Record Review

By Douglas Watt

Who's on First

Patricia Pilnicki, Frank Hubert, James Grayson, "Unsigned" and God only knows how many other rockers are sure down on me after last Sunday's notice here about a rock opera. The album cover bore the simple legend, in discreetly small type, "Tommy the Who." Tommy the what? Tommy the who, that's what.

Well, Patricia, Frank, James and the other one, in attitudes ranging from scorn to gentle reproach, point out that the title of the work is "Tommy" and that it is performed by The Who, a British combo of some renown.

James calls me "an incompetent, backdated academician." Frank wishes me "the best in the future and peace." Patricia is severe but sincere. And "unsigned" says "At their recent Fillmore East concert, where 'Tommy' was introduced to America, everyone was practically hysterical." Of course, everyone is hysterical all the time at Fillmore East.

But the word must have gotten out there, because although the printed (and sung) text of "Tommy" is exasperatingly vague, James reveals that it is the story of a boy "who becomes deaf, dumb and blind after seeing his father murder his (the father's) lover." Frank, though, says the father slays "his mother's lover" and Tommy becomes a "sensation" after "his mental block" is "removed."

Recording Session

So you see what I'm up against. Peace, girls and boys. With a little help from my friends. . . .

Broadway's "The Front Page" is being recorded today for the first record album production by

BEST SELLERS

Get Back (Beales, Apple) Love Theme From "Romeo & Juliet" (Mancini, Victor) In The Ghetto (Presley, Victor) Bad Moon Rising (Creedence Clearwater Revival, Fantasy) Love (Can Make You Happy) Mercy, Sund) Grazin' in The Grass (Friends of Distinction, Victor)

the 50-year-old Theater Guild . . . . Wally Eaton, bass player with the Classics IV, will be out of the group for six months after an auto accident in Atlanta. Bill Gilmore replaces him. . . . Oscar winner Johnny Green will use some of his own songs of the 1930s in his score for the film "They Shoot Horses, Don't They." . . . Young lady named Betty Chapman sent Capitol a few songs of hers and so flipped the brass that they signed her to a singer-writer contract and promptly recorded her in an album "The Gift of Love" due for July 1 release.

"Stop the wedding! A malfunction has been discovered in the "find-a-mate" computer!"