June
28, 2002, 11:15 a.m. Long
Live the Ox
The Quiet One
dies.
By Kevin M.
Cherry
he
news hit with all the power of a Pete Townshend power chord: John Entwistle,
bassist for The Who, found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room. The news came
just as The Who were about to begin another reunion tour and 25 years
after the notorious Keith Moon died in his Los Angeles home.
In many ways, Entwistle
was the overlooked member of the band. He was not as outwardly hilarious
as the manic Moon. He was not as quotable and intellectual as songwriter/guitarist
Pete Townshend. He was not as visible as lead singer Roger Daltrey. Entwistle
acknowledged this and called himself "The Quiet One."
But it didn't matter, because to those who really paid attention, he was
the musical linchpin of the group. Entwistle pioneered rock bass —
mostly because he was forced to do so. Given Moon's inability to keep
time, Entwistle was forced to be the rhythmic backbone. Given that the
band had but one guitarist, Entwistle had to fill out the sound. He was
forced to be innovative, but his talent was what allowed him to flourish.
It's easy to assume that most readers have heard Entwistle's playing.
Off the top of my head, I can name five Who songs currently being used
in commercials. For most groups, this would constitute a sellout. But
The Who had already sold out: In 1967, they released The Who Sell Out,
a concept album answer to the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper and the Beach
Boys' Pet Sounds. On that album, interspersed among classic Who
tracks like "I Can See for Miles" were hilarious commercial
jingles, mostly written by Entwistle and Moon at a local tavern. While
he often played the straight man to Moon the Loon, Entwistle himself was
a man of wit.
This may be most obvious in his songwriting. Entwistle wrote the group's
standard opening number for the Tommy tour, "Heaven and Hell."
He wrote the darkly humorous "Boris the Spider" and sung it
in a Boris Karloff-like register. He contributed the chased husband's lamenting "My Wife" to the seminal Who's Next: "My life's in jeopardy, Murdered in cold blood is what I'm gonna be/Ain't been home since Friday night/And now my wife is coming after me."
The rock opera Tommy was what (belatedly) put The Who on the rock-and-roll
roadmap. Townshend's original narrative was incredibly weak, almost to
the point of being incomprehensible. The album's best individual moments
are Entwistle's descriptions of the abuse suffered by the deaf, dumb,
and blind protagonist: "Cousin Kevin" and "Fiddle About."
Without those tracks, the album seems overbearing; with them, it comes
to life.
After the success of Tommy, Townshend attempted to develop a second
rock opera, entitled Lifehouse. For several reasons, it never took
off. But it did result in perhaps the greatest single rock album ever
made: 1971's Who's Next. Its tracks — "Baba O'Riley,"
"Won't Get Fooled Again," "Behind Blue Eyes," "Bargain"
— are staples of classic rock radio, and deservedly so. Entwistle
sparkles throughout, whether it's the first bass note in "Baba"
or his ability to fill in the gaps on "The Song Is Over."
In many ways, the next rock opera Townshend completed gave Entwistle his
moment in the sun. Quadrophenia was about a teenager with "a
four-faceted multiple personality disorder." The plot held together
tighter than Tommy's, and the music did, too. Nowhere was this
more evident than on the album's opener, "The Real Me," which
was driven by Entwistle's jet-propelled bass lines. In concert, Thunderfingers,
as John was known by his fans, took an extended solo on "5:15,"
which would always leave people — including his band mates —
in awe. At the end of the solo, his sole gesture to the crowd was to arch
one eyebrow ever so slightly.
Throughout The Who's career, Entwistle's performance was predictably steady
— easily the most dependable member of the band. He was there from
the bass solo in "My Generation" to the thumping bass line under
"Eminence Front." He bashed his way through the seminal live
album Live at Leeds — as Green Day bassist Mike Dirnt has
recommended, turn down the other channels and listen to the bass alone
for a musical revelation — and he could simply hold down the low
end under songs like "Love, Reign O'er Me."
Despite his musical proficiency and talent for mirth-filled songwriting,
Entwistle never enjoyed the solo success Townshend did. Nor did he have
the theatrical options Daltrey had. He toured with several of his own
bands — and with Ringo Starr's All-Star Band — since The Who
broke up, but his first loyalty was always to his original mates. And
for many of us, to see the band reunited as an ongoing entity in 1996,
with the resurrection of Quadrophenia, was a cause for rejoicing.
It's unsure whether Townshend and Daltrey will continue performing as
The Who. They took a lot of flack for continuing after the death of Keith
Moon; it took them 20 years to find a suitable replacement (Zak Starkey,
son of Ringo Starr). Finding a suitable replacement for Entwistle may
be even more difficult. It may be time to pack it in.
John always had a
sense of his own mortality. Here's how he put it in "Heaven and Hell":
In the place up
above you grow feather wings and you fly round and round, with a harp
singing hymns. And down in the ground you grow horns and a tail and
you carry a fork and burn away.
With his passing,
the musical world has lost a quiet genius. Say hey to Keith for us, John.
If there's a rock-and-roll heaven, they now have one hell of a rhythm
section.
—
.Kevin M. Cherry is a writer living in Alexandria, Va.
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he
news hit with all the power of a Pete Townshend power chord: John Entwistle,
bassist for The Who, found dead in a Las Vegas hotel room. The news came
just as The Who were about to begin another reunion tour and 25 years
after the notorious Keith Moon died in his Los Angeles home. 
