Roger Daltrey released eight solo albums. The first was the self-titled Daltrey in 1973, the album was recorded during a hiatus time in The Who's touring schedule. The top single off the album, "Giving it All Away", reached number five in the UK and the album, which introduced Leo Sayer as a songwriter, made the Top 50 in the United States. The inner sleeve photography shows a trompe-l'œil in reference to the Narcissus myth, as Daltrey's reflection in the water differs from his real appearance. He also released a single in 1973, "Thinking" with "There is Love" on the B-side. Bizarrely, the British release, with considerable airplay of "Giving it All Away" (first lines "I paid all my dues so I picked up my shoes, I got up and walked away") coincided with news reports of The Who being sued for unpaid damage to their hotel on a recent tour, including a TV set being thrown out of the window.

Daltrey's second solo album, Ride a Rock Horse, was released in 1975 and is his second most commercially successful solo album. Its cover was photographed by Daltrey's cousin Graham Hughes, which is remarkable for depicting the singer as a rampant centaur.

When Sayer launched his own career as an solo artist, Daltrey called on a widening group of friends to write for and perform on his albums. Paul McCartney contributed the new song "Giddy" to One of the Boys, where the band included Hank Marvin, Eric Clapton, Alvin Lee and Mick Ronson. On this cover, another visual trick is played with Daltrey's mirror image, with reference to Magritte's famous painting Reproduction Interdite.

McVicar was billed as a soundtrack album for the film of the same name, in which Daltrey starred and also co-produced. It featured all the other members of The Who at the time (Townshend, Entwistle and Kenney Jones). McVicar included two hit singles, "Free Me" and "Without Your Love", which is Daltrey's best-selling solo recording.

On release, Parting Should Be Painless received a mixed critical reception and it was Daltrey's poorest selling studio album up to that point. It featured one song contributed by Roxy Music's frontman, Bryan Ferry, and one song written by the Eurythmics.

The title track to Under a Raging Moon was a tribute to the former Who drummer Keith Moon, who died in 1978, at the premature age of 32. Each of the album's tracks, including "Let Me Down Easy" by Bryan Adams, expresses the frustration of growing older as only a man who sang "I Hope I die before I get old" can. On his next album Rocks in the Head, Daltrey's voice ranges from a powerful bluesy growl à la Howlin' Wolf to the tender vocals shared with his daughter Willow on the ballad "Everything A Heart Could Ever Want". This was his first major effort as a songwriter for his own solo career.