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My name is T-Bone and I'm a big, big, big fan of Pete Townshend. He is my musical hero. Nobody could touch him rhythm-wise. Ask anyone who's covered a Who song about the complex chords that Pete used. He'll always be my favorite guitarist. And as a songwriter? To me, he is the greatest songwriter of my generation. I also admire him for all the charity work he's done. To me, he is the ultimate in "COOL."

Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend (born May 19, 1945 in Chiswick, London)was born into a musical family (his father Cliff was a professional saxophonist in the The Squadronaires and his mother Betty a singer), Townshend exhibited a fascination with music at an early age. He had early exposure to American rock and roll (his mother recounts that he repeatedly saw the 1956 film Rock Around the Clock) and obtained his first guitar from his grandmother at age 12, which he described as a "Cheap Spanish thing."

In 1961 Townshend enrolled at Ealing Art College, and, a year later, he and his school friend from Acton County Grammar School John Entwistle founded their first band, The Confederates, a Dixieland duet featuring Townshend on banjo and Entwistle on horn. From this beginning they moved on to The Detours, a skiffle band fronted by then sheet-metal welder Roger Daltrey, which, under Townshend's leadership, would metamorphose into The Who. They were soon taken on by a mod publicist (named Peter Meaden) who convinced them to change their name to The High Numbers to give it more of a mod feel. After bringing out one single (Zoot Suit), they were signed on by two new managers, Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert. This was the beginning of The Who.

Townshend's biggest guitar influences include Link Wray, John Lee Hooker, Bo Diddley and Hank Marvin of The Shadows.

The High Numbers once again became the Who. The early singles Townshend wrote for The Who, including "I Can't Explain," "Pictures of Lily," "Substitute," and "My Generation" matched an ironic and psychologically-astute lyrical sense with crashing, sometimes crude music, a combination which would become the hallmark of the band. During the band's early days, Townshend became known for his eccentric stage style, often interrupting concerts with lengthy introductions of songs, swinging his right arm against the guitar strings windmill-style, and sometimes smashing his guitars on stage, often repeatedly throwing them into his amplifiers and speaker cabinets. Although the first incident of guitar-smashing was thought to be an accident, the onstage destruction of instruments became a regular part of The Who's performances. Townshend, always a voluble interview subject, would later relate these antics to Austrian painter Gustav Metzger's theories on Auto-destructive art, to which he had been exposed at art school.

The Who thrived, and continue to thrive, despite the death of two of the original members. They are regarded by many rock critics as one of the best live bands of the late 60s - early 80s, the result of a unique combination of high volume, showmanship, a wide variety of rock beats, and a high-energy sound that alternated between tight and free-form. The Who continues to perform critically acclaimed sets in the 21st century, including a highly regarded performance at the Live 8 music festival in July of 2005.

Townshend remained the primary songwriter for the group, writing over 100 songs which appeared on the band's 10 studio albums. Among his most well-known accomplishments are the creation of Tommy, for which the term "rock opera" was coined, pioneering the use of feedback, and the introduction of the synthesizer as a rock instrument. Townshend revisited album-length storytelling techniques throughout his career and remains the musician most associated with the rock opera form. Townshend also demonstrated prodigious talent on the guitar and was influential as a player, developing a unique style which combined aspects of rhythm and lead guitar and a characteristic mix of abandon and subtlety.

In addition to his work with the Who, Townshend has been sporadically active as a solo recording artist. Between 1969 and 1971 Townshend, along with other devotees to Meher Baba, recorded a trio of little-heard albums devoted to the yogi's teachings - I Am, Happy Birthday, and With Love. In response to rampant bootlegging of these, he compiled his personal highlights (and "Evolution", a collaboration with Ronnie Lane), and released his first major-label solo title, 1972's Who Came First was a moderate success and featured demos of Who songs as well as a showcase of his acoustic guitar talents. He collaborated with The Faces bassist and fellow Meher Baba devotee Ronnie Lane on a duet album (1977's Rough Mix). Townshend's solo breakthrough, following the death of Who drummer Keith Moon, was the 1980 release Empty Glass, which included a top-10 single, "Let My Love Open the Door". This release was followed in 1982 by All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes, which included the popular radio track "Slit Skirts." Through the rest of the 1980s and early 1990s Townshend would again experiment with the rock opera and related formats, releasing several story-based albums including White City: A Novel (1985), The Iron Man: A Musical (1989), and Psychoderelict (1993).

Townshend also got the chance to play with his hero Hank Marvin for Paul McCartney's Rockestra sessions, along with other respected rock musicians such as David Gilmour, John Bonham and Ronnie Lane.

Townshend has also recorded several live albums, including one featuring a supergroup he assembled called Deep End, who performed just three concerts and a TV show session for The Tube, to raise money for a charity supporting drug addicts. In 1984 Townshend published an anthology of short stories entitled Horse's Neck. He has also reported that he is writing an autobiography. In 1993 he and Des MacAnuff wrote and directed the Broadway adaptation of the Who album Tommy, as well as a less successful stage musical based on his solo album The Iron Man, based upon the book by Ted Hughes. (MacAnuff and Townshend would later co-produce the animated film The Iron Giant, also based on the Hughes story.)

Musical equipment:

Throughout his solo career and his career with The Who, Townshend has played (and destroyed) a large variety of guitars.

In the early days with The Who, Townshend played 6-string and 12-string Rickenbacker semi-hollow electric guitars primarily (particularly the Rose-Morris UK-imported models with special f-holes). However, as instrument-smashing became increasingly integrated into The Who's concert sets, he switched to more durable and resilient (and sometimes cheaper) guitars for smashing, such as the Fender Stratocaster, Fender Telecaster, and various Danelectro models. In the late-60s, Townshend began playing Gibson SG models almost exclusively, specifically the Special models. He used this guitar at the Woodstock and Isle of Wight shows in 1969 and 1970.

By 1972, Gibson changed the design of the SG Special which Townshend had been using previously, and thus he began using other guitars. For much of the 1970s, he used Gibson Les Paul Deluxes, some with only two mini-humbucker pickups and others modified with a third pickup. He can be seen using several of these guitars in the documentary "The Kids Are Alright".

During the 1980s, Townshend mainly used Rickenbackers and Telecaster-style models built for him by Schecter and various other luthiers. Since the late-1980s, Townshend has used the Fender Eric Clapton Signature Stratocaster, with Lace-Sensor pickups, both in the studio and on tour.

Townshend has used a number of other electric guitars, including various Gretsch, Gibson, and Fender models. He has also used Guild, Takamine and Gibson J-200 acoustic models. One Gretsch was a vintage model gifted by fellow guitarist Joe Walsh.

There are several Gibson Pete Townshend signature guitars, such as the Pete Townshend SG, the Pete Townshend J-200, and three different Pete Townshend Les Paul Deluxes. The SG was clearly marked as a Pete Townshend limited edition model and came with a special case and certificate of authenticity, signed by Pete himself. There has also been a Pete Townshend signature Rickenbacker limited edition guitar.

He also used the Gibson ES-355, one of which he donated to the Hard Rock Cafe.

Townshend also used a Gibson EDS-1275 double neck very briefly around 1968, and a Fender XII Guitar for the studio sessions for Tommy.

Charity work:

Pete Townshend has woven a long history of involvement with various charities and other philanthropic efforts throughout his career, both as a solo artist and with The Who. His first solo concert, for example, was a 1974 benefit show which was organized to raise funds for the Camden Square Community Play Center.

The earliest public example of Townshend’s involvement with charitable causes is the relationship he established with the Richmond-based Meher Baba Association. In 1968, Townshend donated the use of his former Wardour Street apartment to the Meher Baba Association. The following year, the association was moved to another Townshend-owned apartment, the Eccleston Square former residence of wife Karen. Townshend sat on a committee which oversaw the operation and finances of the center. “The committee sees to it that it is open a couple of days a week, and keeps the bills paid and the library full,” he wrote in a 1970 Rolling Stone article. In 1969 and 1972 Townshend produced two limited release albums, Happy Birthday and I Am, for the London-based Baba association. This led to 1972’s Who Came First, a more widespread release, 15 percent of the revenue of which went to the Baba association. A further limited release, With Love, was released in 1976. A limited edition boxed set of all three limited releases on CD, Avatar, was released in 2000, with all profits going to the Avatar Meher Baba Trust in India, which provided funds to a dispensary, school, hospital and pilgrimage center.

In July 1976, Townshend opened ‘Meher Baba Oceanic’, a London activity centre for Baba followers which featured film dubbing and editing facilities, a cinema and recording studio. In addition, the centre served as a regular meeting place for Baba followers. Townshend offered very economical (reportedly £1 per night) lodging for American Baba followers who needed an overnight stay on their pilgrimages to India. “For a few years, I had toyed with the idea of opening a London house dedicated to Meher Baba,” he wrote in a 1977 Rolling Stone article. “In the eight years I had followed him, I had donated only coppers to foundations set up around the world to carry out the Master’s wishes and decided it was about time I put myself on the line. The Who had set up a strong charitable trust of its own which appeased, to an extent, the feeling I had that Meher Baba would rather have seen me give to the poor than to the establishment of yet another so-called “spiritual center.” Townshend also embarked on a project dedicated to the collection, restoration and maintenance of Meher Baba-related films. The project was known as MEFA, or Meher Baba European Film Archive.

Children's charities

Townshend has been an active champion of children’s charities. The debut of Pete Townshend’s stage version of Tommy took place at San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse in July 1992. The show was earmarked as a benefit for the London-based Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation, an organization which helps autistic and retarded children. Townshend performed at a 1995 benefit organized by Paul Simon at Madison Square Gardens' Paramount Theatre, for The Children’s Health Fund. The following year, Townshend performed at a benefit for the Bridge School, a California facility for children with severe speech and physical impairments. In 1997, Townshend established a relationship with Maryville Academy, a Chicago area children’s charity. Between 1997 and 2002, Townshend played five benefit shows for Maryville Academy, raising at least $1,600,000. In addition, proceeds from the sales of his 1999 release Pete Townshend Live were also donated to Maryville Academy. As a member of The Who, Pete Townshend has also performed a series of concerts, beginning in 2000, benefitting the Teenage Cancer Trust in the UK, raising several million pounds. In 2005, Townshend performed at New York’s Gotham Hall for Samsung’s Four Seasons of Hope, an annual children's charity fundraiser.

Drug Rehabilitation

Townshend has also advocated for drug rehabilitation. “What I’m most active in doing is raising money to provide beds in clinics to help people that have become victims of drug abuse,” he said in a late 1985 radio interview. “...In Britain, the facilities are very, very, very lean indeed…although we have a national health service, a free medical system, it does nothing particularly for class A drug addicts – cocaine abusers, heroin abusers. …we’re making a lot of progress. …the British government embarked on an anti-heroin campaign with advertising, and I was co-opted by them as a kind of figurehead, and then the various other people co-opted me into their own campaigns, but my main work is raising money to try and open a large clinic.”

The ‘large clinic’ Townshend was referring to was a plan he and drug rehabilitation pioneer Meg Patterson had devised to open a drug treatment facility in London; however, the plan failed to come to fruition. Proceeds from two early 1979 concerts by the Who raised £20,000 for Patterson’s Pharmakon Clinic in Sussex.

Further examples of Townshend’s anti-drug activism took place in the form of a 1984 benefit concert, an article he wrote a few days later for Britain’s Mail On Sunday urging better care for the nation’s growing number of drug addicts, and the formation of a charitable organization, ‘Double-O Charities’, to raise funds for the causes he’d recently championed. Townshend also personally sold fund-raising anti-heroin T-shirts at a series of UK Bruce Springsteen concerts, and reportedly financed a trip for troubled former Clash drummer Topper Headon to undergo drug rehabilitation treatment. Townshend's 1985/86 band, 'Deep End', played two benefits at Brixton Academy in 1985 for 'Double-O Charities'.

Amnesty International

In 1979, Townshend became the first major rock musician to donate his services to the human rights organization Amnesty International when he performed three songs for its benefit show The Secret Policeman's Ball - performances that were released on record and seen in the film of the show. The show was Townshend's first major live solo appearance. Townshend's acoustic performances of three of his songs (Pinball Wizard, Drowned, and Won't Get Fooled Again) were subsequently cited as having been the forerunner and inspiration for the "unplugged" phenomenon in the 1990s. Townshend had been invited to perform for Amnesty by Martin Lewis, the producer of The Secret Policeman's Ball who stated later that Townshend's participation had been the key to his securing the subsequent participation for Amnesty (in the 1981 sequel show) of Sting, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Phil Collins and Bob Geldof. Other performers inspired to support Amnesty International in future Secret Policeman's Ball shows and other benefits because of Townshend's early commitment to the organization include Peter Gabriel, Bruce Springsteen, David Gilmour and U2 singer Bono who in 1986 told Rolling Stone magazine: "I saw The Secret Policeman's Ball and it became a part of me. It sowed a seed..."

Miscellaneous efforts

Highlights of Pete Townshend’s other public charitable efforts include the following:

* A 1972 Tommy performance which raised nearly £10,000 for the Stars Organization for Spastics charity
* A 1979 “Rock Against Racism” benefit concert, organized to raise money to pay the legal costs of those arrested in a London area anti-racism demonstration. Townshend helped organize the show, topped the bill and supplied the event lighting and equipment.
* A 1981 “Rock Against Unemployment” benefit concert, part of the People’s March For Jobs campaign.
* A 1982 Prince’s Trust Gala Benefit performance
* Involvement in fundraising supportive of Nelson Mandela’s African National Congress.
* Performing in a 1986 Royal Albert Hall benefit show for the victims of a Colombian Volcano disaster which killed over 25,000 people.
* A 2001 benefit show for San Diego’s La Jolla Playhouse which raised approximately $100,000.
* Performing in “Rock the Dock”, a 1998 benefit for striking Liverpool dock workers.
* Organizing an online auction in 2000 to raise funds for Oxfam’s emergency services to help those affected by floods in Mozambique and a combination of drought and food shortages in Ethiopia. Among the auctioned items were a selection of gold and platinum awards, letters from celebrities such as Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney, and musical instruments (including a smashed Rickenbacker guitar and the guitar on which Townshend composed the Who classic Behind Blue Eyes). The centerpiece of the auction, however, was a 1957 Fender Stratocaster which was given to Townshend as a gift by Eric Clapton after Townshend had helped arrange Clapton’s 1973 comeback show at the Rainbow. The guitar was ultimately purchased by Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and David Bowie, and presented to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
* Performing at the Royal Albert Hall in a 2004 Ronnie Lane tribute show which served as a fundraiser for both Lane’s family and multiple sclerosis research.

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PETE smashing his guitar! 7/24/04