| Electric Light
Orchestra
|
Richard Tandy, Jeff Lynne, Bev Bevan, Kelly Groucutt
|
| Background information |
| Origin |
Birmingham, England |
| Genre(s) |
Rock, Progressive rock, Arena rock, Pop rock, Electronica |
| Years active |
1970 - 1986
2000 - Present |
| Label(s) |
Harvest Records, Warner Bros. Records,
United Artists Records, Jet Records,
Columbia Records, Epic Records, Legacy Recordings & Sony BMG |
Associated
acts |
The Move
The Idle Race
Wizzard
Violinski
ELO Part II |
| Website |
Official Website |
| Members |
| See Personnel section |
Electric Light Orchestra, also known as ELO, were a rock music group from
Birmingham, England that released
twelve albums between 1971 and 1986, and one album in 2001. The band's direction and focus for most of its history was driven by
Jeff Lynne.
It was in the United States that the band were first warmly received, billed as The
English guys with the big fiddles.[1] They soon gained
a cult following despite lukewarm reviews back in their native United Kingdom. They were
managed by no-nonsense businessman Don Arden (the father of Sharon Osbourne).
By the mid seventies they had become one of the biggest selling rock music bands in the
world. The group scored twenty top-20 UK hit singles, as well as fifteen top-20 appearances in the US Billboard charts. The band also holds the record for having the most Billboard Top 40 hits of any band
in US history, without ever having a #1 single.[2] The band
proved to be an excellent vehicle for confessed Beatles fan Lynne's semi-classical
Beatlesque compositions, steering a fine line between an
album-oriented rock outfit and a hit-making machine.
The group's name is an intended pun based not only on electric light (as in a light bulb as seen on early album covers) but
also using "electric" rock instruments combined with a "light orchestra" (orchestras with only a few cellos and violins that were
popular in Britain during the 1960s).
Biography
Birth of a supergroup
Formed in October 1970 by Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and Bev
Bevan (the remaining members of the 1960s rock group The Move), the band used
cellos, violins, horns
and woodwinds to give their music a classical sound. This was an idea Roy Wood initially had while with The Move to take rock music in a new
direction.
In January 1970, when Carl Wayne left the The Move, Lynne, front man with fellow
Birmingham band Idle Race,
responded to Wood's second invitation to join the line-up with the lure of starting the new band. To help finance the fledgling
project, two more Move albums were released during the lengthy recordings for their eponymous first album between 1970 and 1971, which produced the UK top ten hit
"10538 Overture".
In the United States, this album was released with the mistaken title of No Answer, due to a misunderstanding by an employee at United Artists that wrote "no answer" after failing to reach the correct person. This was later mistaken
for the name of the album.[3]
However, tensions soon surfaced between Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne,this was due to problems with management, recently explained
by Roy Wood, in Mojo magazine. The band went through the first of its many line-up changes as Wood
took cellist Hugh McDowell and horn player Bill Hunt with him to form Wizzard.
Despite predictions from the music press that the band would fold without Wood, who had been the driving force behind the
creation of ELO, Jeff Lynne stepped up to lead the band, with Bevan remaining on drums, joined
by Richard Tandy on the Moog synthesizer,
Mike de Albuquerque on bass, Mike
Edwards and Colin Walker adding cello and Wilfred
Gibson replacing Steve Woolam on violin. The new lineup performed at the 1972 Reading Festival and 'stole the show' thanks
to the innovation of the Barcus Berry pickups now sported by the bands string playing trio, allowing them to dance on stage with
their instruments. Shortly afterwards the band released their second long player ELO 2 in
1973, an album begun before Wood's departure, from which came their first United States chart hit, a hugely elaborate version of
the Chuck Berry classic "Roll Over
Beethoven".
During the recording of the third album, violinist Gibson departed from the band and was replaced by Mik Kaminski. The band released On the Third Day in 1973
featuring the hit "Showdown" (United States album only), with Mike Edwards
playing all the cello parts on side one of the LP due to Colin Walker leaving the
band. Second lead guitar on two tracks from the album ("Ma-Ma-Ma Belle" and "Dreaming of
4000") were contributed by Lynne's friend Marc Bolan. Among the many rock bands photographed
by famous photographer Richard Avedon, he shot ELO with all members exposing their
bellybuttons for an alternate US LP cover, which does show incorrect musicians for its actual studio recording, but has a correct
"Do It With The Light On" Tour lineup that did support this particular album, including Hugh
McDowell. The original album cover and credits fully reproduced for the worldwide remaster are accurate, however the
Japanese tri-fold mini reproduces the original Warner Brothers sleeve.
Global success
In 1974, Lynne hired a thirty-piece orchestra, choir and Louis Clark to begin work on the
next LP, Eldorado, A Symphony by the Electric Light
Orchestra, a concept album about dreams, scoring their first United States Top Ten hit with "Can't Get It Out Of My Head," in 1975, Eldorado would become ELO's first gold album.
After the release of Eldorado, bassist and vocalist Kelly Groucutt and cellist
Melvyn Gale joined, replacing de Albuquerque and Edwards respectively. At this point the
line-up would be at its most stable and enjoy worldwide stardom throughout the remainder of the decade.
Another gold album Face The Music was released
in 1975, its major singles were "Evil Woman",
"Strange Magic", marking a shift to a more "radio friendly" sound, helped along the way by
renowned German producer and engineer Mack. From the same
album, the instrumental "Fire On High", with its mix of strings and blazing acoustic
guitars, saw heavy exposure as background music on CBS Sports Spectacular montages, though most viewers had no idea of the song's
origins, the song features a famous deliberate backward message, where a mysterious deep voice reverses to 'The music is
reversible, but time is not, turn back! Turn back! Turn back!' — ostensibly ELO's shot at backmasking hysteria following completely unfounded allegations of satanic messages were leveled against
their song "Eldorado" by Fundamentalist
Christians. Some years later in the early 1980s, following American Congressional Hearings
on the matter that investigated their 1981 album Time among those of other artists, E.L.O. subsequently answered with
Secret Messages in 1983. Today, "Fire On High" (sometimes including the backmasked message) has become a staple of USA classic rock
radio.
ELO concentrated most of their touring efforts in the United States at this point and they were a star attraction on the
stadium and arena circuit, as well as regularly appearing on The Midnight
Special, although they were still largely ignored in the United Kingdom. The album A New World Record was released in 1976 and became the band's first true breakthrough album on a
global scale, finally giving them their first top ten LP in the United Kingdom. It contained the hit singles "Livin' Thing".A re-recording of Jeff Lynne's composition, for the Move "Do
Ya".With new tracks including, "Telephone Line",
which went gold and "Rockaria!".
A New World Record was followed by another platinum selling album, double-LP Out of the Blue in 1977, although the record's momentum was slowed
somewhat by a lawsuit filed by the band against their former distributor, United Artists,
who they claimed had flooded the United States market with substandard pressings of the album. The double set featured the
singles "Turn to Stone," "Sweet Talkin'
Woman," "Mr. Blue Sky," and "Wild West
Hero," each becoming a hit in the United Kingdom. The band then set out on a nine-month world tour, having ninety-two
dates. The set was an enormous, and hugely expensive, space ship stage, with fog machines and a laser display.
On the United Kingdom portion of the world tour the band played at the Wembley Arena
for eight sold-out nights. The first of these shows was recorded and televised and released recently as a CD, Live at Wembley '78, and DVD, Out of
the Blue: Live at Wembley. In the United States the concerts were billed as The Big Night. The 44-date 'Big Night'
tour played to stadium audiences, including their biggest-ever headlining gig at the Cleveland Stadium to 80,000 people. It was
during the famous spaceship tour the band were criticized for allegedly playing backing tapes. [4]
In 1979,the multi-platinum album Discovery (or
"Disco very" as has been quoted),was released. This album generated their biggest hit, the gold single "Don't Bring Me Down" along with "Shine A
Little Love" (sampled in 2005 by Lovefreekz for a dance hit called "Shine"),
"Last Train to London" (sampled in 2003 by Atomic
Kitten on their hit "Be With You"), "Confusion" and
"The Diary of Horace Wimp". In the same year, Randy Newman wrote "The Story of a Rock and Roll Band", an ELO tribute song about "The English boys from
Birmingham", including the lyrics, "I love their "Mr. Blue Sky;" almost my favorite is
"Turn to Stone;" and how 'bout "Telephone Line?" I love that E.L.O.!" This song appeared on his album,
Born Again.
Although there would be no live tour associated with Discovery, the band also recorded the entire album in video form.
Not long after this, the violinist Mik Kaminski and the two cellists Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale were dismissed. The Discovery music videos would be the last time the original late 1970's line-up would be
seen together. The Electric Light Orchestra finished 1979 as the biggest selling act in the United Kingdom.
In 1980, Jeff Lynne was asked to write for the soundtrack of the musical film Xanadu, the other half written by John Farrar and performed by
Olivia Newton-John, who starred in the movie. The movie performed poorly at the box
office, but the soundtrack did well by going multi-platinum. Hit singles from both Newton-John ("Magic," #1 in the United States)
and "Suddenly" with Cliff Richard) and ELO ("I'm Alive", which went gold, "All
Over The World" and "Don't Walk Away") as well as
the title track to the movie, performed by both Newton-John and ELO. It is ELO's only song to top the singles chart in the United
Kingdom.[5] The Electric Light Orchestra Story, Bev
Bevan's memoirs from his early days and throughout his career with The Move and ELO, was also published in 1980.
In 1981, ELO's sound changed again with the science-fiction concept album
Time, reaching the number one spot for 2 weeks in the
United Kingdom and was their last gold album. Singles from the album included "Hold On
Tight," "Twilight," "The Way Life's Meant To Be," "Here Is the News,"
and "Ticket to the Moon," with synthesizers largely replacing strings. The band
embarked on their last world tour to promote the LP. The live line-up would have no cello players for the first time; instead
they recruited Louis Clark (who had previously conducted the strings for their albums from
1974 to 1980) and Dave Morgan to play the string sounds on synthesizers; Mik Kaminski also
appeared with his famous "blue violin", and "Fred the Robot" voiced the "Prologue" and "Epilogue".
Decline
By 1983 it was assumed that band leader Jeff Lynne had grown tired of ELO, when he announced that there would be no tour to
promote the new album Secret Messages. This was coupled with the news that
drummer Bevan was to play drums for Black Sabbath and of bassist Kelly Groucutt's
departure from the band. Rumours from fans about the group disbanding were publicly denied by Bev
Bevan. Sales of the new album were relatively slow and most music reviews further added to the problems.
Secret Messages reached number four in the United Kingdom. The album was
originally recorded as a double album, but CBS had different ideas, citing that it would be too expensive. Some of the songs that
did not make the cut later appeared as B-sides and on box sets. However, the tribute
song "Beatles Forever" is still unavailable through official sources. Shortly after this
album, Kelly Groucutt sued Jeff Lynne,
Bev Bevan, and ELO's management for alleged lost royalty fees. The matter was settled out of
court.
By 1984, Bevan had expressed a desire to join Black Sabbath permanently, Lynne and
Tandy were recording tracks for the Electric Dreams soundtrack under
Jeff Lynne's name, and with Groucutt's departure, ELO was assumed to be finished. Bevan left Black Sabbath and joined Lynne, who
needed to make one more ELO album to fulfill his contract.
Lynne, Bevan and Tandy returned to the studio in 1985 as a three-piece (with Christian Schneider playing saxophone on some tracks) to record ELO's final album of the 20th century, Balance of Power, released early in 1986. Though the single "Calling America" placed in the Top 30 in the United Kingdom (#28), subsequent singles failed to chart.
The album was absent of actual classical strings except for very well done keyboard replications by Richard Tandy and had minimalist album art, missing the customary ELO logo that had appeared on every
album since 1976. Lynne re-formed the 7-piece Time Tour band (with Martin Smith replacing Groucutt on bass) for a small
number of live ELO performances in England and Germany, including the Heartbeat charity concert (organized by Bevan) on March 15
in ELO's hometown of Birmingham and ELO's last performance, prior to 2001, on July 13 in Stuttgart. A hint of Lynne's future was seen when George Harrison
appeared onstage during the encore at Heartbeat, joining in the all-star jam of "Johnny B. Goode".
There was no announcement made of ELO's status during the next two years, when Harrison's Lynne-produced album
Cloud Nine and the pair's follow-up (with Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty)
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 were released. Bevan approached Lynne to make
another ELO album in 1988. Lynne was not interested and ELO was formally disbanded.
ELO Part II
Bev Bevan subsequently formed his own band titled ELO Part II, initially with no other
former ELO members except Louis Clark. ELO Part II released their debut album Electric Light Orchestra Part Two in 1990. Mik Kaminski, Kelly Groucutt
and Hugh McDowell joined the band for the first tour in 1991. McDowell left after that tour. Bevan, Groucutt, Kaminski and Clark
recorded a second album in 1994 and toured extensively until 1999. Bevan retired in 1999 and sold his share of the ELO name to
Jeff Lynne in 2000. The remaining members continue to tour and record, renamed as The
Orchestra.
Reformation in 2000
Jeff Lynne's comeback with ELO started in 2000 when a retrospective box set was released, three CDs of remastered tracks and a
handful of outtakes and unfinished works were released on Flashback, most notably a new version of ELO's only UK number one hit
"Xanadu".
In 2001, Zoom, ELO's first album since 1986, was released. Upon completion of the
album Lynne reformed the band with completely new members including his then-girlfriend Rosie Vela (who had released her own
album "Zazu", in 1986) and announced that ELO would tour again. Zoom took on a more organic sound, with less emphasis on
strings and electronic effects. Guest musicians included former Beatles Ringo Starr and George Harrison. Former ELO member Richard Tandy rejoined the band a short time afterwards for two television live performances:
VH1 Storytellers and a PBS concert shot at CBS Television City later
titled Zoom Tour Live that was released on DVD, the planned tour was cancelled due
to many unknown factors, in mid-August 2001.[6] The tour
was not rescheduled due to lack of interest and slow ticket sales.
EMI and Epic/Legacy released ELO's back catalogue from 2001 to 2007; included amongst the
remastered album tracks were unreleased songs and outtakes, including a new single "Surrender" which did register on the lower end of the UK Singles Chart at #81 for the band, some 30 years after it was first recorded.
Today much of ELO's music is used in Hollywood movies, TV and advertisements, including films such as the track "Twilight" was
used in the opening (animated) sequence of the immensely popular Densha Otoko drama in
Japan. Doctor Who series, the episode "Love And Monsters" featured an ELO-obsessed major
character who is in search of the Doctor. Also car commercials such as VW (2005) and Honda, then also Sears Department Stores,
both in 2007.
A tribute to ELO, namely L.E.O., features original material written by devotees of Lynne's
unique orchestrated sound. American musician Bleu, brought together various musicians to record this 'tribute' in 2007. Andy
Sturmer, of seminal ELO/Queen/Beatles influenced band Jellyfish co-wrote and provided
some vocals for the project. The songs are written entirely in Lynne's style and mimic ELO's orchestration and production to a
very high standard.
Current releases
Although there has been no news on any forthcoming new ELO projects, ELO's core studio albums have now all been remastered and
expanded with bonus tracks, leaving only The Night the Lights Went On (in Long Beach), ELO's Greatest Hits,
Xanadu, Zoom and ELO's Greatest Hits Live AKA Zoom Tour Live to be done. Latest in the Epic/Legacy
series were Out of the Blue and
Balance of Power which were released in February 2007. A lost demo from
1977 was finished and released in the United Kingdom as a download single on February 6,
2007 titled "Latitude 88 North".
All the original ELO albums were released in mini replica sleeves in Japan. One of the many features, was the original
Jet Records label on the disc and original inner sleeves and lyrics.
To further cash in on the success of the re-masters, and the Traveling Wilburys,
another ELO compilation hits the UK shops on October 15, 2007. This is the sequel to All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light
Orchestra called Ticket to
the Moon: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra Volume 2.
Band logo
The official band logo (left), designed in 1976 by artist Kosh, was first seen on
their 1976 album A New World Record and is based on the upper cabinet of a
1946 Wurlitzer jukebox, model 4008. The band's previous logo
(right) was similar to the General Electric logo. The new logo has appeared on most of the bands albums in various forms. For instance, on
1977's Out of the Blue the logo was turned in to
a huge flying saucer space station, an enduring image that is now synonymous with the band. Again, on the follow up
Discovery, the logo became a small glowing artifact on
top of a treasure chest. Bev Bevan usually displayed the logo on his drum kit.
Personnel
Members on studio albums
- Jeff Lynne - vocals, guitar, bass guitar, keyboards, drums, cello, backing vocals,
producer, songwriter and arranger (1970-86, 2000-)
- Roy Wood - vocals, guitar, bass guitar, cello, clarinet, bassoon, oboe, drums, recorder,
producer, songwriter and arranger (1970-72)
- Bev Bevan - drums, backing vocals (1970-86)
- Bill Hunt - keyboards, french horn, hunting horn (1971-72)
- Steve Woolam - violin (1971)
- Richard Tandy - keyboards, guitar, bass, co-arranger (1972-86, 2000-)
- Mike de Albuquerque - bass guitar, backing vocals (1972-74)
- Wilfred Gibson - violin (1972-73)
- Mik Kaminski - violin (1973-79, '83)
- Colin Walker - cello (1972-73)
- Mike Edwards - cello (1972-74)
- Hugh McDowell - cello (1973-79)
- Louis Clark - Co- arranger and conductor (1974-79, '83)
- Kelly Groucutt - bass guitar, lead vocal, backing vocals (1975-83)
- Melvyn Gale - cello (1975-79)
- Dave Morgan - vocals, guitar (1983)
- Marc Mann - lead guitar, rhythm guitar, keyboards, cello arrangements (2000-01)
Guest musicians on studio albums
