Pete and Karen on their wedding day, 20th May 1968.

The Genius of

PT's Home Studio

After marrying Karen Astley in 1968, the newlyweds moved into a mid-18th century home in Twickenham, outside London. After years of creating demos in home studios wherever he was living -- by his reckoning in 1982, Twickenham was Home Studio No. 6 -- Pete had a little more space to build the studio he needed. He had friends who could help him create it, too.

It wasn't long before Pete had built enough of a home studio to produce a No. 1 UK single, albeit for Thunderclap Newman and not The Who. Yet, it made enough of an impact to attract Chris Morphet out to Twickenham to document what Pete had built. And then he returned a year later to photograph Pete in his studio again, as Townshend's Lifehouse concept was being constructed. Some of Morphet's images have appeared so often now that a few may even be considered iconic. Perhaps more than anything, they illustrate what many have come to know: The Genius of PT.

Click through the slideshow below to see the impressive setup Pete established in just a short time, and be sure to compare the studio -- and Pete -- as they evolve in the photos.

(For much more info on Pete's studios and gear, check out the Whotabs site, as well as this archived story from Rolling Stone -- be sure to find the paragraph about "There's a Fortune in Those Hills").