Artist: Electric Light Orchestra

For a confirmed Beatlemaniac like Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra fame, working with members of the Fab Four had always been a dream. Beginning in the late 1980s, every one of them came true. It started when Lynne was tabbed to produce George Harrison's comeback album Cloud 9, which led to the formation of the Traveling Wilburys - and [...]

Bev Bevan, later a founding member of the Move and the Electric Light Orchestra, says a chance meeting with the Beatles years earlier provided a huge ego boost when Paul McCartney praised his drumming. Appearing as part of Denny Laine and the Diplomats - a largely forgotten EMI Records act that ended up seeding more famous bands like the Move, [...]

Een tijdje geleden was ik niet zo te spreken over Jeff Lynne's coversalbum en de nieuwe-versies-ELO-verzamelaar . Het had niettemin tot gevolg dat ik het oudere werk weer meer ging draaien. Op dat moment was al duidelijk dat er nog drie...

Perhaps, given its vintage, it's no surprise that Armchair Theatre seems to owe so much to Lynne's participation in the Traveling Wilburys, along with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. Whereas his old band, the Electric Light Orchestra, most often focused on chamber music played to a rock beat, Lynne's supergroup of roughly a decade later could [...]

This is a project the Electric Light Orchestra should have put out at the turn of the 1980s, a lean, tune-focused affair which dials back the "I Am The Walrus"-era Beatles obsessions - even while retaining all of Jeff Lynne's trademark hooky songcraft. Of course, two decades later - following the defection of every former ELO member save for keyboardist [...]

A simmering new melding of Southern rock and R&B arrives with the new JJ Grey album, while the Replacements and Shuggie Otis - yeah, you read that right - return with their first new music in ages. Willie Nelson displays his utter command of the songbook era, issuing an album that recalls the glories of 19782s Stardust, even while mixing [...]

Can't wait for forthcoming expanded reissues of Jeff Lynne's 1990 solo album Armchair Theatre and the Electric Light Orchestra's 2001 release Zoom? Sample three bonus tracks from the April 17, 2013 releases here. "Borderline," part of the Armchair Theatre release from Frontiers, begins as a lean rocker - underscoring the rockabilly influences that have always been part of Lynne's core [...]

¿Alguien más tiene la sensación de que de pronto la E.L.O. está reivindicadísima? Hombre, la banda es lo suficientemente buena y conocida como para no tener que andar reivindicándola, eso es cierto, pero aparte de las citas al grupo que, cada vez con mayor frecuencia,  los artistas dejan caer a la hora de hablar de sus influencias (Gruff Rhys, por descontado), han coincidido en los primeros meses de este 2013 dos propuestas musicales cuyo sonido alude directamente al de la orquesta eléctrica de de Jeff Lynne. La primera de ellas es la del bajista de los War On [...]

As a kid watching television in the '70s, it was understood that the future might involve dealing with intelligent apes, urban overcrowding and pollution, or a noctunal clan of mutant cultists. It was also understood from the regular airings of Planet Of The Apes , Soylent Green , and The Omega Man after school or on late-night television that the one man with the skills to survive in these various dystopian futures - at least until the final reel - was Charlton Heston. Heston was teaching us about survival [...]

The ELO mothership hovers over the world's most symmetrical city skyline - Jeff Lynne must have produced it. Trust me: I don't post a song by Electric Light Orchestra here lightly. I have some very negative feelings for ELO leader Jeff Lynne, which are primarily - no, almost exclusively - connected with his efforts as a producer/destroyer of other people's music. He manages to take artists as great as Tom Petty, George Harrison, Dave Edmunds, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison - even the Beatles, for cryin' out loud (the "Free As a Bird" single [...]

• Electric Light Orchestra - Do Ya

The narrator for the audio version of Black Sabbath co-founder Tony Iommi's autobiography will be familiar to longtime fans: It's by old friend and former bandmate Bev Bevan, who rose to fame with the Move and Electric Light Orchestra. Iron Man: My Journey Through Heaven & Hell With Black Sabbath has already been updated through its paperback edition to include [...]

Jeff Lynne turns 65 later this month, so let's listen to some of Electric Light Orchestra's greatest hits, remained by other artists, as well as covers by Jeff Lynne, and more! (71 minutes) This episode sponsored by: Featuring: Title Artist Album Original Artist More [...]

Every avowed Beatles fan rues and revels in the day when he or she turns 64, and Jeff Lynne is no different. The master wall-of-sounder turned 64 this year and released a double album (one of ELO hits and one of covers). He raises the question: Do we still need him? Will we still feed him? Of course we need you, Mr. Lynne. Who else can deliver a line like “you took my body and played to win” with such boyish charm? Rod Stewart? As the song goes: “Ha, ha.” “Evil Woman” is one of 11 [...]

As Jools Holland put it himself, the "one and only Jeff Lynne" was invited to chit chat last week with the popular pianist/composer/bandleader turned TV host on his show Later... with Jools Holland. What he didn't know is there were actually several more Jeff Lynnes - 3 more to be specific - ...

Vrijdag a.s. is het genieten voor BBC4-kijkers: vanaf 21.00 gaat het over Jeff Lynne en Electric Light Orchestra. Jeff Lynne staat bij het grote publiek bijna gelijk aan de hits van Electric Light Orchestra, maar kenners weten dat hij voor...

A new video gives us our most complete listen yet as Jeff Lynne seeks to reimagine a series of his classic moments with the Electric Light Orchestra. "Mr. Blue Sky" is the title track from the upcoming Frontier Records release Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, a set of 11 ELO do-overs - and one new [...]

Jeff Lynne has two albums set for release soon, his redo of Electric Light Orchestra favorites and a songbook recording. Or, wait, is it ... three new albums? Seems so. During an event this week at the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, where a new documentary on Lynne premiered, the longtime ELO frontman and celebrated producer reportedly mentioned during a [...]

Most summers, from the time I was a small child until I left for college, there was a week, sometimes two, spent in western Pennsylvania, visiting grandparents, aunts, uncles and such. And as this was the '70s and '80s, long before humans had the ability to teleport, there was an eight-hour trip in the car to reach our destination. These ventures usually took place in the waning weeks of summer break, the hottest time of the year and in a a car without air conditioning. (hell, maybe we did have air conditioning, but [...]

Tracing four decades of pop music to figure out just what, exactly, makes a song timeless.

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