TOWNSHEND/LANE Sing The Almost Middle-Aged Blues
That Peter Townshend should pick the quiet setting of an unassuming, one-shot collaborative album with Ronnie Lane in which to work out some highly personal and private thoughts about his own life is probably the most interesting thing about Rough Mix.
PETE TOWNSHEND/RONNIE LANE Rough Mix
_ (MCA) _
Billy Altman
That Peter Townshend should pick the quiet setting of an unassuming, one-shot collaborative album with Ronnie Lane in which to work out some highly personal and private thoughts about his own life is probably the most interesting thing about Rough Mix. This record has the feel of Mahoney's Last Stand, the soundtrack LP which Lane and Ron Wood worked up on some back porch a while back—plenty of acoustic guitars, banjos and dobro. It's so meek and humble that it almost belies the character of Townshend, at least the one most of us know from his work with the Who. Yet Townshend is undeniably one of the most complex individuals in the rock world and, other than a small collection of songs from over the years ("Sunrise," "The Song is Over" and his one solo LP), we really haven't seen that much of Peter Townshend in relation to Peter Townshend but rather Townshend as mastermind/mentor of the Who.