ELO 'All Over the World: Best of Electric Light Orchestra' album

An incredible 35 years after their formation, the music of the Electric Light Orchestra is still as popular as ever. All over the world, people are tuning into the sound of ELO via radio, the internet or in cinemas and on TV. The seemingly ageless songs of ELO leader Jeff Lynne are even being heard in the singles charts once again, thanks to the cream of today’s young dance acts sampling the band’s original music and turning on a whole new generation of fans.

ELO thrived under the guidance of Lynne, recording 12 original studio albums and releasing 29 hit singles (including a no.1 with Olivia Newton-John) in the UK alone. At their peak between 1974 and 1981, ELO amassed a string of nine consecutive gold, platinum and multi-platinum albums. The band were one of the biggest major arena and stadium draws during the seventies and early eighties, with shows becoming sonic and visual spectacles, including massive flying saucers and vibrant light and laser displays.

Before all the hit albums, singles and live extravaganzas, ELO began from much humbler beginnings - as an experimental offshoot of sixties hit English band The Move. Legendary singer-songwriter Roy Wood had the initial idea for an Electric Light Orchestra during Tony Visconti's orchestral arrangements for his early Move songs, but it was Jeff Lynne who composed 10538 Overture, the track that became the first ELO song on 12 July 1970. According to Lynne, 10538 Overture was "the very birth of the realisation of the sound".

As a single from ELO's critically acclaimed eponymous EMI debut album (retitled No Answer in America) it reached no.9 in the UK during August 1972, but within a week of its release, Wood had dramatically left the group to form Wizzard and the beginnings of a critically acclaimed solo career.

Regrouping under Lynne's leadership, the new ELO made a triumphant debut at the 1972 Reading Festival. Their inspired show-stopping, 5th Symphony-quoting cover of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven fast became ELO’s theme song and a top ten UK hit single in January 1973. The song also laid valuable groundwork in the USA, where it became an FM radio favourite. An extended version on second LP ELO 2 helped the album into the UK charts but the next single, released as the band returned from their debut American tour in September 1973, was a radical departure.

John Lennon commented live on a New York radio show how much he liked Showdown and ELO (dubbing them "son of Beatles") - and so did the record-buying public. The track was the first Jeff Lynne-penned song to achieve chart success in both the UK and USA. Ma-Ma-Ma-Belle, probably the heaviest piece of music ELO ever recorded, followed as a single and featured an uncredited Marc Bolan playing twin-lead guitar with Lynne. On The Third Day, the album from which the single was taken, achieved a silver sales award in America and was the beginning of the group's successes in that country.

Eldorado - A Symphony By The Electric Light Orchestra was ELO's first concept album and collaboration with arranger Louis Clark and saw the band augmented by a full choir and orchestra instead of overdubbing their usual two cellos and violin. Taking Dorothy's ruby slippers and wicked witch album cover theme to their hearts, many of ELO's burgeoning American fanbase began arriving at concerts dressed as their favourite Wizard Of Oz character. It was this dedication that helped propel Eldorado to gold status, followed by their first-ever top ten USA single, Can't Get It Out Of My Head`.

Faced with poor album sales, sporadic single chart successes and unreceptive UK audiences outside of home city Birmingham and critically-aware London, ELO focused their touring strategy on the USA. Lengthy and exhausting tours of America ensured each subsequent ELO release sold more than its predecessor. The excitement of "the English guys with the big fiddles" conquering America can be heard on the excellent live album The Night The Light Went On (In Long Beach).

Face The Music gave Lynne his first worldwide smash with the single Evil Woman, and at 6 minutes, the fastest song he ever wrote. The album achieved gold status in the USA but follow up single Nightrider was ignored in the UK, while Strange Magic was only a minor hit. ELO, now comprising Lynne, co-founder drummer Bev Bevan, keyboardist Richard Tandy, Kelly Groucutt on bass guitar, violinist Mik Kaminski and cellists Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale, then embarked on their biggest and most ambitious tour of America, playing a grueling 68 shows in 76 days. By the end of the tour, the entire group were suffering from exhaustion, barely able to celebrate their gold award for Strange Magic or the news they were now firmly established as one of the USA’s top-selling bands.

ELO finally achieved success in their home country in December 1976 with the Top 5 arrival of Livin' Thing. The haunting love song proved to be their most popular single to date and helped pave the way for A New World Record, arguably ELO’s most consistent album. Though it achieved a Top 10 chart placing and gold sales status in the UK, in the USA it exceeded all expectations and became the band's first platinum disc. Rockaria! and Telephone Line were huge single hits worldwide while a new ELO version of Lynne's Move composition Do Ya was released in America and Europe and became a hit for the second time.

Under serious pressure to surpass his already considerable achievements, Lynne (armed with guitars, amp and piano) locked himself away in a Swiss mountain chalet to plan his masterpiece, Out Of The Blue: "The first four days, I couldn't get a thing. The fifth day I was playing bass notes on the moog, and out of that came Turn To Stone. I bashed away on a bucket for drums, and punched the microphone for bass drums. Mr. Blue Sky was the hardest after that. It started as a chord sequence that I pounded for nine hours in a row one day."

An intensive two-week writing period during May 1977 gave birth to a double album’s worth of new songs and just three months later, ELO’s definitive album was delivered. Global success followed, with further singles Wild West Hero and Sweet Talkin' Woman both Top 10 hits.

Worldwide attendance and sales records were smashed on album pre-orders alone and wherever tour dates were announced. ELO's all-conquering sell-out tour began in February 1978 and lasted nine months. Audience records were broken wherever they played, especially in the UK where ELO headlined Wembley for 8 sell out nights, the first band ever to do so.

The group finished 1978 with the unique feat of having a single, EP, album, double album and three album box-set, Three Light Years, all in the UK top 50 at once. The EP, featuring Can't Get It Out Of My Head, reached No 34.

Despite an announcement ELO would not tour during 1979, the year soon became business as usual as Discovery went to No. 1 in almost every country the new album was released. It also produced four massive hit singles, including Shine A Little Love (sampled most recently by The LoveFreekz) and The Diary Of Horace Wimp. Don't Bring Me Down (the first ELO single not to feature strings) became the group's biggest-ever single hit while double a-side Confusion/Last Train To London continued chart success to the end of the year.

ELO finished 1979 as Music Week's top album band, complementing Jeff Lynne's Ivor Novello Award and a Greatest Hits package that immediately went Top 10 around the world.

Film soundtrack work beckoned and ELO contributed to the 1980 movie Xanadu, which spawned hit singles I'm Alive, All Over The World and Don't Walk Away. Though the movie itself was heavily criticised, the music was warmly embraced and the title track, sung with Olivia Newton-John, gave Lynne his first No.1 UK single and another Ivor Novello Award for Best Film Theme Song.

1981 signalled a departure from the traditional ELO sound with the release of the keyboard and synthesizer dominated Time. It was preceded by the bi-lingual rocker Hold On Tight, with Lynne describing Time as a significant change in direction: "I've tried to create a different sound for Time which is a concept album set in the future.. and by using fewer strings, the end result has been a far heavier sound."

Time became another ELO no. 1 platinum album and three further singles were released: Twilight, the double a-sided Ticket To The Moon/Here Is The News and The Way Life's Meant To Be. With the success of the new singles, a planned Across The Border EP, with tracks taken from a 4-LP compilation box set entitled Four Light Years, was cancelled.

ELO's spent a year touring the world but this time with a scaled down live show and an emphasis on their live sound rather than spectacle. Out went the giant spaceships, lasers and cellists, and in came long-time orchestral arranger Louis Clark and old friend and Birmingham musician Dave Morgan, both on keyboards. Though the Time Tour was meant to be ELO’s swansong, Lynne soon regrouped the band for rehearsals for Secret Messages. Originally intended as a double LP, the concept album was based on Lynne’s reaction to ELO being bizarrely labelled “devil-worshippers” as a result of supposedly backward-masking satanic messages in their songs. “Skcollob” was one of the bands’ politer responses…

Ultimately, Secret Messages was a fine - if somewhat unfulfilled - single album when finally released in 1983. The lead single, Rock 'N' Roll Is King, saw Top 20 chart success on both sides of the Atlantic but subsequent singles Secret Messages and Four Little Diamonds failed to make much impression.

For 1986's Balance Of Power, ELO were now down to a trio of Lynne, Bevan and Tandy. While the music itself was uplifting and bright and contained hit singles Calling America and So Serious, the album was filled with a lyrical sadness that seemed to foretell ELO's imminent split. Getting To The Point became ELO's final single of the 80's and its lyrics left no doubt that Lynne had reached "the point of no return" - he disbanded the group shortly after.

While contemplating what to do next, Lynne was thrilled to be contacted by George Harrison to collaborate with him on the ex-Beatle's Cloud Nine album. Lynne then joined Harrison, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty as the Traveling Wilburys on 1988's Grammy Award-winning Volume 1 and 1991's Volume 3. In between, Lynne produced and co-wrote Orbison's You Got It, Petty's Full Moon Fever in 1989 and Into The Great Wide Open in 1991 and his own debut solo album Armchair Theatre, which contained the hit single Every Little Thing. He memorably produced Free As A Bird and Real Love for The Beatles Anthology project, following which he collaborated with Paul McCartney on his album Flaming Pie.

In 1996, Jeff Lynne's formidable musical talents were officially recognised when he was presented with his third Ivor Novello Award, for Outstanding Services to British Music.

During 2000, ELO’s 30th anniversary year, Lynne decided to reactivate the Electric Light Orchestra. The return began with Flashback, a definitive career-spanning retrospective boxset: "To me this is a real flashback of musical memory. I feel good about returning to this. It's taken me awhile to get enough distance from ELO to see what it was. At the time I didn't see what it was. When you're in the middle of a thing, it's 'What the hell is it?'"

Zoom, released a year later, featured long-term ELO keyboard player Richard Tandy plus guest appearances from George Harrison and Ringo Starr and was ELO's first brand new album for 15 years: "I thought, what about using this new knowledge that I'd got - after working with all these guys that I really respected - to putting that towards an ELO album, to see what it'd be like now. ELO was always my group, so I had no qualms about when or far between albums you've got to have (laughs). Could be 20 years - this is only 15!"

2001 also saw the beginning of definitive and expanded remastered editions of ELO’s albums: Electric Light Orchestra and ELO 2 on EMI and Eldorado – A Symphony By The Electric Light Orchestra, Discovery, Time and Secret Messages on Sony. A spectacular live video and surround-sound DVD capturing ELO in concert in 2001 from Los Angeles was also released, while VH-1 dedicated a Storytellers TV special to Lynne's music, filmed in New York in front of an invited audience of ELO fans that had literally flown in from “all over the world”.

During 2002, Lynne was again back in the recording studio, working on a variety of projects, one of which involved co-producing and helping complete George Harrison's posthumously released album, Brainwashed. He was also heavily involved in the tribute memorial concert, held at London's Royal Albert Hall in November 2002 and subsequently responsible for the outstanding surround-sound production of the lavish Concert For George DVD released in November 2003.

Now back focused on ELO, Jeff Lynne has recently finished mixing ELO’s Greatest Hits Live, a double CD containing over two hours of ELO magic from Los Angeles. The album, on Lynne’s own record label, will contain bonus material not performed in-concert and will be joined later in the year by an expanded edition of the songwriter’s debut solo album Armchair Theatre plus further remasters of original ELO albums.

All Over The World is the latest and eagerly awaited ELO release. The new career-defining collection features twenty all-time Electric Light Orchestra classics and celebrates Jeff Lynne’s outstanding musical career which continues to this day - all over the world - and will for many more Light years!

By Rob Caiger, April 2005

Liner notes by Jeff Lynne

When I wrote these songs I never dreamed that people would still be listening to them thirty years into the future. In those days if your records got in the top ten it was an amazing feat. I was lucky enough to be hanging out up there with the big boys. As far as I knew, that was as good as it got.

I absolutely loved being in the recording studio, there was nothing that could come near to the thrill of laying down tracks for a new album. Anything was possible in the studio, you could make a steinway sound like a wurlitzer (if you really wanted to). You could twist sound and bend it and have backward messages and solos. Any sound you could imagine- you could create. It was all that was on my mind, (well nearly).

Before each album I used to give myself a few weeks to come up with the chord sequences and melodies that would become these songs, but I never finished the words to my songs until just before I sang them, or as some critics said ‘until just after I sang them’. I especially enjoyed confounding those critics who would often spread doom and gloom over my newly finished efforts. The songs went on to sell millions, which taught me not to worry about them so much. Seems to me the best you can do is your best.

From the Producer’s point of view, I think some of the sounds are a bit naïve, but still stand up well. I’ve always tried to give my records a timeless sound by using old fashioned microphone placement that utilises the sound of the room (or rooms) you are recording in.
Some of these songs are so over the top it’s amazing. For a while there I went through a phase where I definitely thought that ‘more is more’ and overdubbed everything that wasn’t nailed down.

When I was a little lad, a record called Sparky’s Magic Piano was sometimes played on the
radio. That talking piano haunted me and many years later drove me to find out how to do it. As luck would have it right at the same time somebody in Stuttgart had just built a Vocoder,
the very machine that could make the piano talk. It was brilliant timing, because I’d just finished the backing track of Mr. Blue Sky (features talking piano in case you hadn’t guessed)

Most of these songs were recorded in Munich, home of the largest beers in the world. Richard Tandy would always say to me "is this stuff legal?" I knew what he meant. Richard (who played my favourite ELO lead guitar on Strange magic) was always there working with me.

I loved making these records, even though they gave me some headaches and sleepless nights. I had a lot of responsibility and it could get intense. But a good kickabout down the road would clear my head. Then, let’s get overdubbing.

All the best
Jeff Lynne

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ELO - All Over the World: Best of Electric Light Orchestra