The Who guitarist close to finishing memoir

NEW YORK - A long-awaited memoir by British rock guitarist and The Who songwriter Pete Townshend will be finished and published by next year, book publisher Harper Collins said on Tuesday.

The 65-year-old musician, idolized since rising to prominence with The Who in the 1960s, said in a statement released by the book publisher the autobiography is "not a vanity for me. It is an essential rite of passage".

Townshend, who Rolling Stone magazine said has been writing a memoir since the 1990s, has forged a reputation not only as the main songwriter for one of Britain's most influential bands, but a rock commentator who has also published works of fiction and essays in the past.