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I was never a huge ELO fan in all honesty, I thought many of their singles especially were limp wristed with perhaps the exception of Don't Bring Me Down, Sweet Talkin Woman, and Mr Blue Sky, the latter which is still a wonderful summer happy tune.
However Lynne's work post ELO has been nothing short of genius, and he developed a 'sound' which very few artists ever claim to do, other than Beatles, Glen Miller etc'. The Travelling Wilburys I adored, it was a five way match made in heaven. If you listen to George Harrison's Cloud Nine album,(produced by Lynne) it serves as a taster of things to come. A curtain raiser for the Wilburys.
But what is Lynne's 'sound' as I mentioned earlier? It isn't chugging, it's more like a string/bass type underbelly, which is very hard to describe but instantly recognisable...one can identify a Jeff Lynne produced work immediately.(perhaps jk and the jkers can help me on that one)
Free As A Bird is one song which was heavily criticised due to the strong Jeff Lynne influence therein, but I think it's wonderful and terribly underrated. That Lynne sound makes it magical and quite wonderful. However I recall Anne Nightingale describing it as 'clinical' and 'devoid of the experimentational influence of George Martin'. Unfair and a little nasty I believe. It is a beautiful production such as Lynne proved a little earlier with his production of Roy Orbison's 'You Got It' and his work with Harrison and the Wilburys.
George Harrison called him 'Beatle Jeff', no clearer vindication that Lynne was the fifth Beatle in the eyes of the remaining Beatles themselves.
I write as I have just listened in full to the Traveling Wilburys first album, and it is absolutely wonderful. Lynne released from the shackles of the sometimes sonic sounding ELO, to be released as perhaps...free as a bird.
I do like him but he does remind me of why I don't think drummers make good producers - it's drums above all else in his mixes. I didn't mind ELO sounding like The Beatles but it was a bit much when he made The Beatles sound like ELO.
I'm with FC on this - I think Jeff is hugely under rated (and I love drums high in the mix - indeed dear Don Wardell used to call my hits "The Year of the Drum").
ELO do bore me now great when I was in to them when I was 16, all songs sound too much like Jeff in Wilbury's and The Move can't fault him there, when he produced Cloud 9 a genius one album that help me grew up in my teens.
I love Jeff, George, Bob, Tom and Roy but it always struck me that you had 5 of the best songwriters on the planet at the time and they managed to write 1 good song.
JK2006 wrote: Not Cyril - a good point - I wondered about it - is Jeff a drummer Pru?
He's always claimed he loves playing drums but he felt there was a better drummer in his bands (which there clearly was). So in my eyes he's always been a frustrated drummer who compensates by making the bloody things the dominant sound in everything he does. He would have had a good big thump-thump-thimp going on in 'Lazy Bones'.
By the way, does anyone know why Lynne and Co stuck with that awful recording of 'Free as a Bird' when there were several much, much clearer versions in circulation? They must have known about them. I know Yoko gave them a 'cassette tape' - was that really it?? - but in spite of all the moans they made about having to remove the clicks (none on the bootleg versions I've got) and all other kinds of problems, they didn't just say 'Let's use the clean one'? It's always puzzled me. It was the same with 'Real Love' - there was even a clean acoutic version of that on the official movie soundtrack 'Imagine' as well as several other very good quality recordings, and yet, once again, they used that really muddy-sounding demo.
JK2006 wrote: And Tom P - I think there are actually several truly great Wilbury songs.
As always it's personal preference but in terms of "top songwriter to hit" ratio, it was pretty poor.
Prunella Minge wrote: By the way, does anyone know why Lynne and Co stuck with that awful recording of 'Free as a Bird' when there were several much, much clearer versions in circulation? They must have known about them. I know Yoko gave them a 'cassette tape' - was that really it?? - but in spite of all the moans they made about having to remove the clicks (none on the bootleg versions I've got) and all other kinds of problems, they didn't just say 'Let's use the clean one'? It's always puzzled me. It was the same with 'Real Love' - there was even a clean acoutic version of that on the official movie soundtrack 'Imagine' as well as several other very good quality recordings, and yet, once again, they used that really muddy-sounding demo.
Hated 'Real Love' but loved Free As A Bird...the video was very good too.
The Fat Controller wrote: Prunella Minge wrote: By the way, does anyone know why Lynne and Co stuck with that awful recording of 'Free as a Bird' when there were several much, much clearer versions in circulation? They must have known about them. I know Yoko gave them a 'cassette tape' - was that really it?? - but in spite of all the moans they made about having to remove the clicks (none on the bootleg versions I've got) and all other kinds of problems, they didn't just say 'Let's use the clean one'? It's always puzzled me. It was the same with 'Real Love' - there was even a clean acoutic version of that on the official movie soundtrack 'Imagine' as well as several other very good quality recordings, and yet, once again, they used that really muddy-sounding demo.
Hated 'Real Love' but loved Free As A Bird...the video was very good too.
Oh the video was wonderful, the director must be so proud of that.
(Just checked, by the way, Jeff Lynne did the drumming for the last ELO album.)
Bev Bevan also turned up on Jasper Carrot’s recent TV show. (Which is sort of expected as they a close Warwickshire mates). I was once at a wedding where Bev Bevan was a guest. The bride's father was a big name in the football world, so a lot of famous footballers were present. Bev Bevan was strolling around and nobody had recognised him. He was delighted when one of my friends went up to him and said, "I know you. You're Bev Bevan, aren’t you?". Bev was delighted to be recognised, but all was lost when my friend continued, "Yes, I remember when you played for Aston Villa!".
There was a falling out between Lynne and former band members including Bev Bevan. I think I'm right in that Bevan went onto form ELO Part 2 without Lynne, which split ELO fans in two....the Jeff Lynne fans...and the strictly ELO fans who who cursed Lynne for having deserted them.
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