Electric Light Orchestra, Jeff Lynne (1999)

(As published in Salem Press's Popular Musicians ... )


ORIGINAL MEMBERS: Jeff Lynne (b. 1947), Roy Wood (b. 1946), Bev Bevan (b. 1944), Rick Price.

BEST-KNOWN LINE-UP: Jeff Lynne (b. 1947), Bev Bevan (b. 1944), Richard Tandy (b. 1948), Kelly Groucutt (b. 1945), Mik Kaminski (b. 1951), Melvyn Gale (b. 1952), Hugh McDowell (b. 1953).
OTHER MEMBERS: Mike Edwards, Michael D'Albuquerque, others.

FIRST ALBUM RELEASE: No Answer, 1972.

MUSICAL STYLES: pop, rock and roll, disco.

Formed in Birmingham, England, in 1971, the Electric Light Orchestra grew out of the successful U.K. rock band the Move. Led by Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne, ELO attempted to blend pop songcraft with classical grandeur, eventually discovering a formula that transformed the group into one of the most successful "hit machines" of the 1970's. Although attrition among the group's members and changes in musical fashion led to the group's calling it a day in 1986, Jeff Lynne continued to find outlets for his unique sound, both as a producer and as a member of the rock and roll supergroup, the Traveling Wilburys.

"Move"-ing On. From its beginnings in 1966, the Move contained the nucleus of what would later become the Electric Light Orchestra. The multi-instrumentalist Roy Wood and the drummer Bev Bevan were both part of the original ELO lineup. Jeff Lynne, who would later emerge as ELO's leader, joined the Move in 1969, shortly after the release of its Shazam album. As if to foreshadow ELO's classical leanings, the Move based "Night of Fear," its first single, on Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture.

The conflict among the members of the Move over the group's direction resulted in frequent lineup changes and wide-ranging musical experimentation. Indeed, the group's very eclecticism may have accounted more than anything else for their failure to establish a large U.S. following. When Wood and Lynne announced in 1971 that the Move would become the Electric Light Orchestra and that more lineup changes would follow, few who had followed the group were surprised.

Misses, Hits, and More Misses. At first, the Electric Light Orchestra appeared as likely to fail in the U.S. as the Move had. ELO's debut album, 1972's No Answer, yielded only one minor hit (the five-minute "10538 Overture") and was distinguished mostly by the failure of its rock and classical elements to cohere. The group's 1973 album, Electric Light Orchestra II, with the eleven-minute "Kuiama" and the eight-minute "Roll Over Beethoven," did little to change the general perception of Lynne as a talented but self-indulgent bandleader. (Wood left shortly after the release of No Answer.)

With On the Third Day (1973), however, the group's vision began coming into focus, and both Eldorado (1974) and Face the Music (1975) contained top-ten hits. The 1975 album Olé ELO collected the best-known songs from ELO's first five albums and went gold. The lineup had solidified as well. Joining Lynne, Bevan, and the keyboardist Richard Tandy were the bassist Kelly Groucutt, the violinist Mik Kaminski, and the cellists Hugh McDowell and Melvyn Gale. Although Kaminski, McDowell, and Gale participated mainly in the group's live performances (the albums' orchestral sections were often performed by full orchestras), they were included in all ELO photos and personnel listings until the Discovery album in 1979.

It was this seven-man lineup that toured in 1976 in support of A New World Record, the group's first platinum album. The album yielded three hit singles, the second of which, "Do Ya," had been a minor hit for the Move in 1972, and the third of which, "Telephone Line," became their third top-ten and first gold single.

Out of the Blue, into the Black. Further evidence of the group's popularity was the success of its 1977 album, Out of the Blue. Despite the popularity in the 1970's of two-record live albums, two-record studio albums were seldom attempted. (Fleetwood Mac's Tusk would not appear until 1979). Nonetheless, Out of the Blue became the group's second platinum album, and the singles "Turn to Stone," "Sweet Talkin' Woman," and "Mr. Blue Sky" helped the group maintain a presence on top-forty airwaves into the fall of 1978.

By this time, the ELO sound had become extremely ornate. Lynne and Groucutt frequently overdubbed their Beatle-esque vocal harmonies into simulated choirs when they weren't using actual ones, and orchestras augmented by Tandy's futuristic synthesizer sounds turned up on almost every track. And although the results, like many of Lynne's lyrics, were often clever, the cumulative effect was becoming heavy-handed. Perhaps it was a sense of having reached a saturation point that led the group to lighten both its membership and its sound for Discovery. On the album's inner sleeve, only Lynne, Bevan, Tandy, and Groucutt were pictured.

Whatever its reasons, the newly streamlined ELO placed four of Discovery's tracks on the top forty in an era when two singles per album was the norm and three a happy exception. By the end of 1980, the group's 1979 Greatest Hits album and subsequent soundtrack to the film Xanadu had sold another three million copies.

The Descent. Over the next six years, ELO released three albums, only one of which--the 1981 album Time--went gold. All three yielded top-twenty hits, with "Hold On Tight" becoming the group's fifth top-ten single, but underselling tours, the appearance of the 1986 Balance of Power album on the relatively minor CBS Associated label, and the shrinking of the "Orchestra" to three members symbolized the group's having worn out its welcome. By 1987, Bevan was filling the drum seat for Black Sabbath.

Otis and Clayton. Lynne immediately became a much sought-after producer, developing connections that culminated in his joining Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and George Harrison in the rock and roll supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. Each superstar's identity was thinly disguised by a Wilbury-family nickname: Lynne was "Otis Wilbury" on the group's 1988 debut and "Clayton Wilbury" on its 1990 sequel. (His 1990 solo album, Armchair Theatre, caused little excitement.)

Because the sound that Lynne had crafted for ELO owed a great deal to the Beatles, many considered his joining the Traveling Wilburys, which contained an actual Beatle in Harrison , particularly fitting.

SELECT DISCOGRAPHY

No Answer, 1972 (album)
Electric Light Orchestra II, 1973 (album)
On the Third Day, 1973 (album)
"Can't Get It Out of My Head," 1975 (single; from the Eldorado album, 1974)
"Evil Woman," 1975 (single; from Face the Music, 1975)
"Telephone Line,"1977 (single; from A New World Record, 1976)
Out of the Blue, 1977 (album)
"Don't Bring Me Down," 1979 (single; from Discovery, 1979)
"I'm Alive," 1980 (single; from the Xanadu soundtrack, 1980)
"Hold On Tight," 1981 (single; from Time, 1981)
Secret Messages, 1983 (album)
Balance of Power, 1986 (album)
Traveling Wilburys Volume One, 1988 (album; Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison)
Afterglow, 1990 (ELO box set; previously released and previously unreleased material)
Armchair Theatre, 1990 (Jeff Lynne solo album)
Traveling Wilburys Volume Three, 1990 (album; Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty)

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Grammy for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal for Traveling Wilburys Volume One, 1989.

FOR THE RECORD

*The phrase "No Answer" does not appear on the cover of the No Answer album because the album supposed to be titled simply Electric Light Orchestra. It was accidentally re-titled as the result of an unanswered record-company phone call.

*During the first part of their 1978 world tour in support of the Out of the Blue album, ELO performed inside a 250,000-pound, laser-equipped "spaceship" that remains one of the most spectacular stage sets in the history of live rock. Ironically, elements of the performance weren't "live" at all; nearly ten years before Milli Vanilli was shamed from the music business for lip-synching, ELO was known to enhance its "spaceship" performances with pre-recorded strings and vocals.

(More Electric Light Orchestra: http://arsenioorteza.blogspot.com/2010/07/electric-light-orchestra-zoom-2001.html)

Abba (1999)

(As published in Salem Press's Popular Musicians ... )

ORIGINAL MEMBERS: Bjorn Ulvaeus (b. 1945), Anni-Frid Lyngstad (b. 1945), Benny Andersson (b. 1946), Agnetha Faltskog (b. 1950)

FIRST ALBUM RELEASE: Waterloo, 1974 (The group's 1973 album Ring Ring was credited to "Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida" and remained unreleased in the United States for twenty years.)

MUSICAL STYLES: pop, disco, bubblegum

Formed in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1972, Abba consisted of two couples whose division of labor, like their marriages, seemed for a while to have been made in heaven. With the photogenic Agnetha Faltskog and Anni-Frid Lyngstad singing the catchy pop songs of Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson, Abba went from being the first internationally recognized pop group to come from Sweden to being one of the most commercially successful pop groups of all time. Abba disbanded in 1983, several years after the dissolution of the group members' marriages. Nevertheless, its many original albums and hit collections continue to sell millions of copies worldwide.

Sound and Eurovision. Prior to forming a songwriting and performing partnership that would lay the groundwork for Abba, Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus enjoyed individual success as members of the Swedish pop groups the Hep Stars and the Hootenanny Singers, respectively. With Stig Anderson, who would eventually become known as Abba's "fifth member," they established Union Songs and began writing, recording, and producing both their own music and the music of others.

In 1969, Andersson became engaged to Anni-Frid Lyngstad, and Ulvaeus became engaged to Agnetha Faltskog. Both Lyngstad and Faltskog were already established solo performers in Sweden, and eventually the two couples began performing and recording together under the name Bjorn, Benny, Agnetha, and Frida. After failing to qualify as Sweden's entry in the 1973 Eurovision song contest with the song "Ring Ring," the group and Anderson began preparing for the 1974 competition. Shortening its name to the acronym Abba, the group wrote and recorded what would become the first of their many international hits, the 1974 winner of the Eurovision Song Contest, "Waterloo."

The Successful Seventies. Although "Waterloo" reached number six in the U.S. and number one in Britain, Abba appeared to be headed for the dubious distinction of one-hit wonder until the release of "S.O.S." Like "Waterloo," "S.O.S." was distinguished by the overdubbed vocals of Lyngstad and Faltskog and a wall-of-sound backing track featuring a sparkling blend of keyboards and guitars. The song's international popularity caused fans and critics alike to take the group more seriously and, as a result, to expect even more from them.

Far from being daunted, Abba rose to the challenge. Several popular singles later, "Dancing Queen" became the biggest hit of their career, even reaching number one in America. By 1977, Abba's worldwide sales had eclipsed even the Beatles', and, like the Beatles, Abba had begun to feel the pressure of international superstardom. In response to the self-imposed challenge of continually outdoing itself, the group responded in 1977 with an album simply titled The Album, which included some of Abba's longest and most elaborate songs thus far. Viewed by many as a collection of only partially successful experiments, The Album was nevertheless treated kindly compared to The Movie, a feature-length film consisting largely of concert footage that instead of cementing the group's superstar status seemed to reveal its feet of clay.

Despite such missteps, however, Abba consistently enjoyed hit singles throughout the 1970's, even in the U.S., where enthusiasm for the group's music had always been subdued in comparison with the enthusiasm with which it was greeted elsewhere. The Album eventually went platinum, and Voulez-Vous, which followed in 1979 and contained the hits "Voulez-Vous" and "Chiquitita," went gold.

The Families That Play Together? Unlike the Beatles, whose dissolution was due in part to marriage, Abba began to break down as the result of divorce. By 1981, both Ulvaeus and Faltskog's seven-year marriage and Andersson's and Lyngstad's three-year one had ended. Still, the end of the group was not immediately forthcoming. Amid the marital discord, Abba managed to record its two best albums, Super Trouper (1980) and The Visitors (1982), both of which contained hit singles. But when Lyngstad released her Phil Collins-produced solo album Something's Going On in 1982 and the group released no new music in 1983, rumors began to circulate that the title of their latest greatest hits collection, The Singles--The First Ten Years, may have been too optimistic.

These rumors proved true. Faltskog's first post-Abba solo album, Wrap Your Arms Around Me, appeared later that year. In 1984, the soundtrack to the musical Chess, on which Andersson and Ulvaeus had collaborated with the lyricist Tim Rice, provided Murray Head with his first hit in fourteen years, "One Night in Bangkok." Meanwhile, all four group members had either remarried or established new live-in relationships. The 1986 Live album was the last album-length collection of previously unreleased Abba performances.

The Reissue Decade. When Polygram acquired the rights to the Abba catalog in the early 1990's, the company was able to capitalize on the spotty availability of the group's albums by mounting a high-profile reissue campaign. Beginning with Gold/Greatest Hits in 1992, More Abba Gold in 1993, and the four-disc Thank You for the Music box in 1994, Polygram had by 1997 re-released all eight Abba studio albums, making them available on CD for the first time.

Some Abba enthusiasts have been too quick to spot the group's influence. Aside from the fact that both Roxette and Ace of Base, for instance, were also internationally successful Swedish pop exports, they have little in common with Abba aside from their homeland. There was, however, no mistaking Abba's influence on the British pop duo Erasure, who released a well-received four-song EP of Abba covers titled Abba-esque in 1992.

SELECT DISCOGRAPHY

Ring Ring, 1973 (album)
"Waterloo," 1974 (single; from the Waterloo album, 1974)
Abba, 1975 (album)
"Fernando," 1976 (single; from Greatest Hits, 1975)
"Dancing Queen," 1977 (single; from Arrival, 1976)
"Take a Chance on Me," 1978 (single; from The Album, 1977)
Voulez-Vous, 1979 (album)
"The Winner Takes It All," 1980 (single; from Super Trouper, 1980)
The Visitors, 1981 (album)
Live, 1986 (album)
Gold/Greatest Hits, 1992 (album; previously released material)
More Abba Gold, 1993 (album; mostly previously released material)
Thank You for the Music, 1994 (box set; previously released material, outtakes, and alternate versions)

AWARDS AND ACHIEVEMENTS

Eurovision Song Contest winner for "Waterloo," 1974
BMI award for Most Played Record of the Year for "S.O.S.," 1975
Carl Allen Award (a British most-successful-songwriters award), 1976
Cashbox Top LP/Singles Artists of the Year award, 1976

FOR THE RECORD

*By the late 1970's, Abba had become the most commercially successful pop act in the world, outselling even the Beatles. At the same time, the Stockholm stock exchange listed the group as its second-most lucrative corporation.

*In 1989, an Australian quartet calling itself Bjorn Again was formed. Specializing in recreating Abba's music onstage, the group--which consists of Gavin Edwards ("Bjorn Volvoeus"), Peter Smith ("Benny Anderwear"), Annette Jones ("Agnetha Falstart"), and Tracy Adams ("Frida Longstokin")--successfully toured the United States in 1997.

*During the Stockholm, Sweden, stop of its 1992 "Zoo TV" tour, U2 was joined onstage by Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus at the Globe Theatre for a performance of "Dancing Queen"; two years later, seventeen years after its initial release, the song (backed by a "bridal" version performed by the Wedding Band Featuring Blazey Best) became the first single from the Muriel's Wedding soundtrack.