Chris Stamp, Co-Manager Of The Who, Dead At 70

Chris Stamp, a former co-manager of The Who and founder of the Track Records label, died on Saturday at the age of 70.

According to TODAY, a native of London’s East End, Stamp met The Who in 1963 while working with business partner Kit Lambert on a documentary about the British rock scene.

Stamp and Lambert became friends with the band and shortly after became The Who’s co-managers. In 1967, the two co-managers launched Track Records with the release of the Jimi Hendrix Experience’s “Purple Haze” single and the album Are You Experienced?

Stamp worked on the production of the Who’s 1968 album Magic Bus and was the executive producer of Tommy, Who’s Next, Quadrophenia and the soundtrack for the 1975 film Tommy.

After a split with The Who in the mid-1970s, Stamp and Lambert moved Track Records to New York. This is where they produced records for the soul group Labelle.

Stamp left the rock world behind after entering rehab in 1987. He later became a therapist with specialties in psychodrama and addiction counseling.

Stamp died of cancer at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City.

At a concert in Detroit on Saturday night, Roger Daltrey (the founder and lead singer of The Who) paid tribute to Stamp. Daltrey called Stamp a man “without whom we wouldn’t be the band we were.”

Daltrey the went on to say that Stamp “flew into the universe on a pair of rainbow wings. Chris, we can never thank you enough — well, I can’t, for what you brought to my life.”

According to Billboard.com, Daltrey and Pete Townshend then performed a duo rendition of “Tea & Theatre” that, while not specifically dedicated to Stamp, certainly had the quiet and dignified air of a tribute.