the album, Talmy also possesses the master tapes
to another dozen early Who sides, many of which appeared on various
singles and EPs back in the '60s. All 24 selections will be mixed to
true stereo for the first time ever, from the original three-track
master tapes. That should result in a sonic clarity that will leave
all previous versions in the dust. And there's more: Talmy's tapes
contain hours of unreleased alternate takes, which will probably form
the content of the Deluxe Edition's second CD.
The 24 basic tracks that will be heard in true stereo for the first
time ever: "Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere," "Anytime You Want Me," "Bald
Headed Woman," "Circles," "Daddy Rolling Stone," "Heat Wave"
(covering Martha and the Vandellas), "I Can't Explain" (their first
charting single in both England and America), "I Don't Mind," "I'm A
Man," "Instant Party Mixture," "It's Not True," "Leaving Here," "A
Legal Matter," "La La La Lies," "Lubie (Come Back Home),"
"Motor-vating," "Much Too Much," "My Generation," "Please, Please,
Please," "Shout and Shimmy," "The Good's Gone," "The Kids Are
Alright," "The Ox" and "You're Going to Know Me."
Shel Talmy discovered The Who in England in 1964 and signed them to a
production contract, produced their first recordings and then
label-shopped the band, landing a record deal with Decca Records in
the U.S. By the end of 1965 the two had parted ways, but Talmy owned
all the early master tapes and has guarded them carefully over the
ensuing decades, keeping them in a temperature-controlled vault.
Although Decca and then MCA could release and re-release the 24 songs
all they wanted, they only had the original mono mixes that Talmy
delivered to them, and the "fake stereo" that was innocently cobbled
together in the '60s (not by Talmy), which is now heavily frowned
upon. Talmy's multi-track master tapes could easily be mixed to
stereo at any time...if the incentive was there. So Talmy has always
held a strong trump card, but couldn't do anything without MCA's
cooperation. The impasse grew into acrimony with the passage of time.
"I've had to fight for my legal royalties for years," Talmy told ICE
in 1997 (issue #121), "because I was getting fucked by the record
labels, and you can quote me on that."
So what happened to thaw the iceberg? "It all really happened because
I finally decided to put up a Web site this year," Talmy now tells
ICE, referring to www.sheltalmy.com. "From that, everything just sort
of happened. I started getting contacted by people that I hadn't
heard from in years, and at one point, [Who leader] Pete Townshend
actually e-mailed me, and we've been in touch ever since.
"Basically, Pete and I found out that various things had been told to
us individually that were not exactly the 100% bona fide truth, and
that we were really far more on the same page than off of it, so it
all sort of finally came together." Townshend and his personal
engineer Jon Astley will not be involved in the new mixing or
mastering, although - as a professional courtesy - the Who members
will have some say in what unreleased material is used.
Speaking of which, "I have tons of outtakes," Talmy says, "like maybe
10-11 takes of 'My Generation,' something like that - but not all of
them complete takes." How much tape, in all? "I don't know...20
different reels, maybe."
"I've listened to everything [recently], and the tapes are in
fabulous shape. I used old AGVA tape, which used to wear the heads
out, but the tape itself is in fabulous condition." Talmy says Who
fans have been imploring him not to use noise reduction: "I keep
getting e-mails saying, 'Leave the hiss on the tapes!' So I recently
posted to my Web site, 'Sorry, guys, there is no hiss on the tapes.'
You know the term 'signal-to-noise ratio'? Well, the more signal
there is, the less noise, and I always cut things as hot as I could,
so there's virtually no hiss. Or distortion, I should add." Talmy
says that he'll be mixing the multi-track tapes to analog, "but I'm
also simultaneously going to mix it to DSD (Direct Stream Digital)
for Super Audio CD (SACD)."
Andy McKaie, Sr. VP of A&R for Universal Music Enterprises, tells
ICE, "I've been in the studio and listened to the tapes, and it's all
there - alternate takes, breakdowns, instrumentals, even a cappella."
What about the young band members clowning around in the studio?
"There aren't any studio hi-jinks," McKaie says. "It's not A Hard
Day's Night. They were pretty well-rehearsed. So it's just a matter
of picking the right stuff and putting it together. Those
three-tracks are as smart as can be, with beautiful sound, so it's
gonna be awesome."
We asked Talmy if Townshend was showing any signs of wanting to run
the show at this early stage. "No, not at all," he says. "People
don't realize that I didn't just go in the studio and say, 'Now, what
are we going to do today, guys?' I knew about 90% of what was going
to happen, because of rehearsals. If anything wonderful happened
apart from that, I'd leave it in. But I was paying for it, it was my
money, and I didn't have much of it [laughing]."
The two-disc set's track list probably won't be determined until
early in 2002, but the most likely scenario has the 24 masters
appearing on Disc One and unreleased material occupying all of the
second CD. Because of the tracks' short length and the usual costs
incurred, however, collectors should not get their hopes up for 79
minutes' worth of outtakes. McKaie, who's producing the reissue,
says, "I hope to have in the vicinity of 40 tracks total, so you're
talking about maybe 100 minutes of music. That's very substantial;
Bob Marley's Catch a Fire Deluxe Edition was only 80-something, grand
total."
ICE will print the complete track list for 'The Who Sings My
Generation' Deluxe Edition as soon as the repertoire is selected.