![\"Pete](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pete-Townshend-Guitarist-The-Who-1970s-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Wed 26 November 2025 9:51, UK <\/p>\n
After a childhood beleaguered by bullying, Pete Townshend<\/a> found frenzied escape in music, prompting him to say, \u201cRock \u2018n\u2019 roll may not solve your problems, but it does let you dance all over them.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s a pithy little quote that outdoes itself. With 17 words, he distilled the history of a cultural movement down to a single sentence. The original Black pioneers propagated the art form as a way to push through exultant liberation despite the problems surrounding them. Townshend himself has picked up that very mantle.\u00a0<\/p>\n How can you listen to something like \u2018Baba O\u2019Riley\u2019 and have a single care left in this whole damn world? This was something that The Who proudly brandished against the boredom of the world and the greyness they had known growing up. As Townshend put it, \u201cYou can simply decide that you\u2019re gonna be cool, and you can be cool.\u201d That swagger abides in each of his favourite guitarists, too.<\/p>\n When it comes to the heroes who have made him dance, Townshend is usually quite reticent \u2013 a meta marker of that \u2018coolness\u2019. Iconoclastic criticism, on the other hand, is his wry forte. \u201cWhen you actually hear the backing tracks of The Beatles without their voices, they\u2019re flippin\u2019 lousy,\u201d he once said. As for Led Zeppelin<\/a>, he opined: \u201cI don\u2019t like a single thing that they have done, I hate the fact that I\u2019m ever even slightly compared to them.\u201d<\/p>\n However, he isn\u2019t always silver-tongued. Over the years, he has also heaped praise on the pioneers who inspired him. He might not have many favourites, but that keeps his plaudits meaningful. We\u2019ve collated these with his five favourite guitarists below, from his early hero Howlin\u2019 Wolf to the ever-present excellence of Jimi Hendrix.<\/p>\n Pete Townshend\u2019s favourite guitarists:\u00a0<\/p>\n Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy) Wed 26 November 2025 9:51, UK After a childhood beleaguered by bullying, Pete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":221102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[116000,96,36499,23630,111218,128,33162,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-284941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-bo-diddley","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-eric-clapton","11":"tag-jimi-hendrix","12":"tag-link-wray","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-pete-townshend","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom","17":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}