The Who documentary recalls singer's thuggish youth

By Dean Goodman

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Roger Daltrey may be a fully fledged rock star these days, the exuberant voice of The Who, but during the band's early years he was the weakest link, a violent brawler briefly fired by his bandmates.

Guitarist Pete Townshend, bass player John Entwistle and drummer Keith Moon were ingenious musicians. Daltrey, an Elvis wannabe, was merely the mouthpiece for the introspective songs that Townshend had written, struggling to inhabit such early U.K. hits as "My Generation" and "Substitute."

Daltrey, the band's nominal leader, dealt with his frustration the only way he knew how -- with his fists.

The former sheet-metal worker was a "bit of a yob, a bit of a thug," Townshend relates in a new DVD documentary, "Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who," which comes out November 6.

"I was just young, headstrong," Daltrey, now 63, explained in a recent interview with Reuters. "I came from a tough neighborhood, and that's how we solved problems. I was inarticulate, and over-testosteroned."

The bully was tossed out for four weeks in 1965 after he knocked Moon unconscious. He was allowed back into the band on probation, and continued to flounder, lacking the others' expressive power.

The shift in the band's dynamic echoed a transformation in the Rolling Stones, when initial leader Brian Jones was usurped by nascent songwriters Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. But Daltrey's story has a happier ending.

'TOMMY' TO THE RESCUE