Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton may have been masters of ’60s lead playing, but Pete Townshend was the god of rhythm guitar –and he was just as unhinged on the acoustic

A portrait of a long-haired Pete Townshend playing a Martin dreadnought capoed at the 5th fret, with striped curtains in the background.

Conjure an image of The Who’s axeman and songwriter Pete Townshend, and you’ll most likely picture him leaping through the air whirlwind strumming a Gibson SG or shoving a guitar headstock-first through a Marshall 4 x 12 cab.

However, Townshend’s innovations as an electric guitarist are mirrored in his acoustic work. Check out the powerful, dynamic strumming of Pinball Wizard, the sophisticated use of moving triads in Substitute, or the delicate and classy 12-string picking on Sunrise, and you’ll hear a guitarist who took the acoustic in a new, untapped direction in the 1960s.