Roger Daltrey: The Who Wouldn’t Exist Without Skiffle

Roger Daltry, The Who singer speaking in a recent edition of MOJO ’60s explains that though they may have been worlds apart in terms of volume, the band owe their existence to the skiffle explosion.

“Every young person could make music – even people with no melody in them, no sense of pitch – could make some kind of noise with a washboard, a tea chest and a broomstick for a bass,” he explains of the original DIY genre in Volume 4 of our decade-spanning spin-off magazine.

“Music became very communal and every street would have a skiffle group. The original nucleus of The Who grew out of Percy Road in Shepherd’s Bush. We used to pretend we were Johnny Kidd And The Pirates. We were a substitute for other guys. That was our purpose. They couldn’t see the real deal but they’d come and see us doing it.”