Electric Light Orchestra
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The Electric Light Orchestra, also known as ELO, were a popular British rock band from the 1970s and early 1980s. Their leader was musician and songwriter Jeff Lynne, who wrote and sang most of their music, and produced their recordings. Other members included Richard Tandy on keyboards, Bev Bevan on drums, Mike De Albuquerque and later Kelly Groucutt on bass guitar. Hugh McDowell, Mik Kaminski, and Melvyn Gale played violin and cello.
The band began as a side project of another band, The Move, headed by musician Roy Wood. While the Move had added touches of classical music to their pop hits, Wood and Lynne wanted to fuse rock music and classical music more closely. Move drummer Bevan joined their project, and Wood played nearly all the non-rock instruments on their first album. They made the most of recording studio technology, including multitrack recording and overdubbing.
Their first album was titled Electric Light Orchestra, and was issued this way in the UK. When the album was issued in the United States, their American record label, United Artists, didn't know the album was titled after the group's name, and phoned their British label to ask for the title. When nobody answered, "No Answer" was noted, and later mistaken for the album title, so the album appeared in America as No Answer. The band's first single was titled "10538 Overture", and became an FM radio favourite. In time ELO's music became more popular than The Move's had been. The Move disbanded, and Electric Light Orchestra became a full-time group.
Roy Wood decided to leave ELO after the first album, and he started another band called Wizzard. Jeff Lynne took over leadership, and McDowell, Kaminski and Gale joined. Another album, Electric Light Orchestra II, was released, but was not as successful as the first. A single, a cover version of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven", added portions of numerous Beethoven compositions to Berry's song, and became another radio hit.
Their third album, On the Third Day, included a rock interpretation of "In the Hall of the Mountain King", and another hit single, titled "Showdown". ELO began to tour the United States, to small audiences at first. They became more popular with time, and added theatrical touches to their shows. New contact microphones made it possible for the classical musicians to move around and even dance onstage, as pop musicians did, and the audiences enjoyed watching them.
By their fourth album, Eldorado, ELO had gone from overdubbing their small membership to recording with real orchestras. They had problems when they worked in their native England. British classical musicians tended to keep more to union rules, than to the job of making music, and sometimes walked out during recordings. This hurt the process of making their records, so ELO tried a studio called Musicland in Munich, Germany. They liked the way the studio worked, and the German musicians were more devoted. ELO used Musicland many more times.
Their next album, Face the Music, yielded two hit singles, "Strange Magic" and "Evil Woman", and ELO became even more popular. A compilation album, Olé ELO, featured most of their early singles. Three songs from their 1976 album, A New World Record, became worldwide hits. These were "Telephone Line", "Livin' Thing", and "Do Ya", which was a remake of a Move song.
ELO recorded a double album in 1977, Out of the Blue, which included "Turn to Stone", "Sweet Talkin' Woman", and "Mr. Blue Sky", which also became hit records. The band toured worldwide, with a stage set that looked like a UFO, which opened to reveal the band performing inside. Their shows included lots of stage lighting, and laser effects.
Their next new album, Discovery, did not appear until 1979. ELO's record label, Jet Records, changed distributors from United Artists to Columbia Records, and this was part of the delay. Discovery included two singles, "Shine a Little Love" and "Don't Bring Me Down". "Don't Bring Me Down" was the first ELO single to not include any classical instruments. Columbia issued a Greatest Hits album, which overlapped some of the Olé ELO songs with later ones.
ELO's popularity lessened during the 1980s, and they had fewer hits. They recorded the Xanadu soundtrack with singer Olivia Newton-John, and also released the albums Time (including the title song, and "Hold On Tight" as singles) in 1981, Secret Messages (with "Stranger") in 1983, and finally Balance of Power, which included "Calling America", in 1985. By this time the classical musicians had departed, with Lynne now recording their parts with synthesisers or session players.
Jeff Lynne was now producing other recording artists, including The Everly Brothers, and stopped working with Electric Light Orchestra in 1986. Most of the remaining members, though, wanted to continue working together, and regrouped, first as a band named OrKestra, then later as "ELO Part II". These lineups toured for years, playing ELO's old hits and releasing two albums of new material, while Lynne continued his producing career. Lynne also released a solo album, Armchair Theatre, in 1989, and formed the Travelling Wilburys with former Beatle George Harrison.
Lynne recorded an album, Zoom, in 2000, again using the ELO name, but with a new set of musicians. He made a handful of television appearances with the new lineup, playing both old and new songs, and planned to tour with them. Interest in the band was not strong, though, and most of the shows were cancelled. ELO Part II also became inactive.
Electric Light Orchestra's music had only a weak presence in popular culture from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s. Their unique blend of classical and rock music made their music hard to place in radio playlists, and most of their songs were recorded before music videos were common, so they had little to offer MTV and video music shows. Their music has re-emerged in the 2000s, through its use in movie soundtracks, and also in commercial jingles such as for Monster.
[edit] Albums
- The Electric Light Orchestra (aka No Answer in USA) (1971)
- Electric Light Orchestra II (1973)
- On the Third Day (1973)
- Eldorado (1974)
- Face the Music (1975)
- Olé ELO (1976) (best-ofs)
- A New World Record (1976)
- Out of the Blue (1977)
- Discovery (1979)
- Greatest Hits (1979)
- Time (1981)
- Secret Messages (1983)
- Balance of Power (1986)
- Zoom (2001)