The Observer Magazine of 20 March 1966 told the story of how the Who had risen to the top within barely a year of forming (‘The Making of the Who’). For two months, John Heilpern followed the band around and spoke to their managers about ‘the machinery, intrigues, finances and gimmicks,’ all leading to the ‘quest for the real prize - America’.
Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp (brother of Terence) wanted to make a documentary about pop and went in search of bands to feature.
Lambert recalls seeing the High Numbers (as they were then) at the Railway Tavern, Harrow and Wealdstone. ‘As soon as I saw them I felt a total conviction that this was it,’ he said. ‘It’s as simple as that – this was it! Bingo!’
Stamp also recalled the excitement of seeing the band for the first time though more from ‘the people blocking my way’ than the band themselves.
Four days later, Lambert and Stamp became their managers and changed the name of the group to the Who partly, said Lambert, because ‘it was a gimmick name – journalists could write articles called The why of the Who, and people had to go through a boring ritual of question and answer. “Have you heard the Who?” “The Who?”’ A trick long since learned in the music industry (viz the The).
What was their appeal, apart from the music? ‘Their rootlessness appeals to the kids,’ explained Lambert. ‘They’re really a new form of crime, armed against the bourgeois.’ That and embracing Pop Art as something new to differentiate themselves. They got a lucky break, too, on Top of the Pops when another group pulled out and I Can’t Explain climbed to number eight off the back of it. And then they released My Generation.
But it’s the great myth of pop that you make it big overnight, explained Lambert – they went for broke in America, but it didn’t work out. Heilpern wrote that in the music industry, ‘Big money is sliced up into small parcels.’
