ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA @ 50

 

December 3rd marks the half century anniversary of the release of the eponymous debut album by the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), which landed in UK record shops on this day in 1971.

The group was founded as an offshoot project by members of The Move: Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood & Bev Bevan. They instigated the project with the conception of fusing sophisticated Beatles inspired pop music with classical overtones by incorporating instruments like violins, cellos, brass and woodwinds to augment the standard drums and guitars of the typical rock band. The band came about when Wood added some of these instruments to one of Lynne’s songs which had been intended as a Move track, but which ended up becoming the debut ELO song. The members had intended to retire The Move as a band and shift their focus entirely to ELO before releasing their debut, but financial necessities pushed the two projects to exist concurrently in the studio in order to complete a final pair of Move LPs to secure sufficient record label funding for ELO. This ended up pushing the ELO debut album off until December of 1971.

Re-titled to "No Answer" for its US release in March of 1972, that title came about purely by accident when a US record label executive tried ringing the UK offices to get the name of the album, but there was literally NO ANSWER, so he simply put that note on the tape, which was misconstrued as the title by the US offices and the error stuck. The album delivered a UK top ten hit with the opening song, 10528 Overture. It offers a glimpse into the hit making powerhouse that would come to dominate the charts throughout the coming decade. The basic elements were in place for the signature sound of the band, though the core lineup would quickly lose Roy Wood and the band would become fronted by Jeff Lynne throughout the remainder of its existence and future revivals. Though the debut album was performed almost entirely by Lynne, Wood and Bevan, later albums would eventually incorporate a regular roster of musicians to form the string section and Richard Tandy would come in on keyboards to replace Wood and solidify the classic lineup of the band.

Though the group had all the key elements falling into place on their debut, it wasn’t until their iconic 1974 Eldorado album that they would realize their fully formed manifestation into the ensemble that would become unstoppable chart toppers throughout the remainder of the decade and beyond.