“You only really understand what a great singer Roger Daltrey is when you try it yourself,” says Wayne Coyne of the Flaming Lips, who with his band won a “Tommy” for The Who at the 2008 Rock Honors. -Medley played.
From the anxious stutter of “My Generation” to the blood-curdling scream of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” the Who voice is one of rock’s most powerful instruments.
Pete Townshend wrote most of the Who catalog, but it was Roger Daltrey’s singing that brought them to life. He had the ability to slip into any character songwriter Pete Townshend dreamed up (from the vulnerable, Jesus-like Tommy to the cocky hooligan of “Slip Kid,” who spits his words more than he speaks them).
“It’s a very strange process,” says Daltrey. “That’s why I close my eyes when I sing – I’m somewhere else and the characters live inside me.”
It wasn’t obvious to him that he was always “just” the voice of The Who until they recorded the rock opera “Tommy”. “Tommy gave me a canvas big enough to really dare to do something,” he told Rolling Stone in 2013. “Once we toured and sang the song live, it developed on its own and my voice grew with it.”
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That confidence can be heard in his primal scream at the end of “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and the soaring climax of “Love, Reign O’er Me.”
On March 1st, 2024, Roger Daltrey, inspiration Ian Gillan (Deep Purple), Robin Sander (Cheap Trick), Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), will be 80 years old.
On the next page you can read about the bourgeois hobby that Roger Daltrey secretly maintains.