One of the many things that made The Who so unique is that
each member of the band had such a distinct and iconic personality.
Consequently, Pete the Genius, Roger the Tough Guy, and Keith the Madman have
all been the topics of multiple biographies. As the Quiet One, John Entwistle
had not. Had he been, the flimsiness of that oft-used label may be
better known. Entwistle may have been a man of few words and the one member of
The Who who refrained from leaping around on stage, but he was also the most
enduring Rock & Roll animal in the group. He remained a restless,
relentless partier, an incorrigible spender seemingly dedicated to materialism
above all else, and a serial philanderer right up until his death in 2002.
John had many vices, and though his incredibly unhealthy
lifestyle (fried foods, chain smoking, coke, booze, and a refusal to ever
exercise) is what caused his early demise, it was his spending that seemed the
worst of them. Blowing his millions on a fleet of cars he didn’t know how to drive,
clothes he’d only wear once, and heaps of guitars, guns, toy soldiers, suits of
armor, and other doo-dads seemed to be a way to fill some void in his soul. Why
was John Entwistle—one-quarter of one of Rock’s greatest bands; often thought of
as Rock’s greatest bass player— so empty?
There are clues in Paul Rees’s long-overdue The Ox: The Authorized Biography of The
Who’s John Entwistle. John Entwistle was the product of a broken home and
seemed to genuinely miss his father’s place in his life. He seemed to resent
Pete Townshend’s “genius” status. He certainly resented being passed over in so
many discussions of his band. Rees alludes to but never really stresses the
source of Entwistle’s emptiness, which makes The Ox a compelling compilation of anecdotes but a somewhat incomplete
portrait of a notoriously mysterious man. This is particularly true in the
pre-eighties portion of Rees’s book since much of that Who-era material has
appeared in many other books on the band. John’s ex-wife Alison (an
interview subject in this book) and Townshend have both categorized him as “a romantic.” Aside
from brief yet touching anecdotes from Entwistle’s son Christopher about his
dad’s affectionateness and generosity, this is a side Rees doesn’t really show
us. Consequently, John tends to come off as flippant, self-indulgent, and as we
get closer to the sordid end of his life, bitter. I would have liked to see
more of the positive attributes aside from his humor and spectacular
musicianship that caused so many people to love him.
Unquestionably, the biggest boon of The Ox is that Rees had access to the autobiography Entwistle began
in 1990 but did not complete aside from four chapters and “a sprawl of notes.”
Rees includes chunks of that aborted work, so we get to read Entwistle’s
personal accounts of his childhood, how he designed his first bass, the first
time he met The Beatles, the Murray the K shows of 1967, the Monterey Pop
Festival, and Woodstock. These excerpts are blackly funny, well written, and
don’t dig too deep below the surface—just what we’d expect from the guy
who composed “Boris the Spider” and “My Wife”. When these excerpts peter out
about 130 pages into the book, The Ox feels
like it has lost its voice.
