John Entwistle

At 57 years old, John Entwistle physical status not available right now. We will update John Entwistle's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

After joining the Detours, Entwistle played a major role in encouraging Pete Townshend's budding talent on the guitar, and insisting that Townshend be admitted into the band as well. Eventually, Daltrey fired all the members of his band with the exception of Entwistle, Townshend and the drummer Doug Sandom, a semi-pro player who was several years older than the others. Daltrey relinquished the role of guitarist to Townshend in 1963, instead becoming frontman and lead singer. The band considered several changes of name, finally settling on the name the Who while Entwistle was still working as a tax clerk (temporarily performing as the High Numbers for four months in 1964). When the band decided that the blond Daltrey needed to stand out more from the others, Entwistle dyed his naturally light brown hair black, and it remained so until the early 1980s. Around 1963, Entwistle played in a London band called the Initials for a short while; the band broke up when a planned resident engagement in Spain fell through.

Entwistle picked up two nicknames during his career as a musician. He was nicknamed "The Ox" because of his strong constitution and seeming ability to "eat, drink or do more than the rest of them". He was also later nicknamed "Thunderfingers". Bill Wyman, bass guitarist for the Rolling Stones, described him as "the quietest man in private but the loudest man on stage". Entwistle was one of the first to make use of Marshall stacks in an attempt to hear himself over the noise of his band members, who famously leapt and moved about on the stage, with Townshend and Keith Moon smashing their instruments on numerous occasions (Moon even used explosives in his drum kit during one television performance on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour). Townshend later remarked that Entwistle started using Marshall amplification to hear himself over Moon's rapid-fire drumming style, and Townshend himself also had to use them just to be heard over Entwistle. They both continued expanding and experimenting with their rigs, until they were both using twin stacks with new experimental prototype 200 watt amps, at a time when most bands used 50–100 watt amplifiers with single cabinets. All of this quickly gained the Who a reputation for being "the loudest band on the planet"; they reached 126 decibels at a 1976 concert in London, listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the loudest rock concert in history. The band had a strong influence at the time on their contemporaries' choice of equipment, with Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience both following suit. Although they pioneered and directly contributed to the development of the "classic" Marshall sound (at this point their equipment was being built or tweaked to their personal specifications), they only used Marshall equipment for a few years. Entwistle eventually switched to using a Sound City rig, with Townshend later following suit. Townshend points out that Jimi Hendrix, their new label mate, was influenced beyond just the band's volume. Both Entwistle and Townshend had begun experimenting with feedback from the amplifiers in the mid-1960s, and Hendrix did not begin destroying his instruments until after he had witnessed the Who's "auto-destructive art".

Entwistle's wry and sometimes dark sense of humour clashed at times with Townshend's more introspective, intellectual work. Although he wrote songs on every Who album except for Quadrophenia, Entwistle was frustrated at Daltrey not allowing him to sing them himself. As he said, "I got a couple [of songs] on per album but my problem was that I wanted to sing the songs and not let Roger sing them." This was a large part of the reason that he became the first member of the band to release a solo album, Smash Your Head Against the Wall (1971) which featured contributions from Keith Moon, Jerry Shirley, Vivian Stanshall, Neil Innes and the Who's roadie, Dave "Cyrano" Langston.

He was the only member of the band to have had formal musical training. In addition to the bass guitar, he contributed backing vocals and performed on the French horn (heard on "Pictures of Lily" and throughout Tommy), trumpet, piano, bugle, and Jew's harp, and on some occasions he sang the lead vocals on his compositions. He layered several horns to create the brass section as heard on songs such as "5:15", among others, while recording the Who's studio albums, and for concerts, arranged a horn section to perform with the band.

While Entwistle was known for being the quietest member of the Who, he in fact often exerted major influences on the rest of the band. For instance, Entwistle was the first member of the band to wear a Union Jack waistcoat. This piece of clothing later became one of Townshend's signature garments.

In 1974, he compiled Odds & Sods, a collection of unreleased Who material. Entwistle designed the cover art for the band's 1975 album, The Who by Numbers, and in a 1996 interview remarked that it had cost £30 to create, while the Quadrophenia cover, designed by Pete Townshend, had cost £16,000.

Entwistle also experimented throughout his career with "Bi-amping", where the high and low ends of the bass are sent through separate signal paths, allowing for more control over the output. At one point his rig became so loaded down with speaker cabinets and processing gear that it was dubbed "Little Manhattan", in reference to the towering, skyscraper-like stacks, racks and blinking lights.

While Townshend emerged as the Who's songwriter-in-chief, Entwistle began making distinctive contributions to the band's catalogue, beginning with "Whiskey Man" and "Boris the Spider" on the A Quick One album in 1966, continuing with "Doctor, Doctor" and "Someone's Coming" (1967); "Silas Stingy", "Heinz Baked Beans" and "Medac" from The Who Sell Out (1967); "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" (1968); and "Heaven and Hell", with which the Who opened their live shows between 1968 and 1970. Entwistle wrote "Cousin Kevin" and "Fiddle About" for the Who's 1969 album Tommy because Townshend had specifically requested Entwistle to write 'nasty songs' that he felt uncomfortable with. "My Wife", Entwistle's driving, comedic song about marital strife from 1971's Who's Next, also became a popular stage number. He wrote "Success Story" for The Who by Numbers (1975), for which he also drew the illustration on the album cover; "Had Enough", "905", and "Trick of the Light" for Who Are You (1978); "The Quiet One" and "You" for Face Dances (1981); and "It's Your Turn", "Dangerous" and "One at a Time" for It's Hard (1982), his final album with the Who.

In 1971, Entwistle became the first member to release a solo album, Smash Your Head Against the Wall, which earned him a cult following in the US for fans of his brand of black humour. Other solo studio albums included: Whistle Rymes (1972), Rigor Mortis Sets In (1973), Mad Dog (1975), Too Late the Hero (1981), and The Rock (1996). The band was preoccupied with recording The Who by Numbers during the spring of 1975 and did not do any touring for most of the year, so Entwistle spent the summer performing solo concerts. He also fronted the John Entwistle Band on US club tours during the 1990s, and appeared with Ringo Starr & His All-Starr Band in 1995. A talented artist, Entwistle held regular exhibitions of his paintings, with many of them featuring the Who. In 1984, he became the first artist besides Arlen Roth to record an instructional video for Roth's company Hot Licks Video.

In 1990, Entwistle toured with the Best, a short-lived supergroup which included Keith Emerson, Joe Walsh, Jeff "Skunk" Baxter, and Simon Phillips. Towards the end of his career, he formed the John Entwistle Project with longtime friend, drummer Steve Luongo, and guitarist Mark Hitt, both formerly of Rat Race Choir. This evolved into the John Entwistle Band, with Godfrey Townsend replacing Mark Hitt on guitar and joining harmony vocals. In 1996, the band went on the "Left for Dead" tour with Alan St. Jon joining on keyboards. After Entwistle toured with the Who for Quadrophenia in 1996–97, the John Entwistle Band set off on the "Left for Dead – the Sequel" tour in late 1998, now with Gordon Cotten on keyboards. After this second venture, the band released an album of highlights from the tour, titled Left for Live and a studio album Music from Van-Pires in 2000. The album featured lost demos of Who drummer Keith Moon together with newly recorded parts by the band. In 1995, Entwistle also toured and recorded with Ringo Starr in one of the incarnations of Starr's All-Starr Band. This one also featured Billy Preston, Randy Bachman, and Mark Farner. In this ensemble, he played and sang "Boris the Spider" as his Who showpiece, along with "My Wife". Toward the end of his career he used a Status Graphite Buzzard Bass, which he had designed. From 1999 to early 2002, he played as part of the Who. Entwistle also played at Woodstock '99, along with Mickey Hart, being the only performers there to have taken the stage at the original Woodstock. As a side project, he played the bass guitar in a country rock album project of original songs called the Pioneers, with Mickey Wynne on lead guitar, Ron Magness on rhythm guitar and keyboards, Roy Michaels, Andre Beeka on vocals, and John Delgado playing drums. The album was released on Voiceprint. Shortly before his death, Entwistle had agreed to play some US dates with the band including Nashville's Grand Ole Opry, following his final upcoming tour with the Who.

In 2001, he played in Alan Parsons' Beatles tribute show A Walk Down Abbey Road. The show also featured Ann Wilson of Heart, Todd Rundgren, David Pack of Ambrosia, Godfrey Townsend, Steve Luongo, and John Beck. That year he also played with the Who at the Concert for New York City. He also joined forces again with the John Entwistle Band for an 8-gig tour. This time Chris Clark played keyboards. From January–February 2002, Entwistle played his last concerts with the Who in a handful of dates in England, the last being on 8 February at London's Royal Albert Hall. In late 2002, an expanded 2-CD Left for Live Deluxe was released, highlighting the John Entwistle Band's performances.

Between 1996 and 2002, Entwistle attended dozens of art openings in his honour. He chatted with each collector, personalising their art with a quote and a sketch of "Boris". In early 2002, Entwistle finished what was his last drawing. "Eyes Wide Shut" represented a new style for Entwistle. Featuring Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend, Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton, Entwistle's style had evolved from simple line drawings and caricatures to a more lifelike representation of his subjects. He was more confident and relaxed with his art and ready to share that with his collectors.

Entwistle wrote this on one of his pictures:

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