While none of its members were Jewish, the traiblazing British rock band rock band formed by Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon in 1964 has a surprisingly Yiddishe history, and not just because its name rhymes with Jew.
To mark its 60th anniversary, the the Post Office has issued a set of eight stamps celebrating these revered rock icons.
The band grew to prominence at a time when Jewish managers like Larry Parnes dominated the music industry. One cannot consider The Who without the Mod subculture which relied on the fashion sense of Jewish moguls in places like London’s Carnaby Street and the very Jewish East End.
The Who began life as a Mod band called The Detours and frequently played gigs at a Jewish club in Ealing. Their first manager, Helmut Gordon, was, in Daltrey’s words, “a Jewish German doorknob manufacturer who wanted to be the next Brian Epstein,” alluding to the Jewish manager of the Beatles. Gordon bought them a van and professional amplifiers, and paid for studio time for their initial recordings. Gordon was replaced by Pete Meaden, whose father, Stanley, was “half Jewish,” according to Daltrey. Meaden’s business partner Andrew Loog Oldham was also Jewish and the manager of the Rolling Stones. Good yichus as we like to say.
The Detours never made it and when Daltrey interviewed Townshend for his new band, the audition went something like this:
Daltrey: “Can you play Hava Nagilah?”
Townshend: “Yes.”
Daltrey: “You’re in. See you next Tuesday night.”
Pete Townshend
Perhaps it was more than music that brought them together. Like Daltrey, guitarist Townshend revealed a deep affinity with Jewish culture. His mother Betty was a singer with The Jewish Sidney Torch Orchestra. Townshend grew up in Acton surrounded by Jews who were many of his parent’s closest friends. His best friend Mick Leiber was Jewish, and the Townshends lived in a house divided in two and the Jewish Cass family lived in the top half.
“I remember noisy, joyous Passovers with a lot of gefilte fish, chopped liver and the aroma of slow-roasting brisket. It provided a familiar comforting sense of home. I was seven, and happy to be home again, back in the noisy flat with a toilet in the backyard and the delicious aroma of Jewish cooking from upstairs. It was all very reassuring.”
In 1966, Townshend visited Israel and when the Six-Day War broke out a year later, he was moved to write Rael — short for Israel — about Israel’s struggle to survive. It was released later that year on their album The Who Sell Out.
Daltrey later praised the song as “prophetic”. Townshend, he said, “wrote that in the autumn of 1967, six years before the Yom Kippur War, and half a century later look where we are with the world. History repeats itself. It repeats itself far too often and Rael was prophetic, Pete was prophetic… he was trying to do more than just write another pop song.”
Novelist Ilan Mochari, a lifelong fan of The Who, wrote: “I’ve often felt there was something ineffably Jewish in their themes and melodies.” He singled out the rock opera Tommy. “In the way it builds, in the way it deifies, in the way it mounts and repeats, it has always reminded me of Ein Keloheinu and Adon Olam.”
The 2006 album Endless Wire includes a song called Trilby’s Piano, about the hidden, forbidden love of a Jewish man named Hymie, sung by Townshend.
Daltrey unwittingly borrowed money from the Kray brothers who had Jewish heritage. Fortunately, he paid them back. When he began watching Arsenal, an employee in his manager’s office named Robert Rosenberg sorted him out with tickets.
On his 50th birthday, 1 March 1994, Daltrey received a letter and photograph from a 27-year-old ‘Jewish girl’ named Kim. One look at the photo and Daltrey had no question that she was his daughter, one of several, far-flung offspring, the products of rock ‘n’ roll dalliances. She was welcomed into the family. Obviously.
