Page "Pete Townshend" Paragraph 10

Townshend is one of the key figures in the development of feedback in rock guitar.

When asked who first used feedback, Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore said, " Pete Townshend was definitely the first.

But not being that good a guitarist, he used to just sort of crash chords and let the guitar feedback.

He didn't get into twiddling with the dials on the amplifier until much later.

He's overrated in England, but at the same time you find a lot of people like Jeff Beck and Hendrix getting credit for things he started.

Townshend was the first to break his guitar, and he was the first to do a lot of things.

He's very good at his chord scene, too.

" Similarly, when Jimmy Page was asked about the development of guitar feedback, he said, " I don't know who really did feedback first ; it just sort of happened.

I don't think anybody consciously nicked it from anybody else.

It was just going on.

But Pete Townshend obviously was the one, through the music of his group, who made the use of feedback more his style, and so it's related to him.

Whereas the other players like Jeff Beck and myself were playing more single note things than chords.