I finally did “Tommy.”
I’m bringing this channel into the new decade by finally doing a full on cover of one of my favorite albums of all time.
This has been coming for a long time. Covering Tommy in its entirety has been something I’ve thought about as far back as 2011, when I first fell in love with The Who. That summer, as middle school came to a close, I spent a few afternoons playing through the whole album on one guitar in my room (and faking my way through a couple songs that I hadn’t figured out yet), and periodically would play through most or all of the songs, sometimes in pieces or slightly out of sequence. The idea fell by the wayside for quite some time, with the only results being an attempted cover of Pinball Wizard in 2011, a “live” cover of Amazing Journey and Sparks for youtube in 2012, and a cover of Christmas for youtube in 2013.
Then, in October 2018, I had the idea to do a nearly full version of Tommy in the “live” video format, i.e. a series of continues takes layered on top of one another to make a performance. I got as far as doing acoustic guitar, drums, and started the electric guitar, but it quickly fell apart when I realized that method of recording an entire rock opera that I hadn’t actually practiced was not doable. So, the idea of Tommy was once again left alone.
In July of 2019, I decided that I was finally going to do Tommy all the way through, as a full album of individual multitrack recordings with all the edits and polish that they needed.
Now, some 5 months later, this is the result.
I began with the song that had always seemed the most daunting to me: The Underture. I had never really understood the structure of the piece and had never known what I would do with it, so for the most part I’d cut it out of any Tommy-related projects (citing the fact that The Who never really performed it live anyway). However, I finally sat down and figured out what the patterns were and realized just how beautiful a piece of music it was, and suddenly became very excited about recreating it. My version’s structure is slightly different (and slightly longer), but to me it captures the essence and sound of the original.
The second song started was the Overture (a fitting follow up to the Underture). From there I slowly chipped away at all the songs on the album, determined to play each one for the full Tommy experience.
Instrumentals were recorded primarily through October, with a small number of guitar and bass overdubs done in November. Vocals were recorded September through December, with the first tracks being sung for Pinball Wizard and the final tracks for We’re Not Gonna Take It and See Me Feel Me. Mixing was done every time a song was completed, and I spent several months developing a much more advanced mixing and mastering process, with the litmus test being the mastered songs sounding good on my crappy car stereo. It took until the last day to finally perfect everything, but I’m very happy with the results and learned a lot of valuable lessons that I will use for future recordings.
A very special thanks to my loving girlfriend, Jessica, who spent more time than I can track sitting with me in the car to listen to mixes and give feedback.
Credits—
Writing: Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, Keith Moon, Sonny Boy Williamson
Drums, Bass, Acoustic Guitars, Electric Guitars, Mellotron, Claves, Engineering, Production, Mixing, Mastering: Julian Bailinson
Executive Producer: Bebe
Time Codes:
Overture 0:00:00
Captain Walker/It’s A Boy 0:03:46
1921 0:06:10
Amazing Journey 0:09:12
Sparks 0:12:51
The Hawker 0:16:42
Christmas 0:19:04
Cousin Kevin 0:23:54
The Acid Queen 0:27:57
Underture 0:31:44
Do You Think It’s Alright? 0:43:32
Fiddle About 0:43:56
Pinball Wizard 0:45:24
There’s A Doctor 0:48:35
Go To The Mirror 0:48:59
Tommy Can You Hear Me? 0:52:59
Smash The Mirror 0:54:39
Sensation 0:56:18
Miracle Cure 0:58:52
Sally Simpson 0:59:03
I’m Free 1:03:47
Welcome 1:06:36
Tommy’s Holiday Camp 1:11:29
We’re Not Gonna Take It 1:12:28
See Me, Feel Me/Listening To You 1:16:12
#TheWho #Tommy #Cover #PeteTownshend #RockOpera
