[Haden, from Page E1]

last week by the independent label Bar/None, and now she has a new set of concerns.

"I'm kind of nervous about what these die-hard Who fans are going to think," she says, fretting her way through lunch at a deli near her sister Tanya's MacArthur Park-area home. "Like, they're going to want to kill me."

Not the Who fan who matters most.

"I heard the songs as if for the first time, and I was really pleased to hear how beautiful they are," says the Who's Pete Townshend. "In many cases Petra has released nuances that might be lost to the casual listener to the Who's album. For example, the vocal harmonies on 'I Can See for Miles' are carefully analyzed, and you hear all the parts….

"She's so smart, because she

SHE CAN SEE FOR MILES: Petra Haden is assembling a choir to perform the album live.

listened first to what was on the original record before she started her own thesis with it. That is such a gift for one musician to give another — to really listen."

"The Who Sell Out" is Townshend's favorite Who album, an

opinion shared by many fans of the English band. Simultaneously a celebration and a spoof of the era's pop radio experience and the youth culture it embodied, it stitched together a set of varied songs with original jingles

for Radio London and comical commercials for such products as Odorono deodorant.

Musically, the album brought out a lot of the Who's Beach Boys side, as well as touches of music

[See Haden, Page E11]