May 31, 2007 11:48

The Who credit Rolling Stones as their inspiration

And Pete Townshend liked a bit of Smokey too

Pete Townshend of The Who has credited his contemporaries The Rolling Stones as the inspiration for the band's classic 1966 single 'Substitute'.

Townshend has been posting excerpts from his upcoming autobiography 'Who He?' on his own blog website petetownshend-whohe.blogspot.com.

In his blogs, he describes how he became "inspired" after The Rolling Stones manager Andrew Oldham played him a test pressing of their 1966 hit '19th Nervous Breakdown'.

Townshend went on to explain that, "My song began as homage to Smokey Robinson inspired by The Rolling Stones."

He even furthered that a collaboration with Mick Jagger was not out of the question, saying: "You know, he's asked me to work on several records with him and I've very much enjoyed doing it. But he's never suggested that we write together.

"His ex-wife Jerry (Hall used to say all the time, 'You and Pete should write together.' And we would kind of go, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. It may happen, it may not.""