Electric Light Orchestra

Jeff Lynne's Birmingham band, born from the Move in 1970, whose orchestral pop sold more than 50 million records in its first thirteen years.

Origin
Birmingham, England
Years active
1970-1986, 2000-2001, 2014-2025
Genres
progressive pop, progressive rock, orchestral pop, art rock
Labels
Harvest, Warner Bros., United Artists, Jet, Columbia, Epic, Sony, MCA, RCA
Also known as
ELO, Jeff Lynne's ELO

Birmingham

Electric Light Orchestra began in Birmingham in 1970 as an offshoot of the Move, the band led by Roy Wood, in which Jeff Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan also played. The name is a pun on electric light and light orchestral music. The first ELO song, 10538 Overture, was recorded on 12 July 1970, and the debut album, The Electric Light Orchestra, followed in December 1971. In America it was called No Answer, after a note left by a record-company secretary.

The band played its first concert at the Greyhound pub in Croydon on 16 April 1972. Wood left that year to form Wizzard, taking Bill Hunt and Hugh McDowell with him, and Lynne became the sole leader. ELO 2 and On the Third Day both came out in 1973, the year violinist Mik Kaminski joined.

Strings and spaceships

Eldorado (1974) was the first ELO concept album and the first with Louis Clark arranging and conducting the strings. Kelly Groucutt joined on bass the same year. Face the Music (1975) reached the American top ten but was largely ignored in Britain. Lynne later said he wrote so many songs so quickly in these years that it felt like a conveyor belt.

The breakthrough at home came with A New World Record (1976), recorded in Munich. It was the band's first British top-ten album and Lynne's first million-seller there, and its single Livin' Thing went to number four in the UK. Out of the Blue (1977) became the most commercially successful ELO album. Its 1978 tour ran nine months and 92 dates around a spaceship stage, with eight sold-out nights at Wembley Arena, and was at the time the highest-grossing tour in music history. Discovery (1979) went to number one in Britain. Lynne turned down the chance to headline Knebworth that year, and the slot went to Led Zeppelin.

Time and the split

In 1980 ELO made the Xanadu soundtrack with Olivia Newton-John, and its title song became the band's only British number one single. That year McDowell, Gale and Kaminski were let go. Time (1981) moved the weight onto electronics: a concept album about a man from the 1980s carried off to the year 2095, where in Yours Truly, 2095 he meets a gynoid. It spent two weeks at number one in Britain, and its tour, from September 1981 to March 1982, was the last world tour before the split.

Secret Messages followed in 1983, and Lynne ended ELO late that year. Groucutt sued and settled for 300,000 pounds. Balance of Power came out in 1986. George Harrison joined the encore at Heart Beat 86 in Birmingham that March, and on 13 July, opening for Rod Stewart in Stuttgart, the band played its last show for years. The break-up was not announced for two years. Bevan formed ELO Part II in 1989. In their first thirteen years ELO sold more than 50 million records, and they hold the record for the most Billboard Hot 100 top-40 hits without a number one: twenty.

Jeff Lynne's ELO

Lynne brought the name back for Zoom (2001), but the planned tour was cancelled, reportedly for poor ticket sales. In 2012 he re-recorded the hits for Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, feeling that after years as a producer he could do better than the originals, and BBC Four screened a documentary on him and the band. A show in Hyde Park in September 2014 sold out in 15 minutes, and from then on the band was billed as Jeff Lynne's ELO. Alone in the Universe (2015) and From Out of Nowhere (2019) followed, as did a Glastonbury Pyramid Stage set in 2016 and a night before 60,000 at Wembley Stadium in 2017, released as Wembley or Bust.

Wood, Lynne, Bevan and Richard Tandy were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2017 by Dhani Harrison. Tandy died in May 2024, and the Over and Out Tour ran from August to October that year. The Hyde Park farewell set for 13 July 2025 was cancelled the day before because Lynne had a systemic infection, with no plan to reschedule.

Members

Records

Songs

The Move, Wizzard, Olivia Newton-John, The Flaming Lips, Daft Punk

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Interviews

Live performance archives

Film and video

Fan sites and communities

  • The Jeff Lynne Song Database Every Lynne song with its versions, edits, lengths and live recordings.
  • ELO España A Spanish fan site running since 1999, with interviews, press scans and album essays.
  • 10538overture.dk A fan discography of singles by country, with catalogue numbers and sleeves.

Sources

  1. Electric Light Orchestra, Wikipedia
  2. Electric Light Orchestra, MusicBrainz
  3. How ELO Finally Broke Through With 'New World Record', Ultimate Classic Rock
  4. Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, Wikipedia
  5. ELO Rock Hall induction, Best Classic Bands (2017-04-08)
  6. Wembley or Bust, Wikipedia