About The Who

The Who seeking 50 years of memorabilia

Hey fans! The Who need your help!

As the band preps for its 50th anniversary tour, members of the group are asking fans around the world to share everything from rare and lost recordings to old radio and TV performances, concert footage, demos, rare photos and other Who memorabilia.

Need an example of exactly who or what The Who is seeking? The group says there's a Dutch fan who's been holding onto "The High Numbers at the Railway Hotel" since 1964. In other words, if it's in your closet, attic, basement or storage facility it's probably of interest to the band. Better yet, The Who says it will include the best and most interesting of all the items in its forthcoming anniversary releases, crediting the fans who offered the items and giving each fan two VIP tickets to a show on its upcoming tour.

How do you reach The Who? Fans with extraordinary items can email the group at thewho@umusic.com. The Who is scheduled to put out a greatest hits collection, "The Who Hit's 50!" on October 28, 2014, as well as prepping for a Who Hits 50! Tour that will send them through arenas in the U.K. this fall and in North America throughout 2015. The band will also mark its golden anniversary with releases and events designed to "commemorate the group's cultural impact" around the world.

At a press conference back in June, The Who spoke of the upcoming tour as "the beginning of the long goodbye," saying the band will stop touring before they stop playing as a band.

Who are The Who? (Created April 10, 2013)

If you were going to form a rock band in England, the 1960's was the time to do it. Thankfully, The Who got the memo. Part of the so-called wave known as The British Invasion, four guys would join forces to start a band forever linked with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Still, The Who was a force in its own right and has been going strong for nearly 50 years.

Throughout their career, The Who has released 11 studio albums, including seven that have landed on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. All totaled, the band has sold more than 100 million records, charted 27 top forty singles, and 17 top ten albums. And after all this time, they're still heralded for their energetic live performances which still sometimes include the guitar smashing instrument destruction the band made famous.

Though these hard rockers originally started out with Roger Daltrey, Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon, it's been the former two that have kept the band going (after the passing of both Entwistle and Moon). Widespread recognition came with their third album, "The Who Sell Out," in 1967. "Happy Jack" was released as a single; "I Can See For Miles," came next, and their fame grew with performances at various music festivals, including Woodstock. Eventually, the 1969 release of "Tommy" was their first in a series of seven top ten albums in the US.

Would you believe The Who is still one of the top acts in the music business? In February 2010 they performed the halftime show of Super Bowl XLIV. A month later came a stop at Royal Albert Hall, and by the fall they had announced the release of the Fortieth Anniversary Super-Deluxe Collectors' Edition of their "Live at the Leeds" album. Then came 2012, a 35-date tour and a chance to perform at the closing ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games.

Inductees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, winners of various Lifetime Achievement Awards and called "the greatest band of all time" at VH1 Rock Honors, The Who has firmly cemented its place in history. Who's going to dispute that? Probably no one.