The Who's Tommy was like nothing that had come before. In an era when singles still drove much of the music market, and "concept albums" usually consisted of quite separate songs tenuously connected by some theme or other, Pete Townshend's idea for a genue rock opera was ambitious to say at least.It is said that "The Who" made Tommy and Tommy made "The Who". Until 1969, "The Who" were little known in the US. Due to legal problems with the producer Shel Talmy they recorded much less than the other bands of the 1960s and were constantly on tour to make money. Then came Tommy, which rescued the band from financial ruin and turned "The Who" into superstars, making them millionaires along the way. At the beginning of the 1960s, an album was merely a collection of singles. Then came the concept album. Tommy is the rock opera that everyone remembers. There has never been anything quite like it before or since--a rock album that has been made into a mainstream movie and a Broadway-style musical. At first, Tommy's story of a deaf, dumb and blind kind, who becomes a pinball wizard, then a rock guru, was condemned as pretentious. The word circulated that it held some deep philosophical messages and was inspired by Meher Baba, Townshend's Indian guru.
