Classic Rock: Jeff Lynne, the humble ‘brummie’ in the rock empyrean

Some consider him a misunderstood genius. Others find only his popularity incomprehensible. Certainly, Jeff Lynne – deus ex machina of the Electric Light Orchestra and a top-level producer – is not a divisive or polarizing figure a priori. It was time – from whatever point of view one wishes to read his long, precious career – that put him in an uncomfortable and at the same time interesting position.

Uncomfortable because the period between the second half of the Seventies and the very early Eighties, when ELO reached the peak of their career with albums like “Discovery” (1979) and “Time” (1981), was rather crowded and complex, squeezed between the bands’ last gasps. legacy before becoming legacy completely or disappear forever – Led Zeppelin’s “In Through the Out Door” in 1979, Pinik Floyd’s “The Wall” in 1979, and the Rolling Stones’ “Emotional Rescue” in 1980 – and the arrival on the scene of a new wave that would make classic rock – precisely – “classic”: The Clash’s “London Calling”, Joy Division’s “Unknown Pleasures”, and The Cure’s “Three Imaginary Boys”, just to name a few examples from 1979 alone.

Interesting because Lynne has had the opportunity to experience the passing of the baton between at least three great generations of British artists, from the Beatles onwards: active from the second half of the Sixties with Idle Race, then working with Roy Wood in the Move at the turn of the century, and then launching the career of the Electric Light Orchestra – always in the company of Wood – in the first half of the Seventies, the author of “Evil Woman”, “Mr. Blue Sky”, “Don’t Bring Me Down” and “Hold On Tight” has absorbed the best of the scenes that saw him grow up and then reciprocated the musical panorama, with interest, for such generosity.

With ELO in a phase – so to speak – declining, in the second half of the 80s, Lynne fulfilled his youthful dream, that is to have direct contact (artistically speaking) with the beloved Fab Four, by tackling as producer “Cloud Nine”, the album that marked the return to success for George Harrison, recorded with his old bandmate Ringo Starr on drums for a handful of tracks. The collaboration with the former Beatles guitarist opened another door for Lynne, that of the Traveling Wilburys, a colossal supergroup that – in addition to Harrison and Lynne – also included Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Tom Petty. This opportunity, not only led him to provide his contribution to the sessions of the group’s two studio albums – “Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1” and “Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3”, respectively from 1988 and 1990, but which – in turn – was the harbinger of further opportunities.

By now esteemed not only in the recording studio but also in the control room, Lynne sat behind the mixing desk in 1988 for “Mystery Girl”, a Roy Orbison album for which he co-wrote (with the singer himself and Petty) the hit “You Got It”, and a year later for “Full Moon Fever”, an album where Petty placed two of his warhorses, “Free Fallin’” and “I Won’t Back Down”, on the tracklist – before repeating the collaboration in 1990, this time also as co-author, for “Into the Great Wide Open”, released in 1991 and acclaimed by critics as one of the best releases ever written by the singer-songwriter from Gainesville, Florida.

Then, in 1994, a sort of closing of the circle came about: Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr called Lynne into the studio to review the material left by John Lennon in view of the release of the collection “Anthology 1”, which would include the unreleased “Free as a Bird”, for which he would be credited as co-producer together with the three ex-Fab Four. Not even ten years later, Lynne would once again be the one to finish work on “Brainwashed”, Harrison’s last album, left unfinished after the artist’s death at the end of November 2001. Lennon would be missing, but he had already expressed his opinion on Lynne in 1973, when ELO were promoting their third album, “On the Third Day”: speaking of the single “Showdown”, McCartney’s longtime friend defined Electric Light Orchestra as “the children of the Beatles”. “I was shocked when he said that,” Lynne confessed to Classic Rock in 2020: “He was on an American radio show in New York and he said, ‘Great little bunch, these. I love this band.’”

“I’ve never been cool, ever, so it’s wonderful that people think that of me now,” he explained to the Guardian in 2014, when asked what it means to be considered “one of the most humble characters in rock history”: “I’m a guy from Birmingham and I always will be: I’ve lived in Los Angeles for 20 years and some people might think that makes me a different person, but it doesn’t. Very simply, I like to think of myself as a writer, a performer and a producer.” That’s it.