In about 1985, I had the considerable privilege of being sent my the music weekly newspaper The Melody Maker to cover a two-day event for bass players. It was a combination of seminars and showpieces, the highlight of which was one by John Entwhistle. Accompanied by a drummer, he proceeded to give detailed accounts of his various playing techniques, which he then demonstrated. Getting this insight – and the chance to watch him a really close quarters – was invaluable, but I've never been able to emulate his 'typewriter', where he sort-of drummer the strings with the fingers of his right hand to produce these fast, rhythmic flurries of notes.
Later on, we got to ask questions. In particular, I asked him about the story that the bass solo on My Generation was originally going to be a more complex affair(!), performed on a Danelectro short-scale. Entwhistle confirmed this and explained the problem was he kept breaking a string. Unfortunately, there were no strings of the same type in the UK, so every time he broke a string, they had to dispatch a roadie to the legenday Selmer's shop in 114-116 Charing Cross Road to buy another bass. Once he'd broken a string for the third time, Selmer's were out of Danelectros, so Entwhistle had to perform a simplified version of the solo on a Fender Jazz Bass. What a ground-breaking bass part it was though!
Strangely, I occasionally worked on Entwhistle's gear about a decade before that, when I was a maker and repairer for Paxman Musical Instruments. It wasn't his basses though, it was his many brass instruments. Typically The Who would come off tour and start recording an album. Entwhistle would dig all his French Horns etc out of the closet, and try to play them straight away. Of course, nobody had lubricated the valves since he went on tour, so all the valves would seize up. Getting them running again was a relatively simple task, so it was given to one of the juniors, which was Chas or me. We also had in one of his unusual brass instruments, a miniature version of a tenor horn (although much higher in register) which I think is normally only used in North American marching bands. That one was harder to repair, because Pete Townsend had gone beserk and kicked it right off stage! He was most apologetic, and offered to buy a new one, but you couldn't really get them in the UK, so we lovingly restored the batterred one to new condition.
Weirdly, this story story comes a full circle, because I ended up running the store at 114-116 Charing Cross Road in 1983. By them, Selmer had moved out and it was REW. I specialised in Pro Audio, but we also sold video, TVs, Hi-Fi and some computers. Because Pro Audio outlets were a rare thing back then, we had a lot of famous customers, including Pete Townsend. (I know you were hoping I'd say John Entwhistle, but life isn't always that tidy...)
