Peter Townshend
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Peter Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (; born 19 May 1945) is an English musician. He is co-founder, leader, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of the Who, one of the most influential rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s. Townshend has written more than 100 songs for 12 of the Who's studio albums. These include concept albums, the rock operas ''Tommy'' (1969) and '' Quadrophenia'' (1973), plus popular rock radio staples such as '' Who's Next'' (1971); as well as dozens more that appeared as non-album singles, bonus tracks on reissues, and tracks on rarities compilation albums such as '' Odds & Sods'' (1974). He has also written more than 100 songs that have appeared on his solo albums, as well as radio jingles and television theme songs. While known primarily as a guitarist, Townshend also plays keyboards, banjo, accordion, harmonica, ukulele, mandolin, violin, synthesiser, bass guitar, and drums; he is self-taught on all of these instruments and plays on his o ...
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Chiswick
Chiswick ( ) is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Fuller's Brewery, London's largest and oldest brewery. In a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, with several rowing clubs on the river bank, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge. Old Chiswick was an St Nicholas Church, Chiswick, ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, with an agrarian and fishing economy beside the river; from the Early Modern period, the wealthy built imposing riverside houses on Chiswick Mall. Having good communications with London, Chiswick became a popular country retreat and part of the suburban growth of London in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It was made the Municipal Borough of Brentford and Chiswick in 1932 and part of Greater Lon ...
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BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ...
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Accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed in a frame), colloquially referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist. The concertina , harmoneon and bandoneón are related. The harmonium and American reed organ are in the same family, but are typically larger than an accordion and sit on a surface or the floor. The accordion is played by compressing or expanding the bellows while pressing buttons or keys, causing ''pallets'' to open, which allow air to flow across strips of brass or steel, called '' reeds''. These vibrate to produce sound inside the body. Valves on opposing reeds of each note are used to make the instrument's reeds sound louder without air leaking from each reed block.For the accordion's place among the families of musical ...
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Banjo
The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashioned by African Americans in the United States. The banjo is frequently associated with folk, bluegrass and country music, and has also been used in some rock, pop and hip-hop. Several rock bands, such as the Eagles, Led Zeppelin, and the Grateful Dead, have used the five-string banjo in some of their songs. Historically, the banjo occupied a central place in Black American traditional music and the folk culture of rural whites before entering the mainstream via the minstrel shows of the 19th century. Along with the fiddle, the banjo is a mainstay of American styles of music, such as bluegrass and old-time music. It is also very frequently used in Dixieland jazz, as well as in Caribbean genres like biguine, calypso and mento. Histo ...
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Theme Music
Theme music is a musical composition that is often written specifically for radio programming, television shows, video games, or films and is usually played during the title sequence, opening credits, closing credits, and in some instances at some point during the program. The purpose of a theme song is often similar to that of a leitmotif. The phrase theme song or signature tune may also be used to refer to a signature song that has become especially associated with a particular performer or dignitary, often used as they make an entrance. Purpose From the 1950s onwards, theme music, and especially theme songs also became a valuable source of additional revenue for Hollywood film studios, many of which launched their own recording arms. This period saw the beginning of more methodical cross-promotion of music and movies. One of the first big successes, which proved very influential, was the theme song for '' High Noon'' (1952). Celebrities In the early years of radio and tele ...
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Radio Jingles
A jingle is a short song or tune used in advertising and for other commercial uses. Jingles are a form of sound branding. A jingle contains one or more hooks and meaning that explicitly promote the product or service being advertised, usually through the use of one or more advertising slogans. Ad buyers use jingles in radio and television commercials; they can also be used in non-advertising contexts to establish or maintain a brand image. Many jingles are also created using snippets of popular songs, in which lyrics are modified to appropriately advertise the product or service. History The Wheaties advertisement, with its lyrical hooks, was seen by its owners as extremely successful. According to one account, General Mills had seriously planned to end production of Wheaties in 1929 on the basis of poor sales. Soon after the song "Have you tried Wheaties?" aired in Minnesota, however, sales spiked there. Of the 53,000 cases of Wheaties breakfast cereal sold, 40,000 were ...
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Odds & Sods
''Odds & Sods'' is an album of studio outtakes by British rock band the Who. It was released by Track Records in the UK and Track/ MCA in the US in October 1974. Ten of the recordings on original eleven song album were previously unreleased. The album reached No. 10 on the UK charts and No. 15 in the US. The recordings were compiled by Who bassist John Entwistle. Two LPs of songs were considered in 1974, but only one LP was released at the time. "It could have been a double album, there was that much material," Entwistle said. It was one of the earliest examples of artists compiling such material. The Who, as well as many other artists, later released similar albums, such as " Who's Missing". Background In the autumn of 1973, while Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend and Keith Moon were preparing for the ''Tommy'' film, Entwistle was put in charge of completing an album to counter the rampant bootlegging that arose from the Who's concerts. "If John Entwistle had never seen ''Who's ...
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Who's Next
''Who's Next'' is the fifth studio album by English rock band the Who. It developed from the aborted '' Lifehouse'' project, a multi-media rock opera conceived by the group's guitarist Pete Townshend as a follow-up to the band's 1969 album ''Tommy''. The project was cancelled owing to its complexity and to conflicts with Kit Lambert, the band's manager, but the group salvaged some of the songs, without the connecting story elements, to release as their next album. Eight of the nine songs on ''Who's Next'' were from ''Lifehouse'', the lone exception being the John Entwistle-penned "My Wife". Ultimately, the remaining ''Lifehouse'' tracks would all be released on other albums throughout the next decade. The Who recorded ''Who's Next'' with assistance from recording engineer Glyn Johns. After producing the song "Won't Get Fooled Again" in the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, they relocated to Olympic Studios to record and mix most of the album's remaining songs. They made prominent u ...
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Rock Music
Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and United Kingdom.W. E. Studwell and D. F. Lonergan, ''The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from its Beginnings to the mid-1970s'' (Abingdon: Routledge, 1999), p.xi It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the blues and rhythm and blues genres of African-American music and from country music. Rock also drew strongly from a number of other genres such as electric blues and folk, and incorporated influences from jazz, classical, and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock has centered on the electric guitar, usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar, drums, and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a time signature using a verse–chorus form, ...
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Quadrophenia
''Quadrophenia'' is the sixth studio album by the English rock band the Who, released as a double album on 26 October 1973 by Track Records. It is the group's third rock opera, the two previous being the "mini-opera" song " A Quick One, While He's Away" and ''Tommy''. Set in London and Brighton in 1965, the story follows a young mod named Jimmy and his search for self-worth and importance. ''Quadrophenia'' is the only Who album entirely composed by Pete Townshend. The group started work on the album in 1972, trying to follow up ''Tommy'' and ''Who's Next'', both of which had achieved substantial critical and commercial success. Recording was delayed while bassist John Entwistle and singer Roger Daltrey recorded solo albums and drummer Keith Moon worked on films. Because a new studio was not finished in time, the group had to use Ronnie Lane's Mobile Studio. The album makes significant use of Townshend's multi-track synthesizers and sound effects, as well as Entwistle's layered ...
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Tommy (The Who Album)
''Tommy'' is the fourth studio album by the English rock band The Who, a double album first released on 17 May 1969. The album was mostly composed by guitarist Pete Townshend, and is a rock opera that tells the story of Tommy Walker. Tommy is traumatized from witnessing his father murder his mother's lover. Tommy's parents compound his trauma by denying the experience. In reaction, Tommy becomes dissociative ("deaf, dumb and blind"). Tommy then experiences the trauma of being sexually abused. As a way of coping with his trauma, Tommy dissociates further through playing pinball. He gains a following because of his skill at playing pinball. After numerous misguided attempts to heal Tommy, a doctor prescribes him a mirror so he can confront himself and his experience. Instead, Tommy becomes self-absorbed and comes to think of himself as a messianic figure. When the mirror is eventually broken, Tommy comes out of his dissociative state. Tommy then tries to lead his followers to b ...
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Rock Opera
A rock opera is a collection of rock music songs with lyrics that relate to a common story. Rock operas are typically released as concept albums and are not scripted for acting, which distinguishes them from operas, although several have been adapted as rock musicals. The use of various character roles within the song lyrics is a common storytelling device. The success of the rock opera genre has inspired similar works in other musical styles, such as rap opera. History A number of rock artists became interested in the idea of creating a rock opera in the 1960s. In an early use of the term, the July 4, 1966, edition of ''RPM Magazine'' (published in Toronto) reported that "Bruce Cockburn and Mr illiamHawkins are working on a Rock Opera, operating on the premise that to write you need only 'something to say'." Mark Wirtz explored the idea in a project ''A Teenage Opera'', from which an early song " Excerpt from A Teenage Opera (Grocer Jack)" recorded by Keith West was release ...
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