Hip-O Records
2006
Deep End Live!
About This Album
Pete Townshend and the Deep End Band played live for two benefit outings -- November 1 and 2, 1985 at the Brixton Academy -- to help support Townshend's own "Double O' Charities. The performances are excerpted here and were used in a made-for-home-video, also called Pete Townshend's Deep End Live!. Initially, a promotional 12" EP of the show was released to AOR radio stations in August of 1986. However, significant interest in the project would ultimately yield a 10-song LP which was issued to retail a few months later. Townshend (guitar and vocals) is backed by an ensemble that includes a core band of John "Rabbit" Bundrick (keyboards), Chucho Merchán (bass), and Simon Philips (drums) with Peter Hope-Evans (harmonica), Gina Foster (backing vocals), Billy Nicholls (backing vocals), and Jody Linscott (percussion) as well as an eight-piece brass section. When compared to the Who, the extended instrumentation provides Townshend with a larger sonic pallet to work from. The artist takes full advantage on the stylish update of the R&B classic "Barefootin'," and a suitably dramatic overhaul of "I Put a Spell on You." Plus, perhaps just to demonstrate his top-shelf taste in modern music, the English Beat's "Save It for Later" is a stone gem with the intimacy of an "unplugged" type of backing complete with sax -- by either Tim Saunders or former Stiff Little Fingers member Simon Clarke.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,8 and 10)

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