John Alec Entwistle was born in Chiswick, a London suburb, in 1944. He joined Roger Daltrey in a pre-Who band, The Detours, in the early 1960s.
Sometimes known as "Ox", he was generally regarded as the quiet person in The Who. Bill Wyman described him as "the quietest man in private but the loudest man on stage."
John Entwistle was a talented songwriter and artist. He wrote several well-known Who songs including:
Cousin Kevin
My Wife
Boris The Spider
In addition to his work with the Who, Entwistle was an accomplished solo artist, releasing a number of solo albums beginning in the 1970s.
John Entwistle died in 2002 in Las Vegas, on the eve of the first show in a US tour. Italian-born bassist Pino Palladino replaced him on stage.
The Las Vegas medical examiner determined that death was due to a heart attack induced by an undetermined amount of cocaine. Though the amount in his bloodstream may not have been great, the drug caused his coronary arteries — already damaged by a pre-existing heart condition — to contract, which led to the fatal heart attack.
