Electric Light Orchestra
By All Music Guide
By All Music Guide
However, Wood soon left ELO to form Wizzard, taking Hunt and McDowell with him; Price and Craig were soon out as well, and with the additions of bassist Michael DAlbuquerque, keyboardist Richard Tandy, and cellists Mike Edwards and Colin Walker, Lynne assumed vocal duties, with his Lennonesque tenor proving the ideal complement to his increasingly sophisticated melodies. With 1973s ELO II, the group returned to the Top Ten with their grandiose cover of the Chuck Berry chestnut Roll Over Beethoven; the record was also their first American hit, with 1974s Eldorado yielding their first U.S. Top Ten, the lovely Cant Get It Out of My Head. Despite Electric Light Orchestras commercial success, the band remained relatively faceless; the lineup changed constantly, with sole mainstays Lynne and Bevan preferring to let their elaborate stage shows and omnipresent spaceship imagery instead serve as the groups public persona. 1975s Face the Music went gold, generating the hits Evil Woman and Strange Magic, while the follow-up, A New World Record, sold five million copies internationally thanks to standouts like Telephone Line and Livin Thing.
The platinum-selling double-LP, Out of the Blue, appeared in 1977, although the records success was tempered somewhat by a lawsuit filed by Electric Light Orchestra against their former distributor, United Artists, whom the band charged flooded the market with defective copies of the album. Columbia distributed the remainder of the groups output, issued through their own Jet Records imprint, beginning with 1979s Discovery, which notched the Top Ten entries Shine a Little Love and Dont Bring Me Down. In the wake of ELOs best-selling Greatest Hits compilation, Lynne wrote several songs for the soundtrack of the Olivia Newton-John film Xanadu, including the hit title track. The next proper Electric Light Orchestra album, 1981s Time, generated their final Top Ten hit, Hold on Tight. Following 1983s Secret Messages, Bevan left the group to join Black Sabbath, although he returned to the fold for 1986s Balance of Power, which despite the presence of the Top 20 hit Calling America received little interest from fans and media alike.
However, as Electric Light Orchestras career descended, Lynne emerged as a sought-after producer, helming well-received comebacks from George Harrison (1987s Cloud Nine) and Roy Orbison (1989s Mystery Girl) and additionally re-teaming with both rock legends as well as Bob Dylan and Tom Petty in the hit supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Lynne made his solo debut in 1990 with Armchair Theatre but otherwise spent the decade out of the limelight, instead producing material for Joe Cocker, Tom Jones, and Paul McCartney in addition to working on the Beatles Anthology project. In 1988, meanwhile, Bevan formed Electric Light Orchestra Part II with vocalist Neil Lockwood, keyboardist Eric Troyer, and bassist Pete Haycock; although Lynne filed suit against the group (hence the Part II tag), a self-titled LP followed in 1991, with a live collection recorded with the Moscow Symphony Orchestra appearing a year later. Outside of 1994s Moment of Truth, subsequent ELO II releases have been live efforts as well.
