The Who formed out of the ashes of two bands. Pete Townshend and John Entwistle had a Dixieland Jazz band called The Confederates while Roger Daltry had a blues band called The Detours. One day, Daltry saw Entwistle walking down the street with his bass and asked him to join The Detours. Entwistle joined and brought Townshend along with him. By 1964, and the addition of Keith Moon on drums, the quartet began calling themselves The Who. But for a brief period in 1964, they changed their name to The High Numbers and released their first single aimed at the burgeoning British Mod scene featuring “Zoot Suit” as the A-side and “I’m The Face” on the B-side. “Face” was written by then-manager Peter Meaden and is a total rip of Slim Harpo’s “Got Love If You Want It.” Listening to it now, you can hear how the band’s sound that they termed “Maximum R’n’B” was already fully-formed and wholly their own. Shortly after the single bombed, the band changed their name back to The Who and began to write their own material at the insistence of their new manager, Kit Lambert, who wisely began molding them after The Rolling Stones and The Beatles. But with Keith Moon as their not-so-secret weapon, The Who stood tall amongst their peers, and far above all of the rest in the music scene of the early 1960s.
