Daltrey sings for a new generation

It's 40 years since Roger Daltrey first hollered, "Hope I die before I get old" and captured the anger and frustration of his generation. But only now, at 60 and 10 times a grandfather, is life making sense for the frontman of the legendary British rock band the Who.

Daltrey's onstage charisma powered the Who to fame in the 1960s and 70s as much as Pete Townshend's caustic lyrics and furious guitar chords. In Britain's New Year's honours list he received a CBE for his services to music.

He has also just made his first video/DVD for tiny tots. Daltrey, better known for his microphone-twirling performances before thousands of screaming fans, provides the singing and speaking voice for a friendly green dragon on an animated The Wheels on the Bus video for an independent California production company.

"Having children and now grandchildren it all sounded like a great idea. Yeah, 10 grandchildren. It's just fantastic. Finally life is starting to make a bit of sense," says Daltrey

He admits the gentle pre-school video animation of the classic children's song is a new departure for a singer whose band was notorious for smashing its instruments and playing at deafening volume.

"I don't see Roger Daltrey as anything other than an everyday human being," he says. "I've never been over-protective about the image side of the rock'n'roll business. That leaves you at the age of 40.

"To me, all that's left is the music you play, and in that sense the Who is as powerful now as it ever was."

In a career marked by break-ups, solo projects and triumphant reunions, Daltrey has added many more strings to his bow. He has worked as an actor and used rock music to raise funds for sick children's charities in Britain.

"Our business was founded on the back of teenagers so it's good to put something back," he says.

The Wheels on the Bus video came to him through friends and he was drawn to the idea of involvement in "harmless entertainment" for 2- to 4-year-olds.

It was also "a great way of introducing music to a new generation of kids - maybe even the grandchildren of teenagers who grew up listening to the Who".

The original Who line-up is now down to Daltrey and Townshend, after the deaths of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 and bassist John Entwistle in 2002.

After years of talking about it, Daltrey and Townshend are getting back together to work on what could be the band's first studio album since It's Hard in 1982.

Townshend's working title is Who2, which he describes on a website as "only partly tongue in cheek".

Daltrey is excited by the prospect, but recognises that recording as the Who again will be odd.

"There is only Pete and I left. First thing we'll do, the two of us, is go in and make music just together. Then we're going to get our stage band together and work around involving them in whatever that band creates, which is a different thing again."

Daltrey attributes the continuing popularity of the Who to Townshend's "totally unique" style of music rather than his own sexually charged live performances.

"I can't be objective about my role. I've never seen me and I've never seen the Who. There is an energy in the Who's music which is undeniable but that is in the writing," he says.

With a growing clutch of old rock stars refusing to fade away, as the Who sang in My Generation, Daltrey looks to the next 10 years with equanimity.

"Who knows what we're going to be like when we're 70? In a bathchair on the seafront at Eastbourne?

"I'm hoping I will be very happy in the bathchair if that's how it has to be but I'm hoping not.

"Music lives inside of me. I don't ever feel happier than when I'm performing."

- REUTERS