Jeff Lynne, classic rock at its best
Jeff Lynne – who turns 77 today – founded the Electric Light Orchestra in Birmingham, England, in 1969. The period of greatest prestige and success for the group is that relating to the Seventies and Eighties. Their latest album, the fourteenth, “From Out of Nowhere”is dated 2019. This is the review of the album written for us by Michele Boroni.
For those who lived through the 70s and 80s, the ELO – Electric Light Orchestra brand is inextricably linked to pompous and baroque strings (first and then synths) which often covered the construction of small jewels of pop composition. It was enough to listen to the live versions without the intrusive carpet to understand why Jeff Lynne was so appreciated among English and American pop rock artists. With some of them – recent names such as Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison – he formed one of the most surprising supergroups of the late 80s (Travelling Wilburys) and then the remaining Beatles entrusted him with the production of the two unreleased songs contained in ‘Anthology “Free as a bird” and “Real love”.
After years and years dedicated to production, in 2015 he decided to return to playing, resurrecting the name of the band even if “Alone in the universe”, the title of the album, is totally produced and played by him. Jeff Smith, the musical director of BBC Radio 2, invites him to participate in the radio’s celebratory concert in Hyde Park: a resounding success that will bring him back to arenas around the world and even fill Wembley stadium.
“From out of nowhere” tells the story of Lynne’s sudden reappearance, and does so with a handful of surprising songs. Just listen to the first two to get an idea “From out of nowhere” and “Help yourself” is pure Lynne sound: creamy and layered harmonies, unexpected chord changes from major to minor, saturated sound and retro choruses. “All my love” instead seems to be written (and sung) by Paddy Mc Aloon of Prefab Sprout, while “Down came the rain” cannot help but recall the late Tom Petty, not to mention the writing of “Losing you” where the strings reappear and retro rock à la Lennon in “One more time”.
It’s classic rock at its best, reassuring and well produced. Here too the boy Lynne (born in 1947) in addition to producing, plays all the instruments, takes care of all the backing vocals, and is helped only by the sound engineer Steve Jay on percussion and by the old ELO keyboardist Richard Tandy who plays a piano solo in “One More Time”. In “Time of our life” the English singer recalls the aforementioned Wembley concert with the enthusiasm of a child. The sweet “Songbird” closes this emotionally satisfying album with the grace of great songwriting.
