Jeffrey Lynne (born 30
December 1947 in Shard
End
, Birmingham
) is a two-time Ivor
Novello Award recipient and Grammy
Award-winning English
songwriter, composer,
arranger, singer,
guitarist, and record producer who gained fame as the
leader of Electric Light
Orchestra and was a co-founder and member of The Traveling Wilburys. Lynne has
produced recordings for artists such as
The
Beatles,
Brian Wilson,
Roy Orbison,
Del
Shannon and
Tom Petty. He has
co-written songs with Petty and also with
George Harrison whose 1987 album
Cloud
Nine was co-produced by Lynne and Harrison. His
compositions include "
Evil Woman",
"
Telephone
Line", "
Livin' Thing", "
Mr. Blue Sky", "
Don't Bring Me Down" and "
Sweet Talkin' Woman".
In 2008,
The Washington
Times named Lynne the fourth greatest record producer in
music history.
Musical career
Early career
In 1963, Jeff Lynne, Robert Reader and David Walsh formed a group
using little more than Spanish guitars and cheap electrical
instruments to produce music. They were originally named "The
Rockin' Hellcats" before changing to "The Handicaps" and finally to
"The Andicaps".
They practiced at Shard End Community Centre and performed weekly.
However, in 1964, Robert Reader and David Walsh left the band and
Lynne brought in replacements. At the end of 1964, Lynne decided to
leave the band to replace Mick Adkins of the local band "The
Chads".
In 1966, Lynne joined the line-up of
The Nightriders as
guitarist. The band would soon change their name to the
The Idle Race, a name allegedly given to them
sarcastically by his grandmother Evelyn Lynne who probably
disapproved of pop music as not being a proper
job. Despite recording two critically acclaimed albums
with the band and producing the second, success eluded him. In
1970, Lynne accepted a lifeline from friend
Roy
Wood to join the lineup of the more successful band
The Move.
The Electric Light Orchestra (1970 - 1986)
Lynne contributed songs to
The Move's last
two albums while formulating, with
Roy Wood
and
Bev Bevan, a band built around a
fusion of rock and European classical music, a project which would
eventually become the highly successful
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).
Problems led to Wood's departure in 1972, after the band's
eponymous first album,
leaving Jeff Lynne as the band's dominant creative force.
Thereafter followed a succession of band personnel changes and
increasingly popular albums: 1973's
ELO II and
On The Third Day, 1974's
Eldorado and
1975's
Face the
Music.
By
A New World Record,
Lynne had almost completely abandoned the roots of the group for a
dense and unique pop-rock sound mixed with studio strings and
layered vocals and tight, catchy pop singles. Jeff Lynne's now
almost complete creative dominance as producer, songwriter,
arranger, lead singer and guitarist could make ELO appear to be an
almost solo effort. However, the ELO sound and the focus of Lynne's
writing was also indelibly shaped by
Louis
Clark's co-arranging (notably the large string sections), Bev
Bevan's driving, primitivist drumming, and Richard Tandy's
integration of then-novel keyboard
technology.
The pinnacle of ELO's chart success and worldwide popularity was
the expansive 1977 double album
Out of the
Blue, which was largely conceived in a Swiss chalet during
a two-week writing marathon. The band's 1978 world tour featured an
elaborate "space ship" set and laser light show. In order to
recreate the complex instrumental textures of their albums, the
band used pre-recorded supplemental backing tracks in live
performances. Although that practice has now become commonplace, it
caused considerable derision in the press of the time. Jeff Lynne
has often stated that he prefers the creative environment of the
studio to the rigours and tedium of touring.
In 1979, Lynne followed up the success of
Out of the
Blue with
Discovery,
an album primarily associated with its two disco-flavored singles
("Shine a Little Love" and "Last Train to London") and with a title
that was a word play on "disco" and "very" . However, the remaining
seven non-disco tracks on the album reflected Lynne's range as a
pop-rock songwriter, including a heavy, mid-tempo rock anthem
("Don't Bring Me Down") that, despite its use of a drum loop, could
be considered the antithesis of disco. In an April 2008 interview,
Lynne fondly recalled his forays into dance music:
In 1979, Lynne rejected an offer for ELO to headline the Knebworth
Concert in the UK, allowing Led Zeppelin to headline instead.
In the absence of any touring to support
Discovery,
Lynne had time to contribute five tracks to the soundtrack for the
1980 movie musical
Xanadu .
The score yielded a pair of top-40 singles, with "Xanadu" reaching
number one in the UK. Nevertheless, Lynne was not integrated into
the development of the film and his material subsequently had only
superficial attachment to the plot. Despite its later resurgence as
a cult favourite,
Xanadu performed weakly at the
box-office. Lynne subsequently disavowed his limited contribution
to the project, although he later re-recorded the title song (with
his lead vocal) for the 2000 box-set
Flashback. In 2007,
the film was loosely adapted into a successful Broadway musical,
incorporating almost all of the songs from the original film, and
also using two other ELO hits:
Strange Magic and
Evil
Woman.
In 1981, Lynne took the band in a somewhat different direction with
the science-fiction themed album
Time, reaching
number one for two weeks in the UK, producing the second Top 3
single in less than two years, jettisoning the strings in favour of
heavily synthesised textures. Following a marginally successful
tour, Lynne kept this general approach with 1983's
Secret Messages and a final
contractually-obligated ELO album
Balance of
Power in 1986. Although ELO could still get a hit single
into the Top 40, Lynne is assumed to have tired of the artistic
constraints and promotional demands imposed by the ELO concept.
Lynne discusses the contractually-obligated nature of the final
albums on the short interview included with the 'Zoom' DVD. With
only three remaining official members (Lynne, Bevan and Tandy) and
the trending of pop music toward a new generation of video-friendly
acts, ELO had run its course and Lynne began devoting his full
energy to producing.
During his time in the Electric Light Orchestra, Lynne did manage
to release a few recordings under his own name. In 1976, Lynne
covered The
Beatles songs "
With a Little Help from My
Friends" and "
Nowhere Man" for
All This and World War
II. In 1977, Lynne released his first ever solo single,
the
disco-flavoured "
Doin' That Crazy Thing"/"Goin' Down
To Rio". Despite ELO's high profile at that time, it received
little airplay and failed to chart. In 1984 Lynne and ELO
keyboardist Richard Tandy contributed two original songs "
Video!" and "Let It Run" to the film
Electric Dreams (he also
provided a third song, "Sooner or Later", which was released as the
b-side of "Video!"). Lynne also wrote the song "The Story of Me"
which was recorded by the
Everly
Brothers on their comeback album
EB84.
The 1980s
Even before the official end of ELO, Lynne began his move toward
focusing almost exclusively on studio production work. Lynne
produced and wrote the 1983 top-40 hit "Slipping Away" for
Dave Edmunds and played on sessions (with
Richard Tandy) for Edmund's album,
Information. Lynne also
produced six tracks on Edmund's follow-up album in 1984,
Riff
Raff.
In contrast to the dense, boomy, baroque sound of ELO, Lynne's
post-ELO studio work has tended toward more minimal, acoustic
instrumentation and a sparse, "organic" quality that generally
favours light room ambience and colouration over artificial reverb,
especially on vocals. Lynne's recordings also often feature the
jangling compressed acoustic guitar sound pioneered by
Roger McGuinn and a heavily gated
snare drum sound.
Lynne's influence by the Beatles was clearly evident in his ELO
work and the connection to the Beatles was strengthened when Lynne
produced
George Harrison's
Cloud
Nine, a successful comeback album for the ex-Beatle,
released in 1987, featuring the popular singles "
Got My Mind Set on You," "
When We Was Fab" (where Lynne played the
violin in the video), and "
This Is
Love," two of the three songs co-written by Lynne.
Jeff Lynne's association with Harrison led to the 1988 formation of
the
Traveling Wilburys, a studio
"supergroup" that included
George
Harrison,
Tom Petty,
Bob Dylan and
Roy
Orbison (as well as Lynne himself), and resulted in two albums
(
Vol.
1 and
Vol. 3), both co-produced by
Lynne. In 1988 Lynne also worked on
Roy
Orbison's album
Mystery
Girl co-writing and producing Orbison's last major hit,
"
You Got It", plus two other tracks on
that album. For
Rock On, the final
Del Shannon album, Jeff Lynne co-wrote
"Walk Away" and finished off several tracks after Shannon's
death.
In 1989, Lynne co-produced
Full Moon
Fever by
Tom Petty, which
included the hit singles "
Free
Fallin'," "
I Won't Back Down,"
and "
Runnin' Down a Dream," all
co-written by Lynne. This album and
Traveling Wilburys Vol.
1 both received
nominations for the
Grammy Award for
Best Album of the Year in 1989. Lynne's song "
One Way Love" was released as a single by
Agnetha Faltskog and appeared on
her second post-
ABBA album,
Eyes of a Woman. Lynne co-wrote and
produced the track "Let It Shine" for Beach Boys founder
Brian Wilson's first solo album in 1988. Lynne
also contributed three tracks to an album by
Duane Eddy and "Falling In Love" on
Land of Dreams for
Randy Newman.
The 1990s
In 1990, Lynne collaborated on the Wilburys' follow up
Traveling Wilburys Vol.
3 and shortly
after that released his first solo album
Armchair Theatre,
with old friends George Harrison and
Richard Tandy featuring the singles "
Every Little Thing" and
"
Lift Me Up". The album
received some positive critical attention but little commercial
success. Lynne also provided the song "Wild Times" to the motion
picture soundtrack
Robin Hood: Prince of
Thieves in 1991.
In 1991, Lynne returned to the studio with Petty, co-writing and
producing the album
Into
the Great Wide Open for
Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers, which featured the singles "
Learning to Fly" and "Into
the Great Wide Open". The following year he produced
Roy Orbison's posthumous album
King of Hearts,
featuring the single "
I Drove All
Night".
In February 1994, Lynne fulfilled a lifelong dream by working with
the three surviving
Beatles on the
Anthology album
series. At George Harrison's request, Lynne was brought in to
assist in reevaluating
John Lennon's
original studio material. The songs "
Free as a Bird" and "
Real Love" were created by
digitally processing Lennon's demos for the songs and overdubbing
the three surviving band members to form a virtual Beatles reunion
that the band had mutually eschewed during Lennon's lifetime. Lynne
has also produced records for
Ringo
Starr and worked on
Paul
McCartney's album
Flaming
Pie.
Lynne's work in the 1990s also includes production of a 1993 album
for singer/songwriter Julianna Raye entitled
Something
Peculiar and production or songwriting contributions to albums
by
Roger McGuinn (Back from Rio),
Joe Cocker (Night Calls),
Aerosmith (Lizard Love),
Tom Jones (Lift me Up),
Bonnie Tyler (Time Mends a Broken Heart), the
film
Still Crazy,
Hank Marvin
(Wonderful Land and Nivram), Et Moi (Drole De Vie), and the Tandy
Morgan Band (Action).
In 1996, Lynne was officially recognised by his peers when he was
awarded the
Ivor Novello Award
for "Outstanding Contributions to British Music" for a second
time.
The 2000s
Following legal action to get the ELO name back from Bevan's
touring group
ELO Part II, Lynne
released a new album in 2001 under the ELO moniker entitled
Zoom. Although the album
featured guest appearances by
Ringo
Starr,
George Harrison and
original ELO keyboardist
Richard
Tandy, it was essentially a second Jeff Lynne solo album, with
Lynne multi-tracking a majority of the instruments and vocals. The
album received positive reviews but had no hit singles. Despite
bearing little sonic relationship to the halcyon ELO days of the
late 1970s, it was marketed as a "return to the classic ELO sound"
in an attempt to connect with a loyal body of fans and jump-start a
planned concert tour (with Lynne and Tandy as the only returning
original ELO members).
While a live performance was taped at
CBS Television
City
over two consecutive nights and shown on PBS (with subsequent DVD release), the tour itself was
cancelled.
Speculation remains rife as to the reason (or reasons), for the
cancellation of this tour. Certainly, initial ticket sales were
disappointing, with publicity for the concerts minimal. Although
often cited by fans as a reason for the tour cancellation, the
events and aftermath of 11 September occurred subsequent to the
official cancellation of the tour.
Greg
Bissonette (
ELO drummer), when asked,
described it as "... the greatest tour I never went on!"
Earlier in 2001, Lynne began working with George Harrison on what
would turn out to be Harrison's final album,
Brainwashed. After Harrison's death
from
cancer on 29 November 2001, Lynne
returned to the studio in 2002 to help finish the uncompleted
album. Lynne was also heavily involved in the memorial
Concert
for George, held at London's Royal Albert Hall in November
2002, and subsequently produced the
Surround Sound audio mix for the
Concert For George DVD released in
November 2003. The DVD received a
Grammy.
Lynne reunited in 2006 with Tom Petty to produce his third solo
release,
Highway
Companion.
ASCAP honored Jeff Lynne with the Golden Note Award during their
Expo on 24 April 2009.
Lynne said in a Reuters article on 23 April 2009, that he has
finally been working on the long awaited follow-up to his 1990 solo
debut album
Armchair
Theatre with a possible tentative release date of "later
this year".
He also produced 4 tracks on
Regina
Spektor's fifth album
Far,
released 23 June, 2009.
Discography
See also
References
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