Rock's Outer Limits

Through turmoil and triumph, The Who makes music that will last

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The Who came back together, started working on Who Are You. Moon returned from self-imposed exile in Los Angeles, tried to pull himself together. Some days he would play with his old brilliance. Other days he couldn't play at all. "We knew what was coming," Daltrey says, "but we were really shocked when it happened." Moon went out one night to a party, enjoyed himself in moderation, came back, swallowed an estimated 30 Heminevirins, and died. "The worst thing is that none of us were there when he died," says Entwistle. "We must have saved his life 30 times in the past, picking him up when he was unconscious and walking him around, getting him to a doctor."

"I don't think the group would be here if Keith hadn't died," Townshend says, and the others agree. "We certainly wouldn't be doing the kind of things we're doing now." He means not only making plans, which include for the next year a new Who album, Townshend and Entwistle solo efforts, two more mini-tours of the States, a handful of further film projects, including a Daltrey star role as an English con called Me Vicar, and the elusive Lifehouse. He also means making the kind of music that sets the standard and makes The Who the band to beat.

This should not be taken as any certain indication that the collective group temperature has lowered away from the torrid zone. The Who has no formal leader. Entwistle insists it has no leader at all. But Daltrey says he and Townshend are the leaders, with Entwistle having a strong say. If the lines of authority remain unclear, perhaps deliberately, personal lives are kept away from business as much as possible.

Daltrey lives a safe two-hour drive from the others, in a 17th century mansion surrounded by 300 acres of lush farm land in Sussex. He has an American wife, Heather, two daughters, Willow and Rosie, and a son by a previous marriage. He exercises to keep in trim, but had to give up working with weights because his broadening shoulders only exaggerated his stature or, at 5 ft. 7 in., his lack of it. There is nothing much he can do about his hearing. Like Townshend's, it has been impaired by long exposure to maximum amplification. "When it's noisy," he says, "I have to lip-read."

Townshend lives with his wife Karen and their two daughters Aminta and Emma in a house in suburban London or, as mood and convenience dictate, in another, larger establishment in Oxfordshire. Townshend tried not having a studio at home so he could spend more time with the family, but he finally succumbed and installed some recording equipment. When he was laying down a rough vocal track, his daughter, not at all certain of her father's occupation, burst through the door wanting to call a doctor because Daddy sounded in pain.

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