VIA PRESS RELEASE | “I find it impossible to see the two careers as two separate careers. When you’re holding a pen, you can only write one letter at a time.” —Pete Townshend, 2024
UMe is proud to announce Pete Townshend, The Studio Albums, an 8-CD Box Set that collects all of Townshend’s solo studio albums for the first time. Newly remastered by Jon Astley, the new set is the perfect accompaniment to last year’s Live In Concert 1985-2001 box. It features expanded deluxe packaging in a CD-sized box with new art by longtime Townshend collaborator Richard Evans, sleeve notes by band archivist Matt Kent, a new exclusive Pete Townshend foreword, and rare photos and memorabilia in a 28-page book.
The boxset features seven albums: Who Came First, Rough Mix (with Ronnie Lane), Empty Glass, All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, White City (A Novel), The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend, and Psychoderelict, as well as the music only version of Psychoderelict.
Who Came First was Townshend’s debut solo record, first released in 1972. The album collected tracks from Pete’s private pressings of his tributes to Meher Baba ”Happy Birthday” and “I Am” and demos from the unrealized concept album Lifehouse, part of which became The Who’s classic Who’s Next album. The cover photo of Townshend taken by Graham Hughes (who also shot the cover of The Who’s Quadrophenia) features Pete standing on eggs and is a reference to the philosophical dilemma “Who came first? The chicken or the egg?”
Rough Mix was initially released in September 1977 while The Who were on hiatus. It was a collaboration with Small Faces bassist the late Ronnie Lane and features contributions from Who bassist John Entwistle, Eric Clapton, and Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts, among others. The orchestral arrangements for the track “Street in the City” were provided by Townshend’s then father-in-law, noted British film and television theme composer Edwin Astley.
Empty Glass, produced by Chris Thomas (Roxy Music, Sex Pistols, Pretenders, Wings), was Pete’s next solo release, appearing in April 1980. The songs predominantly deal with issues Townshend was struggling with at the time, including alcohol, drugs, and the death of Keith Moon, The Who’s former drummer. The second single from the album “Let My Love Open the Door” was a U.S. Top Ten hit, propelling the album to #5 on the US Billboard chart, and the first single “Rough Boys,” which was dedicated to Pete’s children and The Sex Pistols, was a U.K. top 40 hit. The album was well received at the time, with some critics even referring to it as a Who album that never was.
All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, released in June 1982, was Pete’s next solo release and contained two singles “Uniforms (Corp d’Esprit)” and “Face Dances (Pt 2),” as well as “Somebody Saved Me” a song The Who had recorded for their 1981 album Face Dances, which didn’t appear until 1997. The track “The Sea Refuses No River” has since been singled out as one of Townshend’s most underrated songs.
Chris Thomas once again produced the album, featuring Simon Philips on drums and Jody Linscott on percussion, who would later perform with The Who. Promo videos were made for seven tracks from the album (“Prelude,” “Face Dances Pt 2,” “Communication,” “Uniforms,” “Stardom In Acton,” “Exquisitely Bored,” and an alternate version of “Slit Skirts”) by renowned photographers Davies & Starr (Chalkie Davies and his then-wife Carol Starr) and released on VHS. Pete didn’t get to play the album live as three months after its release, The Who’s It’s Hard appeared, and the band undertook their farewell tour.
White City (A Novel) was released in the autumn of 1985. As the title suggests, the album tells a story of cultural conflict, racial tension, and youthful hopes and dreams in the White City, London housing estate in the 1960s, not far from where Pete grew up. White City (A Novel) was again produced by Chris Thomas and features guest appearances by David Gilmour, Clem Burke, John ‘Rabbit’ Bundrick, Pete’s daughter Emma, and a young Justine Frischmann, who would later form the Brit-Pop band Elastica. As with his previous album, Pete filmed several videos but this time compiled them into a long-form video, White City (The Music Movie) featuring the singles “Face the Face” and “Give Blood,” directed by Richard Lowenstein, who had worked extensively with INXS.
The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend from 1989 is an adaptation of Ted Hughes’ famous short story, The Iron Man. The album was produced and mainly composed and performed by Townshend but also features performances from Roger Daltrey, legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker, and the astonishing Nina Simone. The three then-surviving original members of The Who (Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Townshend) perform two songs, “Dig” and a cover of The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’s “Fire.” A stage version was mounted at The Young Vic Theatre in 1993, where 20 years earlier, The Who had debuted songs for Life House/Who’s Next, which led to a movie version in 1999 for which Pete received an executive producer credit.
Psychoderelict, released in 1993, is Pete’s last solo album to date. Structured like a radio play with dialogue, it follows Ray High, a reclusive ’60s rock star who resurfaced in Townshend’s novella The Boy Who Heard Music and in the mini rock opera Wire & Glass, the centrepiece of The Who’s Endless Wire album. The album is presented both with and without the dialogue of the original release.
Pete Townshend says of his solo studio work, “I have always written first for myself. Not as an artist but for play, for fun, for joy, for self-expression. For therapy? In a way, of course. These solo songs are therefore not Who exclusions or out-takes, they are part of a story that may well have been very different had I not made some poor decisions in the early ’80s. I have stories to tell about every song, and one day I may write a book that tells of that journey, but I’m probably happier spending my time today writing new music rather than explaining how the old stuff came about.”
