Toward the close of the John Entwistle documentary ‘AN OX’S TALE‘ (dir Glenn Aveni/Steve Luongo, 77 mins, 2006) when almost at the end of a life that stopped at the age of 57 in 2002, the subject of the piece shows a few caricature sketches of fellow rock stars he was fond of drawing.
‘I’m a much better bass player than I am an artist,’ remarks Entwistle in his customary growling tones, the comment self-deprecating, but true – for had Entwistle’s drawings matched his musicianship, he would have been an English Picasso rather than the most distinguished bass player in rock history.
From his mid-teens to a final breath taken in a Las Vegas hotel room, John Alec Entwistle (born Chiswick, London 9/10/1944) was bass guitarist of The Who, which as understatement is akin to saying Bob Dylan writes songs.
As rock musician contributors to this watchable documentary (narrated by Peter Frampton) testify, Entwistle was a bass player of incredible innovation and fluidity (not to say volume) – his thundering, yet textured sound fundamental to the rousing cacophony created by a group widely regarded as the finest live act of all time.
In fact as Sting once said: ‘The Who would not have been The Who without John Entwistle.’
Insight with regard to him as a personality away from the stage and recording studio is provided by his mother and son – while Entwistle, the long-standing friend and band member, is depicted by Who guitarist Pete Townshend and stalwart sound-man Bobby Pridden.
Given a friendship dating back to before they were teenagers, Townshend is able to conjure images of them growing up in a post-war West London of ration books and bomb sites. Their close bond, forged at Acton County Grammar School, eventually led to formation of a busking duo that played to drinkers in local pubs.
By this stage Entwistle was nurturing an interest in brass instruments (in their twosome he played trumpet and Townshend banjo as they performed a loose form of trad-jazz). His capabilities on French Horn are surprisingly overlooked in the documentary as Entwistle went on to add an extra dimension to the sound of The Who, particularly on works such as ‘Quadrophenia.’
Enlisted into local group The Detours, led by a Shepherd’s Bush youth named Roger Daltrey, when a rhythm guitarist was suddenly required Entwistle recommended his friend Pete – whose enrolment necessitated John switching to bass. Despite a name change and madcap drummer still to arrive, formation of The Who had moved another step closer.
‘John made his own first bass,’ recalled Townshend, ‘great over-length thing with long strings. He wanted to be a lead guitarist but decided to defer knowing I could play really good guitar so picked up the bass and started tinkering with it.’
Townshend went on: ‘You quickly got the feeling that okay he’s playing the bass, but not really as he’s doing something completely different – and what he realised was he had the power to change the instrument.’
Entwistle himself described the change as ‘moving to bass was a whole new ball game. I was teaching myself to play as there weren’t many people to copy.’
After Keith Moon decided he very much wanted in and brought his whiplash, individualistic playing to the mix, each element of the most explosive sound popular music had yet heard was finally in place.
Now called The Who and aligned to the emerging youth culture movement known as ‘Mods’ their musical potency came with the added drama of Townshend and Moon smashing their respective instruments at the end of each performance.
Two brilliant singles, ‘I Can’t Explain‘ and ‘Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,’ during the first half of 1965 brought them UK chart success, but their reputation as standard-bearers of rebellion was exemplified in their third hit ‘My Generation.’
With his most astonishing composition yet, Townshend destroyed any notion of conformity, tapping into the revolutionary mood of the times – The Who producing the most incendiary performance ever captured on a three-minute record.
Bristling with urgency, ‘My Generation‘ featured vocal stutters, hyperactive drumming, crunching guitar chords – and for the first time in rock and roll history soloing on the bass guitar.
‘When you first heard those bass solos it blew your mind,’ comments American hard rocker Billy Squier, while Deep Purple and Rainbow bassist Roger Glover offers a broader perspective.
‘That was when the bass guitar really opened up from skiffle. Through that dull thud, it went to the early rock and roll riffs through to the melodic style of McCartney. But what you hear on ‘My Generation’ is a bass sound with an edge to it – and that had never been heard before.’
As the career of this pioneering, most extraordinary of rock bands unfolded, Entwistle is heard to brilliant effect on such landmark albums as ‘The Who Sell Out,’ ‘Tommy,’ ‘Live at Leeds,’ ‘Who’s Next,’ ‘Quadrophenia‘ and ‘The Who By Numbers.’
All through his playing ranges from subtle to sinewy and proves hugely influential:
‘John influenced me greatly,’ remarks Yes bassist Chris Squire, ‘I was trying to get that piano sound he was able to produce, trying to emulate him.’
Indeed, ‘An Ox’s Tale‘ makes a strong case for Entwistle being responsible for pushing the bass guitar to prominence as a rock instrument, his impact reverberating on generations of bass players to come.
Entwistle’s songwriting contributions (save some early-80s live footage of ‘Who’s Next‘ favourite ‘My Wife‘) and solo album career are pretty much overlooked in favour of illuminating his presence within The Who – the point often made that amidst the mic twirling, guitar flourishes and frenzied percussion Entwistle stood as a musical flak tower, firing off bass notes like tracer bullets.
Former Rainbow front-man Joe Lynn Turner offers the view, ‘you could see the intensity in his playing, he didn’t need to jump around,’ while Entwistle, reflecting on his role as the stationary member of an otherwise frenetic stage combo, remarked:
‘There was always a lot of space for me to fill and I found myself playing bass, rhythm and lead. The thing about Who shows is we were all solo musicians – we all went out and played solo. The early career was exciting as we would never know what we were going to play next.’
As their fame spread so The Who became depicted as four distinctly different personalities, Entwistle describing the perceptions as, ‘Keith was the crazy one, Roger the glamorous singer, Pete the intelligent one, so what can we call the bass player? Oh he’s the quiet one.’
He also reveals origins of the nickname that provides the title of the film: ‘The Ox came not from how big I was but I had the constitution of one – I could always seem to eat and drink more than the rest of them.’
Through interview footage Entwistle describes the difference in playing with Kenny Jones to Moon, the former Small Faces and Faces drummer joining The Who after the death of Moon in 1978. But following a 1982 ‘Farewell‘ tour they entered a long period of inactivity, barely playing live again until 1989 by which time Jones had departed.
Retreating again during the first half of the 90s, Entwistle appears to have occupied himself by collecting classic American cars and building up an enormous array of bass guitars, this while living in the quiet luxury of a mansion in the English countryside.
There were occasional outings with his own band, but during these periods of relative quiet Entwistle comes across as somewhat adrift – Pridden and mother Queenie attesting he found true happiness in front of a concert audience.
When Townshend agreed to reviving The Who as a touring entity in 1989 it was on the proviso of reducing the decibels of their shows, the consequence for Entwistle being instruction to turn down – prompting addition of more musicians to replicate a sound he had defined.
‘What people perhaps didn’t or don’t understand is that in the halcyon days of The Who,’ states Townshend, ‘John with his open harmonic bass sound was playing like a Bach organ, rich with harmonics.’
The main beneficiary of these quieter performances was Daltrey (not seen during the documentary) who could hear himself above the music, Entwistle revealing they had constantly clashed over the volume of his playing. Although initially acceding to the request, he admits to increasing the level through the duration of a show – Daltrey the apparent loser in this particular battle of wills.
Nevertheless, as the new Millennium dawned The Who, now stripped back to a six-piece unit including Townshend’s younger brother Simon on guitar, a keyboard player and Zak Starkey on drums, were making regular concert appearances (‘basically celebrating the old music‘ opines Townshend).
Despite not recording any new material for twenty years, The Who were about to start a sell-out US tour when Entwistle, renowned as a heavy drinker and smoker, was found dead from a cocaine induced heart-attack in a Las Vegas hotel room on 27 June 2002.
Faced with the dilemma of whether to cancel the tour and consign those working behind the scenes to unemployment (along with disappointing fans travelling great distances to be present), Townshend and Daltrey, while dealing with their personal grief, decided to proceed – for which they are rounded on by radio ‘personality‘ Jim Ladd.
As if to emphasise his ‘personality‘ credentials, earlier in the documentary Ladd describes how he ‘imbibed some of Dr. Timothy Leary’s snake oil for the (Who) show, to enhance the experience.’ (For many sight and sound of The Who was elevation enough). This unnecessary footnote is due to Ladd once being behind the amps on Entwistle’s side of the stage at a concert – but in terms of inanity then outdoes himself by stating:
‘I thought it was disgusting to not give a second, a moment to grieve for a man you had been through all those years with and all that rock history. In the end what does that mean if it’s just the tour must go on.’
In response to the comments, which are crass and misinformed, Townshend indirectly responds by saying, ‘It’s hard looking across the stage and he’s not there – the first time I looked over and he wasn’t there, hand on heart I wanted to die.’
In a final appraisal of their long relationship, Townshend goes on to reflect, ‘He never said you and I have known each other since we were children, but it was always there. In the early days John really started to empower me and was very encouraging. He used to constantly say to me ‘you’re a good musician’. I can’t say through our career I supported him the way he supported me then – but without him I wouldn’t even be here.’
For the uninitiated ‘An Ox’s Tale‘ is a decent entree into the accomplishments of a remarkable musician, although one watch will send Who fans hurrying to ‘Bargain,’ ‘The Real Me,’ ‘Dreaming From the Waist‘ or any other example of the flair and finesse John Entwistle was able to create.
In a quiet, sadly prophetic scene captured near the end of his life, he is asked how he would like to be remembered.
‘I guess I’d like to be remembered as someone who changed the face of the bass guitar,’ he says, ‘and being the only bass guitarist who hasn’t been copyable.’
Not sure there is such a word as ‘copyable‘ – but its damned certain there will never be another bass player like John Entwistle.
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book.
