Rock and Roll music certainly wouldn’t be the same without the incredible music scene formed in the United Kingdom in the 60s. Led by the guitarist, main songwriter and sometimes singer Pete Townshend, The Who was one of the most important groups of that era. They not only made the kind of music that made the British bands popular in the beginning, but like their friends from The Beatles, for example, tried to experiment more and evolve.
In the middle of that incredible scene, Townshend had the chance to see up-close many incredible artists appear. Over the decades he talked about many of them, including Elton John.
What is the opinion of Pete Townshend on Elton John
Townshend talked a lot about Elton in an interview with Time back in 1995 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). He revealed that he saw him more as a songwriter and also explained why he thinks he was different from David Bowie, for example.
“I think of him as a songwriter (Elton John). I think of him as a songwriter who rediscovered the ballad in Rock and Roll. Bowie is somebody who came backstage at the Royal Albert Hall and announced to me that he was going to continue where I left off with Tommy. He came and told me, my little brother Simon was there, he was 8, he remembers that conversation. He came back and he said: ‘We played ‘Tommy’, it was the day that the Stones played in the (Hyde) park, we played a show with Chuck Berry, we played ‘Tommy’ and Bowie was in the front row standing next to my little brother who didn’t know who he was then.”
“Because he wasn’t anybody, he was a guy called David Jones who we shared a publisher at the time and he came back and he said: ‘That’s what I’m gonna do, I’ve now seen that I can create characters’. He ran away and started to doing it. So I think it’s just very much about building blocks, you know. I don’t think about what Bowie did as excess, I don’t think Elton (is about excess).”
Pete Townshend continued:
“You know, the excesses were to do with numbers rather than ideas. I think you could say for example that the laser beams that The Who carried in the mid-70s were an example with that excess until you actually saw them and realized what a simple lighting effect it was. It’s just a ray of light which you could do certain things with.”
“The fact that required something like 4000 gallons of water a minute to cool off and you had to find that supply somewhere. The water and electricity don’t mix very well and all that it’s another story. That was backstage excess and we used to live with it. It was very, very expensive, these were sort of industrial, military quality lasers. They used to cost 10 thousand dollars a piece,” Pete Townshend said.
Elton John was The Who’s opening act in the early days of his career
Elton’s friendship with The Who started in the early days of his career. He even was their opening act as Townshend recalled in an interview with Musician’s Walk of Fame (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage). “Elton John was our support act and it was one of his early shows. He was still not sure that he was going to be as big as he turned out to be.”
A few years later Elton covered The Who’s classic song “Pinball Wizard” for Ken Russell’s 1975 film adaptation of the Rock opera. The musician even appeared in the movie performing his version of the song. Also released as a single at the time, his version performed quite well. It peaked at number 7 on the United Kingdom charts.
Townshend and Elton are still good friends and as he told Clash Music in 2024, they often talked to each other on Face Time. “He appears on Facetime every other morning… often when I’m in bed! ‘Hello it’s Elton!’ He’s great company. And he’s very smart. But he’s also a wonderful musicologist, you really keep some with what’s new. See, when he attaches onto somebody, he’s sincere about it. I still find myself pretending to like people that I’m not sure that I like. Because they appear to be unbelievably cool.”
“Elton is so fraught with loss at not knowing what to do next. He’s just gone over to LA to make an album with Brandi Carlile. They made an album together in two weeks. He says it’s one of the best things they’ve ever done,” Pete Townshend said.