Pete and I
Thinking back to ‘Tommy’ reminds me of my run in with Pete Townsend. I was in the ensemble, it’s true, but I had been assigned a key small part. The fact is, that I had the very first line in the whole musical, SOLO! For anybody who knows the album, it’s famous, “Caaaptin Walker didn’t come home, his unborn child will never knooow him”. In the imagination of hundreds of millions, Roger Daltry’s voice is forever attached to that lyric. In the musical I was a soldier bringing the bad news to the front door of Mrs. Walker. The guy I was with played soldier number two. He had the second sung line. He was this big black guy from LA with a rough, wide voice. I’m sort of, well, an Irish tenor.
Pete Townsend showed up two weeks before we opened. Within 48 hours of his arrival, a big black smokey voice was singing “Caaaptin Walker didn’t come home, his unborn child will never knooow him” and a bright clear tenor, with choir-boy diction chimed in, “believe him missin’ with a number of men, don’t expect to see him again’nnn”
Homey ain’t rock and roll enough for the Townsend, su’up wid dat?
posted by Fox @ 7:28 PM
3 Comments:
If you're going to get pushed around, it's less painful if it's a really high buck rocker, right?
maybe not . . .
i've never had the opportunity, but i did get to hug Liz Taylor once. well, sort of a shoulder hug . . .
r.c.
Does stepping on Clark Gable's toe count as an "encounter". All right, none of that "Who is Clark Gable?" stuff!
It's come down to this? Shoulder hugs and stomped toes? Warhol was being optimistic when he allotted everyone fifteen minutes. It only takes a few seconds to crush a toe or dislocate a shoulder. But they are wonderful seconds aren’t they.
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