Roger Daltrey 12: As Long As I Have You

The years rolled on and The Who kept touring, for the simple reason that they could. Yet Pete Townshend still hadn’t written any new songs for Roger Daltrey to sing, so he went back to the template of his ‘70s solo albums. As Long As I Have You was a grab bag of covers found across the decades, plus two of his own songs. Pete even plays guitar on a few of the tracks, and most have a female choir shouting in the back, but it’s all about the guy on the cover.

The title track is a great punchy soul number, one of those songs that loomed large on the British R&B scene when the Who were starting out. It’s a sharp switch to “How Far”, a Stephen Stills track from Manassas delivered in the same spirit. However, “Where Is A Man To Go” switches the gender of a song most commonly associated with Dusty Springfield after bouncing around Nashville for a while, and it doesn’t really work for Roger. Research tells us that “Get On Out Of The Rain” is a modified title for an early Parliament song; the political lyrics are relevant for 2018, but sound a little mushmouthed coming from him. “I’ve Got Your Love” is similarly dug up from a Boz Scaggs album released around the same time as Nick Cave’s “Into My Arms”, and both suit him fine.

Political throwbacks continue with a slowed down take on “You Haven’t Done Nothin” by Stevie Wonder, and then the album stays in the same tempo for the duration. He goes back to the ‘50s for the little-known doo-wop of “Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind”, and up to the mid-‘60s for “The Love You Save”, the old Joe Tex number. Oddly, he sounds the least like himself on “Certified Rose”, which he wrote himself and had even performed with the Who when John Entwistle was still alive. But the album ends strong with another original. “Always Heading Home” is a pretty piano ballad with piano and cello than recalls the sweeter pop of his solo debut.

As his autobiography (also out this year) attests, Roger loves his job, and is happy for whatever good turns come his way. As Long As I Have You was a nice souvenir, and better than the bulk of his solo work.

Roger Daltrey As Long As I Have You (2018)—3

Roger Daltrey 10: A Celebration

Perhaps knowing what his legacy would always be, Roger Daltrey turned his attention to staging a pair of all-star concerts at Carnegie Hall for his 50th birthday. A Celebration: The Music Of Pete Townshend And The Who put Roger—tux-clad but tie- and sleeve-less for the first half, shirtless under a leather jacket for the second—in front of an orchestra conducted by Michael Kamen and a band featuring veterans of the 1989 tour and such Townshend familiars as Jody Linscott, Rabbit Bundrick, Phil Palmer, Jon Carin, Pino Palladino, and Simon Phillips. The set consisted of a curious mix of familiar songs and surprises, even a few solo choices, the spotlight occasionally ceded to or shared with special guest performers.

A Michael Lindsay-Hogg-directed pay-per-view special followed, while the official Bob Ezrin-produced album only presented half of the music performed at the 2½-hour shows. As Roger no longer had a solo deal of his own, it was released on an independent label the same damn day as the Who’s heralded box set.

The show opened with an “Overture”—not the one from Tommy, but a new medley of orchestrated Pete melodies. From there Roger sang some of the expected hits, but also some deep cuts. Yet the most startling and best rendition was that of “The Sea Refuses No River”, making us wish he’d explored more of Pete’s solo catalog.

Relegating contributions from Spin Doctors, Eddie Vedder, Lou Reed, and Alice Cooper to the video document, CD listeners were treated to Linda Perry, then of 4 Non Blondes, with a frankly excellent take on “Doctor Jimmy”, and the Chieftains, who augmented “Baba O’Riley” and “After The Fire”. (Sinéad O’Connor, who was still getting booed in those days, sang on the last two, but was not included in the mix.) David Sanborn was touted as a featured soloist on “5:15”, John Entwistle contributed bass to “The Real Me”, and Pete himself played a few songs without the other two; of those, only “Who Are You” was included.

A Celebration wasn’t exactly a sales smash, but the subsequent “Daltrey Sings Townshend” tour attempted to keep the party going with some of the same players, plus key additions like John Entwistle, Pete’s brother Simon on guitar, and young Zak Starkey on drums. As John always needed the money, more tours would follow, making the album something of a catalyst for future Who activity.

Roger Daltrey A Celebration: The Music Of Pete Townshend And The Who (1994)—3

Roger Daltrey 9: Rocks In The Head

One would think any struggling songwriter would be happy to have someone like Roger Daltrey record his or her compositions. But given the man’s spotty solo discography, would that be enough to bring in the big checks? That likely wasn’t too much of a concern for one Gerard McMahon, who’d tried the solo himself route throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, but got most of his work creating songs for movie soundtracks. Interestingly, one of those was The Lost Boys, which we should know also included a tune sung by Roger.

Five years later, McMahon was the producer and main songwriter on Rocks In The Head, which would turn out to be Roger’s last original solo album of the century. On this album the synths of the ‘80s were gratefully left behind in favor of crunch and mildly socially conscious lyrics, but that doesn’t keep it from sounding like the generic FM rock perpetuated by the likes of Bad Company without Paul Rodgers.

“Who’s Gonna Walk On Water” and “Before My Time Is Up” set the template; he’s in good voice for the most part, but the songs themselves are just plain ordinary. Track three is normally where people try to mix it up, but except for the interminable two-note riff, “Times Changed” is more posturing. Instead, “You Can’t Call It Love” tries to be a little softer and less edgy with more acoustics, and still sounds like Bryan Adams. “Mirror Mirror” has some nice textures and hooks, but is ultimately sunk by way too many clichés.

Flamenco-style guitars and a mild island feel “Perfect World”, an awkward call for racial unity. Nobody noticed that “Love Is” starts out like “Jessie’s Girl” but has none of the drama, and while “Blues Man’s Road” starts with a tantalizing snippet of dobro, it’s dropped for a backbeat and badly placed yowl. Still, you’d have to be a real curmudgeon not to smile at “Everything A Heart Could Ever Want (Willow)”, written for one of his daughters. “Days Of Light” was the single, but should be in a lower key for his voice and what’s with all the chorus vocals? Finally, “Unforgettable Opera” has potential, but a crowd cheering to punctuate a pre-chorus is never a good idea.

Having been spoiled by decent lyricists over the years, his voice simply isn’t enough to carry all the material he’s given. While Rocks In The Head isn’t as pointedly bad as some of his other solo albums, it’s still pretty bland. He deserved much better material. Too bad Pete wasn’t writing it for him.

Roger Daltrey Rocks In The Head (1992)—2½

Roger Daltrey 8: Can’t Wait To See The Movie

While we can’t find the exact quote, we distinctly recall hearing an interview with Roger Daltrey around the time this album came out, saying that hearing the songs made him think, “I can’t wait to see the movie they’re from,” as if that were a good thing. Can’t Wait To See The Movie sounds like a stereotypically bad ‘80s movie soundtrack, all programmed drums, power chords, slapped and/or synth bass, and screaming saxes. As usual, he relied on outside songwriters for material, starting with his go-tos Russ Ballard and the otherwise unknown Kit Hain, and apparently Pete Townshend didn’t leave anything lying around for him, which is a shame.

Thinking back it seems like there were approximately a couple dozen different songs called “Hearts Of Fire” in those days, none of them very good. This one came very soon after a legendarily bad Bob Dylan cinematic vehicle, so at least there’s something of a tangential relation. “When The Thunder Comes” is overwrought with battlefield metaphors, while “Ready For Love” is nearly drowned out by a loud gospel-style choir. He wrote “Balance On Wires” himself with Don Snow, best known as the guy who replaced Paul Carrack in Squeeze; as one of the more understated tracks here it stands out, and in a good way, but it’s still too long at over six minutes. The choir returns to belt out the chorus of the sappy “Miracle Of Love” alongside him, but while he’s a decent actor, he simply can’t pull off the role of a sentimental fool.

Along the same basic theme, “The Price Of Love” is the long-awaited collaboration between schlockmeister tyrant David Foster and Night Ranger’s Jack Blades, who was a couple years away from Damn Yankees. (This was included on the soundtrack for that year’s Michael J. Fox vehicle The Secret Of My Success, which had a theme song written by the same pair, and performed by Night Ranger.) And while it may be that “The Heart Has Its Reasons”, that’s no excuse for aping the arpeggios of “Every Breath You Take” and its innumerable clones. Four writers are credited for “Alone In The Night”, one of whom wrote the lyrics for most of the songs from the Top Gun soundtrack. “Lover’s Storm” sports some good harmonies, but we can’t tell if those are by Roger or one of the ten people listed in bulk on the sleeve. Most curious is “Take Me Home”, a remake of a French song called “Cargo” from a few years before, with new lyrics.

The album was a sales dud, and rightfully so. Ironically, it did not include his cover version of Elton John’s “Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me”, as featured in the summer’s hit film The Lost Boys and on its soundtrack album—conveniently issued by the same label—which might have helped. Nor did it have “Quicksilver Lightning” from the year before, the theme for a Kevin Bacon movie nobody liked. These would have been prime candidates for inclusion when Can’t Wait To See The Movie was expanded in 2004 by the Wounded Bird label, which even fewer people needed.

Roger Daltrey Can’t Wait To See The Movie (1987)—1½

Roger Daltrey 7: Under A Raging Moon

Without The Who to take up his time (the brief Live Aid reunion notwithstanding) Roger Daltrey went right back in the studio to put together another album fairly quickly after the disappointment of Parting Should Be Painless. The brief was more or less the same; he gathered songs from a variety of sources, old and new, though this time he contributed to four songs himself.

The first single, and what sold Under A Raging Moon upon release, was “After The Fire”, which Pete Townshend wrote in the wake of Band Aid and Live Aid and everything. The song absolutely soars, despite a puzzling reference to Dom DeLuise, with the rhythm section from Big Country, so familiar from Pete’s own albums. Then strap yourself in for some downright boomy tracks. “Don’t Talk To Strangers” is a cover of a tune on one of the songwriters’ solo albums, while “Breaking Down Paradise” is the requisite Russ Ballard entry. “The Pride You Hide” crams a lot of words into a simple song about heartbreak, and while “Move Better In The Night” is fairly cliché, it still rocks. (The CD and cassette included an extra song here, “Love Me Like You Do”, which mostly takes up six minutes for a guitar solo from Robbie McIntosh, playing hooky from the Pretenders.)

Bryan Adams was one of the faces and voices of 1985—in this hemisphere, anyway—and he and writing partner Jim Vallance serve up two songs for Rog. “Let Me Down Easy” is a carbon copy of Adams’ “Somebody”, an undeniably catchy tune in its own right. Kit Hain is brought back from the last album for “Fallen Angel”, which Roger delivers first in a lower register that mostly sounds like a bad Bowie imitation, then starts yelling his way through it but for a “sweeter” bridge. The yelling continues on “It Don’t Satisfy Me”, which he wrote himself with the producer, suggesting that he might actually be channeling some of the anger over the Who ending. Beyond that, the drums are right out of Robert Palmer’s “Addicted To Love”. “Rebel” is the other Adams/Vallance track, and sounds a little more convincing out of Roger’s mouth; after all, real rebels don’t go around telling everyone that’s what they are. Finally, the title was supposedly intended to call up the spirit of Keith Moon, but we’ll be damned how that’s supposed to be given the lyrics (courtesy of John Parr, then riding high with the St. Elmo’s Fire soundtrack). The backing track is too obvious an homage to “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, the guitars slash like Pete, and seven all-star drummers are listed as contributing, with a closing solo that’s a battle between Mark Brzezicki and Zak Starkey in a stroke of foreshadowing.

While certainly produced and mixed for contemporary rock radio by one Alan Shacklock, Under A Raging Moon actually works, despite itself; call it a guilty pleasure. Even though he’s always at his best in his original band, the album suggests that maybe Roger would be fine on his own after all. Maybe.

Roger Daltrey Under A Raging Moon (1985)—3

Roger Daltrey 6: Parting Should Be Painless

After being blindsided by Pete Townshend’s announcement that the Who were finally finished—and after some time waiting to see if he’d change his mind, as he had in the past—Roger Daltrey found himself suddenly solo, and not as a side project. With a title like Parting Should Be Painless, it was hard (sorry) to think of the album as anything but a commentary on the end of his band. This being Roger, of course, he didn’t write any of the songs, and we find it hard to believe he set out such a thesis to the ones who did.

The album came out in the wake of the New Romantic movement in British music, whereas Americans were still catching up to New Wave and whatever was on MTV. And now that he had the chance to do anything he wanted, with a deal on Atlantic to boot, Roger didn’t want to make an album that sounded like the Who, so he didn’t. And then nobody bought it.

“Walking In My Sleep” was a half-decent single heavy on synth and sax, and unfortunately the high point of the album. While it’s unknown why the tense is different, “Parting Would Be Painless” was already on an album put out by its songwriter, one Kit Hain, the year before, and its romantic angle should definitely not suggest it’s about the Who. “Is There Anybody Out There?” serves up middle-aged angst on a track better suited to Bonnie Tyler, though the nightmare strings really need to be toned back. The unintended creepy come-on “Would A Stranger Do?” is an early composition by one Simon Climie, who’d go on to collaborate with the likes of Pat Benatar and Eric Clapton down the road. The first really surprising track is “Going Strong”, written by Bryan Ferry, likely in the lead-up to Avalon. While one-chord songs may have worked too many times for Roxy Music, here it just plods.

“Looking For You” is another Kit Hain tune that kinda works, though his voice gets buried in the otherwise catchy choruses, but we’re more startled by his gruff take on “Somebody Told Me”, an obscure song from the first real Eurythmics album. “One Day” is somewhat in the vein of his R&B-flavored work from the ‘70s, if a little dull, whereas “How Does The Cold Wind Cry” tries for something of a stadium anthem without the dynamics. “Don’t Wait On The Stairs” throws another publishing bone to Steve Swindells, done here in an almost Prince style. (No, really.)

Roger doesn’t sound very confident throughout Parting Should Be Painless, and it would appear he wasn’t. The production, courtesy of a guy who’d worked with Wire in the punk days and helmed Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love”, is competent, only slightly dated, but not very unique. This couldn’t have been the statement Roger wanted to make. (And the cover? What’s up with the leopard print and the diving pose?)

Roger Daltrey Parting Should Be Painless (1984)—2

Roger Daltrey 5: Best Bits

MCA Records loved to reissue, re-label, and repackage their catalog, but sometimes they were happy with compiling a hits collection for the heck of it. Having already lost the Who to Warner Bros., they also had to contend with the individuals scampering off for solo deals. Since Roger Daltrey had some mild success in his time, Best Bits was one way to recoup.

To their credit, the album didn’t just regurgitate songs fans owned already. The brand new rockin’ opener “Martyrs And Madmen” was written by Steve Swindells, who’d had some input in the McVicar soundtrack, and is a nice surprise. “Say It Ain’t So Joe” and “Oceans Away” nicely balance rock and ballads. “Treachery” is another new Swindells song, based on a very dated synth part, but at least it’s tuneful. “Free Me” and “Without Your Love”, which MCA was wise to license from Polydor, end the side cleanly.

We recommend all of his first solo album, but the “Hard Life/Giving It All Away” suite is probably the best taster here. “Avenging Annie” is always welcome, and we’re still surprised by how much we like “Proud”. The sloppy typography on the back cover makes us suspect it was an afterthought, but “You Put Something Better Inside Me” was an obscure B-side that could have been an album track, so it’s a nice inclusion in this set. (Further shoddy MCA quality control is on the label, where Jon Astley’s first name is misspelled twice.)

There really aren’t any clunkers on Best Bits. It never made it to CD, even on a crappy transfer, but 25 years later, the Rhino label followed a John Entwistle solo compilation with a similarly packed set for Roger. Martyrs & Madmen astoundingly did not include that particular song, nor the other two new ones, but it did repeat everything else from Best Bits except “Proud”, added deeper cuts from the earlier albums, and filled out the balance with several tracks from the ‘80s. (“Martyrs And Madmen” was included on the two-CD Gold compilation in 2005, but that track sequence is just so strange we don’t feel like tackling it here.)

Roger Daltrey Best Bits (1982)—3½
Roger Daltrey Martyrs & Madmen: The Best Of Roger Daltrey (1997)—3

Roger Daltrey 4: McVicar

By the end of the ‘70s, the Who expanded further into the film industry to shore up any finances lost via touring or lack thereof. Having already enjoyed a piece of The Kids Are Alright and getting kudos for the adaptation of Quadrophenia, another pet project served to provide Roger Daltrey with both a dramatic lead role and a new haircut. McVicar was based on the memoirs of a British career criminal who managed to overcome incarceration, recapture, and parole to rejoin society as a journalist. (Considering Roger’s hardscrabble upbringing, he must have felt born for the role.)

Naturally, despite the non-musical content of the film, a soundtrack album would be mutually beneficial. As ever, Roger relied on songwriters both established, like Russ Ballard, and new, like Steve Swindells. And while the liner notes are vague, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle, Kenney Jones and Rabbit Bundrick are among the all-star musicians, so listeners can imagine it’s a Who album.

The opening “Bitter And Twisted” is a tough rocker with some smart couplets (“a psychopath never takes a bath,” indeed) balanced immediately by the lonesome sentiments of “Just A Dream Away”. There’s some odd but purely coincidental foreshadowing in “White City Lights”, which is merely another ballad. Despite the disco thump, “Free Me” has all the power chords and horn blasts of a solid Who song, and enough to make it to radio.

“My Time Is Gonna Come” is fairly boneheaded, with a four-note range, and more than a little robotic, wearing out its welcome in no time. “Waiting For A Friend” has an easy, country-influenced swagger to it for a nice change of pace. Sweet without being saccharine, “Without Your Love” would be familiar to diehards as a Meher Baba hymn penned by Pete’s buddy Billy Nicholls, as originally included on the obscure With Love tribute LP, mandolins and all. To Roger’s credit, he does a fine job with it. The title track is the most overt reference to the film’s plot, but it’s strong enough to stand alone without it.

As a rockin’ Daltrey album it works, but because McVicar is a soundtrack, each side is interrupted by instrumentals credited to Jeff Wayne, of the musical War Of The Worlds fame. Both “Escape Part One” and “Escape Part Two” sound like any number of ‘80s crime thriller soundtracks, with a flute that owes more than a debt to Ian Anderson. Beyond that, the half-hour of Roger music is surprisingly fresh.

Roger Daltrey McVicar—Original Soundtrack Recording (1980)—3

Roger Daltrey 3: One Of The Boys

Once again the Who were in a lull, having spent much of 1976 on tour. Pete Townshend was off recording with Ronnie Lane, while Keith Moon was trying to stay sober while still hoping to become a movie star. John Entwistle kept busy with shopping sprees to fill up his new mansion, but still found time to play some of the bass parts on Roger Daltrey’s third solo album.

One Of The Boys continued Roger’s interest in interpreting songs by writers other than Pete Townshend. Philip Goodhand-Tait got more publishing royalties sent his way, and his “Parade” and “Leon” bookend side one, both songs about the dark side of stardom. Colin Blunstone, once of the Zombies, offered up the countrified “Single Man’s Dilemma”, but a real surprise came in the excellent cover of Andy Pratt’s “Avenging Annie”, which had been a mild hit for its writer only a few years before. Roger himself helped write “The Prisoner”, which would be less symbolic a lyric in a few years when its source was revealed as the inspiration for a film and matching soundrack, which we’ll discuss eventually.

The rowdy title track came from Steve Gibbons, whose eponymous band was coincidentally in the Who’s management stable. One disappointment is “Giddy”, contributed by one Paul McCartney. This song had its genesis in a jam during the Ram sessions, but the arrangement was now split into two opposing tempos, putting a little drama into the “I don’t feel sick” hook but undercutting the “rode all night” part with disco, and going on far too long. However, Murray Head’s “Say It Ain’t So Joe” was another earlier hit redone well by Roger, though the wimpier “Satin And Lace” and “Doing It All Again”, both of which he wrote with his producers, more than suggested he was better off singing other people’s words.

Any unease the Who might have felt from Roger’s solo work would have been tempered by what he did without them, and One Of The Boys, while competent, was no sales threat. Given its art-rock approach, as produced by David Courtney and Shadows drummer Tony Meehan, it probably resembles a Who album more than Roger’s first two, and doesn’t reflect the punk scene then sweeping England in the slightest.

The eventual CD expansion had some of its work cut out for it, as “Say It Ain’t So Joe” had been replaced on the LP by “Written On The Wind” in some countries; both were now included. In addition, “You Put Something Better Inside Me” was a B-side from Gerry Rafferty and the other guy in Stealer’s Wheel, while “Martyrs And Madmen” and “Treachery” were later tracks stuck here anachronistically, and will be discussed in time as well.

Roger Daltrey One Of The Boys (1977)—3
2006 reissue: same as 1977, plus 4 extra tracks

Roger Daltrey 2: Ride A Rock Horse

Thanks to his star turn in Ken Russell’s film adaptation of Tommy, Roger Daltrey was more of a household name outside the confines of The Who. With more time off from the band, he took the starring role in the same director’s even more outrageous Lisztomania. Rick Wakeman provided the soundtrack, which featured a few vocal turns by Roger, singing lyrics given to rocked-up arrangements of Franz Liszt melodies.

While all that was going on, Roger took the opportunity to record his second solo album. As before, Ride A Rock Horse served to spotlight working songwriters, including producer Russ Ballard, Philip Goodhand-Tait, and Paul Korda. And also as before, the style of the album as a whole was different from that of The Who, this time leaning towards horn-based R&B and mainstream AOR. (He even gamely filmed a few promos to help the album along. His newly acquired acting chops are well shown by his miming of guitar and even piano, which he doesn’t play in real life.)

“Come And Get Your Love” is a snappy, mildly discofied opener, with hearty female backing vocals that seem to predict Bob Dylan’s born-again phase. “Heart-s Right” (no, we don’t know why it’s spelled that way) and “Proud” deliver similar arrangements, bracketing “Oceans Away” which arrives just in time for a big ballad, featuring a piano solo right out of the Elton John playbook. Speaking of which, “World Over” has some nice “Philadelphia Freedom”-style guitars.

“Near To Surrender” is one of those “chin up, buddy” tunes designed to inspire, and it actually works without being overly saccharine, but “Feeling” returns us to the generic muscle soul from side one. The only real misstep is the oh-so-funky cover of Rufus Thomas’ “Walking The Dog”, followed by the campy Cockney of “Milk Train”, itself prefaced by fake applause. Somehow the closing “I Was Born To Sing Your Song” makes a fitting conclusion, perhaps because it resembles a slicker version of the songs on the first.

While not as consistently pleasing as Daltrey, Ride A Rock Horse underscores Roger’s ability as a singer and performer, and not just as Pete Townshend’s mouthpiece. Best of all, the band needn’t have worried that he’d abandon them anytime soon. Though they probably took great glee in ribbing him over the album cover. (The eventual expanded CD added the later B-side “Dear John” and an alternate version of “Oceans Away”.)

Roger Daltrey Ride A Rock Horse (1975)—3
2006 reissue: same as 1975, plus 2 extra tracks

Roger Daltrey 1: Daltrey

Just as bandmate John Entwistle needed something to do while waiting for Pete Townshend to write the next Who album, Roger Daltrey had time on his hands, as well as a studio in his house. He took an interest in a young songwriter named Leo Sayer, and with the idea to give the kid a boost into the business, said he’d record an album of his songs. That became Daltrey, sporting folk-pop tunes that are much less bombastic than the typical Who album, yet still introspective. Acoustic guitars and pianos abound.

“One Man Band” has a jaunty music-hall quality, and even retains that busker aspect after the band kicks in. “The Way Of The World” fits very much into the country squire quality of early Elton John, or even Bowie’s Hunky Dory. (Who-spotters will notice Dave Arbus, famous from “Baba O’Riley”, on violin.) Speaking of piano men, we wonder if 1973 Billy Joel heard the sweeping “You Are Yourself”. “Thinking” picks up the pace with a nice fuzzy steel guitar solo before “You And Me” ends side one on a sigh, just a verse and an orchestral swoon.

It’s daring to have an epic on an album this low-key, but “Hard Life” and “Giving It All Away” form a strong suite together, with sweetly sweeping strings. Unfortunately, the next two tracks derail the trajectory, somewhat; “The Story So Far” descends from Broadway camp into an unwise calypso rhythm, and “When The Music Stops” is just too twee. “Reasons” redeems the proceedings to the quality of side one just in time, and the last sound we hear is a reprise of “One Man Band”, performed on the roof of the Beatles’ Apple building, where the album was mixed.

Daltrey isn’t just a nice change of pace. It showcases Roger as an excellent interpreter of songs, and what makes it work is that it pointedly doesn’t sound like The Who. Sometimes it even sounds like something Rod Stewart might have done had success not gone to his head; the only thing that rubs us the wrong way is the ultra-swoony cover shot. It’s one of those albums we throw on only rarely yet still marvel at just how nice it is, and that’s why it gets the rating it has. Good on him. (A barely hyped reissue in this century added “There Is Love”, the B-side to “Thinking”, and wisely left off the album due to its over-the-top gospel attempt, though it does feature Jimmy Page on guitar.)

Roger Daltrey Daltrey (1973)—3½
2006 reissue: same as 1973, plus 1 extra track