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Pete Townshend's first mini rock-opera and the title of The Who's second LP.
Even after recording four Townshend compositions, two each from Entwistle and Moon, a contribution from Daltrey plus a cover of Martha & The Vandellas' "Heatwave", The Who discovered that their second album was still a good ten minutes short of acceptable playing time.
It was at this juncture, that Kit Lambert pulled Pete Townshend aside and suggested that he write an extended work to pad out the playing time. Seeing that it was a period when rock songs had still to break the four minute, time barrier, Townshend argued that such a preposterous idea as unworkable. In that case, Lambert further suggested that Townshend compose a bunch of short songs and link them together by way of a single concept.
Voila. Thus history was made.
This recording stems from the legendary unscreened "The Rolling Stones Rock And Roll Circus" - a television special directed by Michael Lindsay-Hogg in 1968 and also featuring The Who, Jethro Tull, John & Yoko, Eric Clapton, Marianne Faithfull, Taj Mahal, Mitch Mitchell, Julius Katchen etc.
Bank-rolled by The Stones themselves to the tune of around L30,000, it was shelved because Jagger is alleged to have been dissatisfied with his performance. Indeed, at one time wheeler-dealer Allen Klein suggested that the footage be expertly re-edited, sold to The Who and screened as "The Who's Rock and Roll Circus featuring The Rolling Stones."
Fortunately, the world didn't hold its breath.
