In the 1960s, it wasn’t every day you saw a musician take to breaking their instrument. In general, you’d think a musician would covet their tools to a near-obsessive point. So, when Pete Townshend first smashed his guitar on the rooftop at Railway Tavern in Harrow, London, it was quite the shock.
“The guitar smashing was basically marketing,” Townshend once said of that fateful moment. “I knew it was going to work, but I had to use real guitars, and that was because I am primarily a musician and I wanted it to be real.”
Videos by American Songwriter
Townshend is largely credited with creating the guitar smash, and rightly so. He certainly popularized the practice. But Townshend himself gave credit to another: a musician who would go on to become Stevie Wonder‘s frequent producer. Find out how that visionary mind helped shape this classic rock stunt that would proliferate for decades.
The Producer That Inspired the Very First Guitar Smash
Amid The Who’s early years, Townshend took in a seminar at Ealing Tech from Malcolm Cecil, a musician who would later shape Wonder’s classic period in the 1970s with his unique talent for synths.
At this guest lecture, Cecil went full rock & roll, smashing his bass guitar and sawing at the strings. The young onlookers were delighted by this deliberate and caustic action. Townshend was clearly deeply moved, following in his footsteps a short while later at the Railway Tavern.
“[He] beat me to the punch,” Townshend once said. “He went on to co-produce Innervisions for Stevie Wonder, and he was bass player with the Johnny Scott Quintet. A girl in my class went out with the flautist and she invited Cecil to come and give a talk. Halfway through the talk he started to get carried away, saying, ‘There are lots of different ways you can play the bass; you can play it like this, or like that.’ And then he started to bang it.”
“Somebody had been doing something on the stage with a saw, and it was still there,” he added. “He picked it up and said, ‘You can even saw at the bass,’ and he started to saw through his strings, and we all stood up and cheered!”
Townshend noted the reaction from his peers and used it to his advantage when he took the stage himself. Revisit one of Townshend’s best guitar smashes above.
(Photo by P. Floyd/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
More Features
-
CIRCA 1977: Rock and roll band "The Beach Boys" pose for a portrait in circa 1977. (L-R) Carl Wilson, Mike Love, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson, Al Jardine. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) -
LOS ANGELES – AUGUST 1977: Cellists Melvyn Gale and Hugh McDowell, violinist Mik Kaminsky, guitarist and singer Jeff Lynne, drummer Bev Bevan, bassist Kelly Groucutt, and piano player Richard Tandy of the rock and roll band "Electric Light Orchestra" perform onstage in August 1977 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Richard Creamer/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) -
UNIONDALE, NY – FEBRUARY 28: Billy Joel performs at Nassau Coliseum on December 11, 1977 in Uniondale, New York. (Photo by Bobby Bank/Getty Images) -
OS ANGELES – SEPTEMBER 24: The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour Dionne Warwick, pictured. (Show Date October 25, 1970). Image dated September 24, 1970. Los Angeles, CA. (Photo by CBS via Getty Images) -
CIRCA 1975: Pop Singer Elton John plays piano as he performs onstage in a bowler cap and a striped red and black scarf in circa 1975. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images) -
Kate Bush en concert au théâtre des Champs-Elysées à Paris le 6 mai 1979 (Photo by Jean-Louis URLI/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) -
Kenny Rogers performing at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey on August 19, 1982. (Photo by Ebet Roberts/Redferns)
