Electric Light Orchestra
ELO
Leff Lynne
History
1970-1973: Creation of the group and the first albums
In the late 1960s, Roy Wood, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter for The Move, had the idea of creating a new band that would play violins and bugles to give the music a classic style. Jeff Lynne, frontman of The Idle Race, became interested in this idea. In January 1970, Lynne accepted Wood's second offer to join the group on the condition that they fully focus on the new project.
"10538 Overture" was the first song of the Electric Light Orchestra. To finance the band, The Move released two more albums while recording the album Electric Light Orchestra. As a result, the debut album The Electric Light Orchestra was released in 1971 and "10538 Overture" took 9th position in England.
Nevertheless, soon there was a tense state between Wood and Linne, which was the result of problems with management. During the recording of the second album, Wood left the band, taking violinist Hugh McDowell and bugler Bill Hunt to organize Wizzard. In the music press there were opinions that the group would fall apart, since it was Wood who was behind the creation of the band. Jeff Lynne prevented the disintegration of the group. Beav Bevan played drums, Richard Tandy joined them - on synthesizers, Mike de Albuquerque on bass, Mike Edwards and Colin Walker played cellos and Wilfred Gibson replaced Steve Voulam with a violin. The new lineup was introduced in 1972 at the Reading Festival. Shortly thereafter, in January 1973, the band released the second album ELO 2, which featured the first hit of "Roll Over Beethoven".
During the recording of the third album, Gibson and Walker left the band. Mik Kaminski joined as a violinist, and at the same time Edwards finished his activities in the band before McDowell returned to ELO from Wizzard. As a result, the album On the Third Day was released in late 1973. The American edition of this album included the hit "Showdown", released a few months earlier in the form of a single that reached number 12 in the UK singles chart, and became one of the most popular songs of the Electric Light Orchestra. Since this album, the definite article "The" in the band's title is omitted.
1974-1982: World Recognition and Conceptual Albums
The fourth album of the group Eldorado became the band's first concept album and reached the gold status in the USA. The single "Can not Get It Out Of My Head" from this album was the first hit of the Electric Light Orchestra, which hit the Billboard Hot 100 (took 9th position). After the release of this album, the band was joined by bassist and vocalist Kelly Grockatt and guitarist Melvin Gale, replacing de Albuquerque and Edwards.
The fifth album Face the Music was released in 1975, it included such hit singles as "Evil Woman" and "Strange Magic". ELO was successful in the United States, they collected stadiums and auditoriums. But in the UK they still did not have such success before they released the sixth album A New World Record, which topped the top-10 in 1976. He included such hits as "Livin 'Thing", "Telephone Line", "Rockaria!" And "Do Ya", re-recording the songs of The Move. A New World Record became the second platinum album in America.
The next album Out of the Blue included such singles as "Turn to Stone", "Sweet Talkin 'Woman", "Mr. Blue Sky "and" Wild West Hero ", which became hits in England. Then the band went on a nine-month world tour. They carried an expensive spacecraft and a laser display. In the United States, their concerts were called The Big Night (Big Night) and were the most grandiose in the history of the band. 80,000 people came to the concert at Cleveland Stadium. During this "space" tour, many criticized this group. But despite this criticism, The Big Night became the most highly visited live concert tour in the world until that moment (1978). The band also played at Wembley Arena for eight evenings. The first of these performances was recorded, and later published on LD, CD and DVD.
In 1979 he released a multi-platinum album Discovery, which brought to the band hits "Do not Bring Me Down", "Shine A Little Love", "Last Train to London", "Confusion" and "The Diary of Horace Wimp". The album was criticized for his disco motives. The face of the cover of the album was the 19-year-old, then unknown Brad Garrett, who later became a famous comic actor and television producer. The video for Discovery is the last one where you can see the band in their classic line-up.
In 1980 Lynne was asked to write a soundtrack to the musical film Xanadu. The rest of the song was written by John Farrar, and they were performed by the famous Australian singer Olivia Newton-John. The film had no commercial success, while the soundtrack twice became platinum in the USA. A musical Xanadu was staged on Broadway. The opening took place on July 10, 2007. "The History of the Electric Light Orchestra," Beva Bevan's memoirs of those distant days and his career in The Move and ELO were published in 1980.
In 1981, the sound of ELO, on Time's conceptual album, dedicated to time travel, changed. Synthesizers began to play a dominant role. The album's singles included Hold on Tight, Twilight, The Way Life's Meant to Be, Here Is the News and Ticket to the Moon. The band went on a world tour.
1983-1986, 1989: Secret Messages, Decay and ELO Part II
The next album Secret Messages, Jeff Lynne, wanted to release double, but CBS rejected this idea, arguing that the costs would be too high. The album was released as a solo album in 1983. After the release of the album, the bad news followed: there will not be a tour in support of the album, drummer Beav Biwan is now playing for Black Sabbath, and bassist Kelly Grouckatt left the band. There are rumors that the group is breaking up. Especially Secret Messages only got to the fourth place in the UK charts, and soon completely left it.
In 1986, the last original album of the band Balance of Power was released, which the musicians recorded already three together (Lynn, Bevan and Tendi), and Jeff also played bass. The success of the album was even more modest than that of Secret Messages, only the song "Calling America" stayed for a time in the charts. After the release of the album, Jeff Lynn officially announces the dissolution of the band, as it is no longer bound by contractual obligations to the recording.
Later, the group scourged drummer Bevan recreated the team, consisting of 4 ex-participants of ELO (Bevan, Groukatt, Kaminski and Clark), adding to the abbreviation of the word ELO Part II. The ELO Part II team was mainly engaged in touring, and the overwhelming majority of the songs performed were songs written by Jeff Lynn. The frontman of the band was Kelly Grockatt. There have been numerous trials between Linn and ELO-2, which resulted in the ELO being recognized as belonging exclusively to Jeff Linn. ELO-2 was forced to change the name to The Orchestra. Several times the group ELO-2 came on tour to Russia (last concerts - April 28, October 6, 2006 in Moscow, November 9, 2007 and December 4, 2008 in St. Petersburg, December 10, 2009 in Moscow, a concert tour November- December 2011).
2000: Reforming
In 2001, Jeff Lynne released another studio album under the brand name ELO: Zoom, where he played guitar, bass guitar, keyboards and percussion. From the old line-up there was keyboardist and longtime friend Lynn Richard Tandy, who, however, participated only in recording the track "Alright". Also, Ringo Starr (played in the songs "Moment in Paradise" and "Easy Money") and George Harrison (a slide guitar in the songs "A Long Time Gone" and "All She Wanted") took part in the recording of the album.
2010-2013: Overwriting old songs and one-time reunions
In 2012, Jeff Lynne re-recorded hits at the ELO studio and released new versions on the collection of Mr.Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra. In numerous interviews, Jeff Lynne said that when he heard his old songs on the radio, he realized that they did not sound like he originally intended because he was inexperienced as a producer. But now, thanks to more than 20 years of experience, he decided to re-record them.
2014-present: Reform II
In 2014 Jeff Lynne again teamed up with Richard Tandy and a new line-up of session musicians under the name "Jeff Lynne's ELO" for a one-time gig in Hyde Park on September 14, tickets for which were sold out in 15 minutes. The achievements of modern technologies, which gave fresh sound to the band's old songs, forced Jeff Lynne to reconsider his preferences for studio work, which served as rumors of a tour around the UK in 2015.
September 10, 2015, it was announced that the musicians had signed a contract with Columbia Records and planned to release a new album in the near future.
Soon it became known that the album will be called Alone in the Universe. His release took place on November 13. On September 24, the release of the single "When I Was A Boy" was released.
