As a kid, I used to hang out
with my cousins Chris and Nick.
In my musical autobiography,
I have my cousins to thank for
introducing me to two artists
that would be pivotal in my
development as a music fan
and a music maker. The first
time I ever heard an Elton John
album all the way through, I was
with my cousins and they were
spinning Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
And my cousin Nick introduced me
to ELO, specifically through the
album A New World Record.
These were transformative
listening experiences, and as soon
as my dad started allowing
me to choose records from his
Columbia House Record Club,
I ordered up those two records
from Elton and ELO. They may have
been the first records I ever bought
with my dad’s money. I was 12.
There is no cooler opening of an
album than the orchestration that
begins “Tightrope.” And Jeff Lynne
was a melody master, and while
I may have been bugged by the
Bee Gees styled backing vocals,
these tunes were just exceptional
to my young musical brain. Those
backups may have sounded Bee Gees,
but they really had more in common with
The Beatles or The Beach Boys. That
operatic thing in front of “Rockaria”
is just delicious. There’s not a clunker
on this entire record, and not a single
song that, after decades between listens,
I can’t still sing along with. Out of the Blue,
despite its mega hits like “Turn to Stone,”
“Sweet Talking Woman, and “Mr. Blue Sky,”
is less familiar to me now,
but still exceptionally good.
There’s something really interesting
to me about the production on these
records. Despite the strings and the
keyboards and the complexity of
the arrangements, there’s something
trashy about the way these albums
sound. The drums especially sound
junky–not the way drums from the
70’s typically sounded. It doesn’t bother me
at all; I just find it surprising, and, in
some ways, forward lo-fi thinking.
I’m not sure why, maybe out of
curiosity, or maybe because it was a
screaming deal, or both, but I bought
new the 2019 release from Jeff Lynne’s
ELO, a moniker he had to employ,
apparently, after legal disputes with
his ex-bandmates about the use of
the name. This record is called From
Out of Nowhere, which seems kind of
derivative, if you ask me, and, before
putting it on the turntable, I have no
recollection of any of these tunes.
It immediately sounds familiar, in that
it sounds exactly like an ELO album,
even that cool trashy drum production,
those great Lynne melodies and
those layered Bee Gee Beatle-esque
background vocals. It’s hard not to hear
George Harrison in Lynne’s singing,
and sometimes, even his guitar playing
echoes the great Beatle. This makes
sense, given their shared experience in
The Traveling Wilburys, and I think Lynne
produced Harrison’s big 80s hit record.
The songs on this new and last ELO record are
good songs. Here’s another mystery around
why I didn’t listen to it as often as it
deserved, but it’s a pleasure to rediscover
it today. He sounds here in strong form,
at something like 72 years. 78 today, and
having to cancel a series of ELO shows
recently because of health issues, its a sad
fact for music fans of a certain age
that our heroes are going to start falling
soon and fast and that will be difficult.
Even though my ELO fandom really doesn’t
go beyond these three albums and my
recollection of a half a dozen radio hits
from earlier records, Jeff Lynne is clearly
a treasure and what he helped ELO
create will be a lasting legacy, I’m certain.,
Notes on the vinyl editions:
- A New World Record, Jet Records, 1976, not my original copy (lost in the vinyl purge of 1989), but this is an old pressing and a good one. Quiet–no noise artifacts.
- Out of the Blue, Jet Records, 1977. Again, a recovered album, found used for $2.00. That’s right, $2.00. I vaguely remember, though, at some point having two copies of this thing–one that was so thoroughly used and abused it was almost unplayable, and another one that was in relatively good condition, but its cover was in tatters. I may have switched the good vinyl out of the crappy cover sleeve and replaced it with the bad vinyl with the decent cover–and the decent one was the one with the $2.00 price tag on it. This is a vague recollection–and the other reason I think of it now is because I have found myself from time to time thinking, I should get a new pressing of Out of the Blue because the one I have is shite. This pressing sounds okay–a few noisey places– and then I remembered the swap–kind of. I could be just making it all up.
- Jeff Lynne’s ELO: From Out of Nowhere, Columbia Records, 2019, black heavyweight vinyl.
In case you don’t already know: I’m listening to almost everything in my vinyl collection, A to Z, and writing at least one, sometimes two or three long skinny poem-like-things in response for each artist, and on a few occasions, writing a long skinny poem-like-thing in response to more than one artist. As a poet and a student of poetry, I understand that these things look like poems, but they don’t really sound much like poetry, hence, I call them “poem-like-things.” I’ll admit that they’re just long, skinny essays that veer every now and then into the poetic or lyric.
michael jarmer 