Roger Daltrey (1973) The Story So Far- LOST 70s GEMS

Daltrey, is the debut solo album of Who vocalist Roger Daltrey and features an interesting cover photo with Daltrey's pearly blue eyes and cherubic curls framed in a locket with his given sunny back lit like it's on fire and a Greco-Roman lettered design where Daltrey printed around the circular head shot like a coin or a design found in a temple. The Way of the World is a classical mix of Daltrey's operatic growl, classical piano and very bluegrass guitar solo and violin work. You are Yourself features dramatic use of reverbed drenched vocals and the usal Elton John soft rock mix of piano strings that Daltrey and many others were aping in 73; John's peak. Countrified solos persist in this song too, while the lyrics concern the message of staying true to yourself but the gigantic chamber reverbed section makes him sound like he is fading away, trapped and full of pathos. His bluesy vocals are sung with an erratic gusto in the big band, horn driven melange that is It's a Hard Life; the flute and heavy strings reflect the rugged, downtrodden nature of the song. Giving it All Away is one of many of the songs written by future superstar Leo Sayer and while the two artists are so different their mix of earnest boyish nature is comparable and the chorus is sung with exuberant by Daltrey.


All the songs are connected and seem to flow in and out of each other in tempos of their similar tempos and feels, it's all orchestrated balladry but it works with the array of songwriting talent from Dave Courtney and the occasional break like Ska Reggae beat and furious saxophone lines of The Story So Far, or the splintering, meowing multi-guitar solo, organ vamps and shimmering acoustic strumming of Reasons; I thought it was an outtake called There is Love, that Jimmy Page played on but the lead on Reasons sounds so much like Page's on Joe Cocker's cover of With a Little Help from my Friends, which this tune sounds like a ripoff of.