ROGER Daltrey's new album, As Long As I Have You, will feature Pete Townshend, his perennial partner in The Who.

"This is a return to the very beginning, to the time before Pete started writing our songs, to a time when we were a teenage band playing soul music to small crowds in church halls," says 74-year-old Daltrey, whose last solo set was Rocks In The Head in 1992.

"That's what we were, a soul band. And now, I can sing soul with all the experience you need to sing it. Life puts the soul in. I’ve always sung from the heart but when you’re 19, you haven’t had the life experience with all its emotional trials and traumas that you have by the time you get to my age.

"You carry all the emotional bruises of life and when you sing these songs; those emotions are in your voice. You feel the pain of a lost love. You feel it and you sing it and that's soul."

"The album shows Roger at the height of his powers as a vocalist," says Townshend, who contributes guitar to seven tracks on the June 1 release on Polydor Records. Mick Taylor, from The Style Council and Dexys, guests on keyboards; Sean Genockey, who has worked with Suede, The Proclaimers and Shame, pops up on lead guitar too.

As Long As I Have You was produced by Dave Eringa, who linked up once more with Daltrey after overseeing his Top Five album with Wilko Johnson, Going Back Home, in 2014. Work on the new record started shortly after the gold-selling Going Back Home was released and continued during breaks on The Who’s record-breaking 50th anniversary tour, The Who Hits 50.

The album is a mixture of self-penned tracks, such as Certified Rose and the soulful ballad Always Heading Home, plus songs that have inspired Daltrey through the years, such as Nick Cave’s Into My Arms, Stevie Wonder's You Haven’t Done Nothing and Stephen Stills’ How Far. The title track was recorded originally by Garnet Mimms in 1964; the year that Daltrey, Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon changed their name from The High Numbers to The Who.

"For a long time, I've wanted to return to the simplicity of these songs, to show people my voice, a voice they won't have heard before," says Daltrey. "It felt like the right time. It's where I am, looking back to that time, looking across all those years but also being here, now, in the soulful moment."

The track listing will be: As Long As I Have You; How Far; Where Is A Man To Go?; Get On Out Of The Rain; I’ve Got Your Love; Into My Arms; You Haven’t Done Nothing; Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind; Certified Rose; The Love You Save and Always Heading Home.