Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend, born in 1945, British rock musician, lead guitarist and chief songwriter for The Who. Born Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend in London, he played banjo and guitar with various bands in the early 1960s before joining the group that would become The Who. A musical innovator, Townshend wrote both hit singles (such as “My Generation,” 1965, and “Magic Bus,” 1968) and complex “story” works (such as the rock opera Tommy, 1969) for the group. Many of his more developed projects, including Tommy and Quadrophenia (1973), were later turned into plays and films.

Townshend has also released a number of solo albums. Who Came First (1972) is dedicated to his spiritual guru, Meher Baba. His 1980 album Empty Glass included the hit song, “Let My Love Open the Door.” Other Townshend solo efforts include All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes (1982), White City: A Novel (1985), The Iron Man: A Musical (1989), and Psychoderelict (1993). Townshend has also published a book of short stories, Horse’s Neck (1985), and the play Lifehouse (2001), which was originally begun in the early 1970s as a multimedia sequel to Tommy.

London police arrested Townshend in January 2003 on suspicion of possessing child pornography. Townshend said he had only visited child pornography sites on the Internet to do research for his autobiography, maintaining that he believed he had been sexually abused as a boy. He was formally cautioned by police but no charges were filed.