Roger Daltrey

When Sayer launched his own career as an solo artist, Daltrey called on a widening group of friends to write for and perform on his albums. Paul McCartney contributed the new song "Giddy" to One of the Boys, where the band included Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee and Mick Ronson. On this cover, another visual trick is played with Daltrey's mirror image, with reference to Magritte's famous painting Reproduction Interdite. McVicar was billed as a soundtrack album for the film of the same name, in which Daltrey starred and also co-produced. It featured all the other members of The Who at the time (Townshend, Entwistle and Kenney Jones). McVicar included two hit singles, "Free Me" and "Without Your Love", which is Daltrey's best-selling solo recording. On release, Parting Should Be Painless received a mixed critical reception and it was Daltrey's poorest selling studio album up to that point. It featured one song contributed by Roxy Music's frontman, Bryan Ferry, and one song written by the Eurythmics. The title track to Under a Raging Moon was a tribute to the former Who drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978, at the premature age of 32. Each of the album's tracks, including "Let Me Down Easy" by Bryan Adams, expresses the frustration of growing older as only a man who sang "I Hope I die before I get old" can. On his next album Rocks in the Head, Daltrey's voice ranges from a powerful bluesy growl à la Howlin' Wolf to the tender vocals shared with his daughter Willow on the ballad "Everything A Heart Could Ever Want". This was his first major effort as a songwriter for his own solo career.