Electric Light Orchestra – Out of the Blue

Have you ever heard a song or a band from your past and it starts an onslaught of memories of your childhood including friends and places? Obviously, I do because that’s what I write about in this blog.  This week I heard a band that was ultimately one of my first pre-teen and teen favorites. I’m talking about the Electric Light Orchestra or ELO as they were later abbreviated to.  This also reminds me of my childhood friend John S.  John may have been the first person I knew that when they became a fan, they collected every album. The album I’ll be talking about is what many fans regard as their double vinyl masterpiece Out of the Blue!

In 1970, The Electric Light Orchestra was formed by Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne and drummer Bev Bevan who had worked together in the band the Move.  The basic idea for the band was (according to wikipedia) “to form a new band that would use violins, cellos, string basses, horns and woodwinds to give their music a classical sound, taking rock music in the direction "that The Beatles had left off."  As odd as it sounds, for guitarist Jeff Lynne, this link to the Beatles was oddly prophetic. The band only recorded their debut album with Roy Wood. That left guitarist Jeff Lynne as the mastermind behind the band. Critics predicted the band would fail because it seemed that Roy Wood was the original brains behind the band.  In 1973, they released their second album ELO 2.  One of the highlights of the album was a cover of Chuck Berry’s Roll Over Beethoven with the string section augmented the piece with some Ludwig Van Beethoven interspersed into the song.  This would be one of the first Beatles references as the Beatles had covered the song very early in their recording career with George Harrison on vocals.
Their third album was called On the Third Day and I still don’t understand why the band is all pictured on the album cover with everyone exposing their navels. This was a point of amusement for myself and my friends. The next album was titled Eldorado.  Then came their fourth album called Face the Music.  This was when they first appeared on my own personal radar. The album featured the hit singles Evil Woman and Strange Magic. This would be an album that at least two of my sisters had on the 8-track format. In fact, I remember laying in the “way back”(behind the back seat) of her AMC Hornet next to the speaker listening to ELO’s Face the Music.  These were before the days of enforced seatbelts and regulation car seats etc. Since that album was released in 1975, I had to have been at least 8 years old.
Sometime later, I think my sister Kathy signed up for the infamous Columbia House record club. She ordered many LP’s and 8-tracks through the record club. So, she ordered both the Face the Music and the follow-up A New World Record.  The New World Record album was the first to feature a definitive logo for the band and a shortened band name. The band name went from the mouthful of 7 syllables with E-LEC-TRIC LIGHT OR-CHES-TRA to 3 letters and 3 syllables to E.L.O.

On the 1977 release - Out of the Blue, the new logo became a huge flying saucer/space station and a great piece of stage scenery for their live show. This was the pinnacle of the band as this album became their most successful studio album. I remember reading about this album in a bunch of major magazines along with my sister’s teen magazines. Even my monthly subscription to Dynamite magazine had an article about the band, the stage show and the lasers. The issue that had the article also had a fold-out poster of the band performing. I really wasn’t into the band that much at the time because (in 1977) I was a major Star Wars fan. I would eat, sleep and drink everything Star Wars. So, I gave the poster away to a mutual friend. I kinda wish I would held onto that. I wasn’t the music fanatic I am now. You would have thought that the spaceship set and the sci-fi movie fan would have brought the two together.

My friend John and I had been great friends for much of our childhood. John is about 7 months younger than me. In fact, I started writing this blog on his birthday in early February. John’s family lived on the same block as mine. In fact, I could walk down the alley to John’s house and I usually did about everyday during summer vacation and usually every weekend.  John and I used to hang out so much. When we were very young, sometimes people would think we were brothers. As I remember it, John and his family came back from a vacation one year and John just had a bunch of ELO records. He had all the albums up to that point. He had the whole collection except the usual greatest hits albums. There was an album called Ole-ELO which was just a compilation of the first 3 or 4 albums. I think I may have even got my opinion of greatest hits albums at that point too.  But, John was such a fan of ELO at this point, that you couldn’t help but be influenced by it.  As I look back, I think because of my sisters being Beatles fans, it was easy for me to like ELO.  John, myself and then our friend Kent would hang out a lot and listen to ELO.  I remember John and Kent going on about how they loved Ma Ma Bell and the ELO version of Roll Over Beethoven.  A few times we would get together for a sleep over at John’s house (and as embarrassing as it is to admit) we would put on ELO’s Out of the Blue album and play “air” instruments to the songs. I distinctly remember playing air drums, John played keyboards and Kent doubled as Jeff Lynne on guitar to the opening track of Turn to Stone and Sweet Talkin’ Woman.  All three of us were big fans of ELO. We continued to follow them through the next few albums.

The next album Discovery had a great big hit with Don’t Bring Me Down.  I was into the band full-throttle by this time.  I really loved the track called The Diary of Horace Wimp.  I had no idea what it was about. But, I thought the title sounded funny and somewhat amusing. I eventually recorded both Don’t Bring Me Down and The Diary of Horace Wimp on a mix tape that I had made from my cousin’s album copy(I think) Then, Jeff Lynne and the band composed music for the movie Xanadu featuring Olivia Newton John and Gene Kelly.  I was not the snobbish music I would become in college. But, I was an ELO fan and would usually only listen to the ELO side of the LP.  In 1981, the band released the album Time and the band was reduced to a 4 piece band with Richard Tandy taking on the string parts with his keyboards and synthesizers. I was such a big fan of the band at the time that I rode my bike from my house to the Kmart store in North Platte which meant I rode over the overpass that ran over interstate 80. I put the LP in my small backpack and rode to my friend Tom’s house who lived a mere blocks away from the Kmart store and then rode back home again. This would probably be the last time I would get excited about ELO as a band. I was getting older and the use of synthesizers over the string section wasn’t my thing. I was entering my teenage years and the sound of a distorted electric guitar sounded better to me because it was usually accompanied by some loud bashing drums too.  It seemed there were a few more small hits in the early and mid 80’s from the band. But, I just didn’t really want to care any more.  Jeff Lynne and Richard Tandy scored a movie called Electric Dreams.  But, it just seemed too synth heavy and that just wasn’t what I wanted to hear.  I had already bought the soundtrack for Xanadu and had only listened to one side of the album.
Fast forward to 1987….Beatle George Harrison is back with an album called Cloud Nine.  It has a big hit on the album with the song I Got My Mind Set on You.  I am a big Beatles fan. So, I was interested in hearing this album. Wow! I find out that Ringo Starr is playing drums on the album along with session great Jim Keltner. But, this album is produced by….JEFF LYNNE!! Wait a minute…Jeff Lynne? the main guy from ELO? That Jeff Lynne? Soon, Jeff Lynne would go on to produce Tom Petty’s solo album Full Moon Fever that would become huge. If you remember the videos, Petty would appear in the videos with Lynne, George Harrison and Ringo Starr in them.  In 1988, Petty would then team up with George and Jeff Lynne (along with Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison) as the Traveling Wilburys. Both Harrison and Lynne took on the aliases of Otis and Nelson Wilbury. 

After the first Wilbury album, Lynne would continue his streak of production credits with Roy Orbison’s posthumous 1989 release Mystery Girl and his own solo album – Armchair Theatre.  These albums had a great earthiness to them. There wasn’t a lot of Jeff Lynne synthesizers that plagued the later ELO albums. Suddenly, I began to long for the ELO albums had heard and enjoyed in my early youth. I even met friends and colleagues through Dustys and the College radio station that also had memories and praise for old ELO albums like Face the Music and New World Record.  I found that I could actually like the music of my youth that may have seemed uncool in the late 80’s and yet still enjoy my current faves at the time. It’s a radical idea. But, chances are, if you liked something when you were younger, you can still like it when you’re older too. There’s no rule you can’t!
In my year of living in Grand Island in the early 90’s, I found a used LP copy of ELO’s Out of the Blue double album at a pawn shop or antique shop. I saw the album and bought it for very cheap. I got home and put it on the turntable and was riveted to it with a smile on my face. I put the album on, dropped the needle and it was the perfect album for me at that exact moment at that point in time. I sat in my one room rental outside of Grand Island while all the childhood memories of siblings, friends and ELO flooded back. I would put the album on again after that. But, I didn’t want to lose that feeling I had that day. So, when I put it on again, it was never really the same and never seemed as good as it was that day.
In 1995, Jeff Lynne would get his wish and full induction into the Beatles organization when he would produce Free as a Bird and Real Love for the Beatles Anthology projects.  Then in 2002, Lynne would pay tribute to his friend George Harrison along with Eric Clapton, Tom Petty, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr at the Concert for George that was held on the one year anniversary of George’s death.
In the first decade of the 21st Century(2000-2010), I remember hearing advertisers start using Mr Blue Sky from Out of the Blue for use in movie trailers and different products. All of a sudden, I felt that youthful joy I had for that music. After that, I felt compelled to put together my own CD of ELO hits. This was the early days of filesharing. So, I would download the songs I wanted and compile my own Greatest Hits CD.  It was a project I loved doing. But, I think my disc has a couple of repeat songs and even a song that is cut off in mid-song. That’s what you get when you download a song from an unreliable source that doesn’t have a whole song and gives the song the title they think it should be.
In 2001, Lynne released an album under the moniker of ELO called Zoom with guest appearances by Ringo Starr and original ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy. There had been legal issues with past members that had formed a band and toured under the name ELO part II. With past lawsuits behind them, ELO recorded a concert with Tandy and Lynne as the only original members for PBS and planned a tour but was cancelled shortly thereafter. There has been speculation has to reasons why the tour never happened. There was limited media about the tour that resulted in poor ticket sales. Also, the events of September 11th have been brought up as a reason why the tour never happened either. Drummer Gregg Bissonette is quoted as saying “It’s the greatest tour I never went on.”  I remember seeing videos from this one recorded concert and felt excited about the whole thing.  When I got married in March of 2001, I had reconnected with my childhood friend John. My wife and I had made a couple of trips to Lincoln to visit him. I remember sharing the news of the ELO reunion with him and he thought it was cool. But, he also thought it would be cool if someone would release some concert footage of the band from “back in the day”.  It wasn’t long after that that I found that EagleRock entertainment released a full length concert video of the Out of the Blue: live at Wembley.  This was such a cool idea and I still contemplate the purchase of this DVD when I see it on the Music DVD rack.

Max Reinhardt writes in 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die:

Out of the Blue was a daringly ambitious project-a galaxy-spanning double platter that melded spacey art-rock, Beatlesque pop, and sleek orchestral arrangements
….It kicks off with a trio of tunes that rank among ELO’s finest and draws inspiration from both Berry and Beethoven as moves through rockers and climaxes with Mr Blue Sky and comes to a triumphant close with the cinematic Wild West Hero.

All I know is that this album and this band hold a very distinct and profound memory of a short time where this band was my favorite.  It also represents a time with two of my best friends that I still think about with great fondness and many cherished memories!
To John and Kent…. This blog is for you guys
Love you guys!