Didn't realize that they were presumed missing, but this article in today's New York Times states that the multitracks were recently returned to Townshend. Here's the relevant portion.
In late 2020, Brian Kehew was working at the venerable Hollywood studio Sunset Sound when the owner asked him to help identify some tapes the Who had left behind. It was not an unusual request for Kehew, who has done tape transfers and mixes on hundreds of archival recording projects over the last 30 years, and serves as a tech and sometime backing musician for the band. He expected to find some overdubs or a safety copy of a master, nothing particularly important.
When he got his hands on the reels, he was shocked: The studio was sitting on all the original two-inch multitracks of the group’s 1975 album, “The Who by Numbers,” as well as previously unreleased songs from those sessions.
“I immediately contacted Pete Townshend, and we arranged to send the tapes back to England,” Kehew, a blond-haired Southern California native, said in a recent interview at his North Hollywood studio, which was lined with rare, vintage and obsolete tape machines. “The band had been looking for the tapes for years, but this was one place they hadn’t thought to check.”
In late 2020, Brian Kehew was working at the venerable Hollywood studio Sunset Sound when the owner asked him to help identify some tapes the Who had left behind. It was not an unusual request for Kehew, who has done tape transfers and mixes on hundreds of archival recording projects over the last 30 years, and serves as a tech and sometime backing musician for the band. He expected to find some overdubs or a safety copy of a master, nothing particularly important.
When he got his hands on the reels, he was shocked: The studio was sitting on all the original two-inch multitracks of the group’s 1975 album, “The Who by Numbers,” as well as previously unreleased songs from those sessions.
“I immediately contacted Pete Townshend, and we arranged to send the tapes back to England,” Kehew, a blond-haired Southern California native, said in a recent interview at his North Hollywood studio, which was lined with rare, vintage and obsolete tape machines. “The band had been looking for the tapes for years, but this was one place they hadn’t thought to check.”
