Intelligent Life On Planet Rock
So, is Jeff Lynne the single luckiest bloke in the history of rock?
All this reminiscing around the career of the mighty ELO got me musing about something. Is Jeff Lynne basically the single luckiest/most fulfilled bloke in the entire history of rock music?
Let's look at the evidence... Here's Jeff, a member of an obscure Brummy beat combo who's grown up being heavily influenced by a range of artists, each of which have blended to form a part of his musical DNA. There's 50s rock n rollers like Roy Orbison, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, there's the Beatles, there's Bob Dylan, there's the Byrds etc.
Anyway, he gets asked to join another already successful and respected popular beat combo who have already had numerous hits just as the creative force behind the band is going through a change of musical direction (which kinda matches with some of his leanings). He immediately becomes a joint creative force and forms a new band with the beat combo leader who wants to push the boundaries of what pop is currently doing. After one album the more well known creative force leaves, leaving Jeff Lynne to take the band in his direction and global super-stardom.
In the early 80s, Lynne gets bored of ELO and disbands the group going on to become a hotly sought after record producer. As such he works with a number of his idols from his formative years (e.g. George Harrison, Del Shannon, Roy Orbison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr) and works with several other respected artists, creating universally acclaimed albums (e.g. Tom Petty) plus a few less acclaimed. He gets asked to work with his greatest influence to create two new tracks from some unused studio demos which are then released as the icing on the cake of that band's retrospective set.
Meanwhile, he also forms a band with several of the aforementioned personal seminal influences releasing two more hit records.
After a relatively quiet decade he then once again becomes a sought after producer for up-coming indie types like Regina Spektor... The story continues...
As a personal history of living the dream... that's not half bad. Yup, probably the single luckiest bloke in rock music (bad hair and beard or not!).
- More from Trevor_Raggatt.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Nick Mason?
Not particularly interested in music; not particularly interested in playing the drums; not even particularly good at playing the drums, but a nice amenable guy who just happened to fall in with Syd, Roger and Richard then spent the next 30 years sitting at the back playing a slow ride in 4 with occasional clunky fills whilst planning his next racing car.
It doesn't come much luckier much easier than that.
(Jealous? Me? Noooooo...)
I think it was Gary Player who said
"Lucky? Strange how the more I practice the luckier I get."
There are lots of talented people out there and, yes, luck can play a certain part but only goes so far. his one real lucky break was joining The Move (hardly lucky - he had to pass an audition, after all).
ELO almost falling apart after Wood left hardly smacks of luck either. And it's a bit partial to cite Wood as the dominant force. ELO struggled for several years after. It wasn't until Eldorado that their fortunes really turned.
As for production. Perhaps all of those people thought he was a good producer and that they wanted to work with him on the basis of the work that he'd done? Not seeing the luck part there. It also helps that, by all accounts, many of the people he produced were near neighbours (which is slightly more fortunate). The fact that was co-opted by 0.75 of the HJHs to produce may not have been unconnected to the fact that Harrison recommended him.
As I said earlier, luck plays a part in all the best careers but to call him the "single luckiest bloke in the history of rock" is more tha bit harsh, I think.
Well, I was thinking of "lucky" more in the...
..."fulfilled", "blessed", "living the dream" etc sense rather than the "jammy", "random fortune" etc sense...
I've been a HUGE Move/Lynne/ELO fan since I first remember hearing Roll Over Beethoven in around 1976 so no belittling of the man implied at all! The talent, hard work, vision etc are a given. It's more a case of when you look at his life in music it seems to go well beyond just a success into having a career that so perfectly hits all his own personal buttons. So much so that you could almost imagine his career having being written by a Hollywood script writer penning a rock 'n' roll feel good, local boy makes good movie.
And, yes, the career summary above is somewhat positively skewed for effect. Of course there were struggles, conflicts etc along the way (who doesn't have those throughout life). However, looking across his life he does seem remarkably blessed.
Fair Do's
If that's what you meant by lucky, then yeah, he certainly is. Everything he ever wanted and more besides. Even better than that, the fact that he and Roy don't hate each other after the way ELO panned out is also a wonderful thing. I've always liked the pair of 'em, so that's a good thing.
Yes...
Absolutely!
It is lucky in a way
That, by asking Jeff Lynne to produce their albums, so many fine artists as good as admitted that they wanted their albums to sound just like their mates' ones. The hand of Jeff doesn't so much waft gently over the waxings he supervises as form itself into a fist which batters them into the shape he wants.
And I don't mind the Jeff Sound. Heaven help those who don't.
Ringo Starr
Decent drummer, invited to join biggest group ever on account of being easy going and amiable, AND gets to marry stunning Bond girl!
Lucky? I think so!
Ringo Starr
These repeated claims that Ringo is not an outstanding drummer get boring - they seem to derive from the frequently quoted throwaway Lennon crack that '...he's not even the best drummer in the Beatles'.
What makes you think that he was invited to join the Beatles 'on account of being easy going and amiable', Johan? They were just a bit smarter than that! There was a reason they sacked a drummer who looked like a film star, and replaced him with a bloke who looked like...well, Ringo. He was poached from Rory Storm & The Hurricanes because he was the ace drummer on the Liverpool scene. And name one Beatles record spoiled by Ringo's drumming - or even where you could improve the drum part.
Like all the great drummers (Al Jackson Jr, Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Bernard Purdie etc), he always found the right beat and held it.
He read Thomas The Tank Engine quite well too!
Ringo Starr
These repeated claims that Ringo is not an outstanding drummer get boring - they seem to derive from the frequently quoted throwaway Lennon crack that '...he's not even the best drummer in the Beatles'.
What makes you think that he was invited to join the Beatles 'on account of being easy going and amiable', Johan? They were just a bit smarter than that! There was a reason they sacked a drummer who looked like a film star, and replaced him with a bloke who looked like...well, Ringo. He was poached from Rory Storm & The Hurricanes because he was the ace drummer on the Liverpool scene. And name one Beatles record spoiled by Ringo's drumming - or even where you could improve the drum part.
Like all the great drummers (Al Jackson Jr, Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Bernard Purdie etc), he always found the right beat and held it.
He read Thomas The Tank Engine quite well too!
Ringo Starr
These repeated claims that Ringo is not an outstanding drummer get boring - they seem to derive from the frequently quoted throwaway Lennon crack that '...he's not even the best drummer in the Beatles'.
What makes you think that he was invited to join the Beatles 'on account of being easy going and amiable', Johan? They were just a bit smarter than that! There was a reason they sacked a drummer who looked like a film star, and replaced him with a bloke who looked like...well, Ringo. He was poached from Rory Storm & The Hurricanes because he was the ace drummer on the Liverpool scene. And name one Beatles record spoiled by Ringo's drumming - or even where you could improve the drum part.
Like all the great drummers (Al Jackson Jr, Earl Palmer, Hal Blaine, Bernard Purdie etc), he always found the right beat and held it.
He read Thomas The Tank Engine quite well too!
These
repeated posts get quite boring too!
When it comes to luckiest
Waylon Jennings gets my vote every time
I have this theory...
....that it's not just luck, or a particular talent (although they're both needed), but it's also a huge helping of diplomacy/leadership/personality. So someone who is a naturally gregarious person who makes friends easily, who can deal with the tensions of the situation diplomatically, and lead others through the minefields, they're the ones who seem to be in this super-producer type position. So it's not just Jeff Lynne, but even I could probably name any dozen old-school record label honchos from Sam Phillips and Ahmet Erteghun through to today where that would (from my far remove) seem to be the case.
It's just a theory, mind.
Might even fit somewhere in D Hepworth's treatise on 'class in the music business'.
I thought it was a universally acknowledged truth
that the luckiest man in rock is Ron Wood.
I thought it was agreed that it was
the bass player of U2.
Idle Race
Not particularly interested in anything from ELO onwards, but the Idle Race (Jeff Lynne's psych group in the 60s) are a fabulous group loved by both John Peel and, especially, Kenny Everett.
'The Birthday Party' LP stands up alongside pretty much anything from '66-'69 and absolutely beats to a pulp anything after '69.
Personally, I also really liked the 'Free As A Bird' and 'Real Love' singles that he produced.
Amazed that no-one's mentioned...
Andrew Ridgely. Is he ruled out by the word "rock". Perhaps he's the luckiest man in pop? In any case, he's been enormously well-rewarded for doing very little except befriending George Michael at school.
What did Andrew Ridgeley do?
He stopped Wham! calling their albums things like Listen Without Prejudice Volume 1.
The Manchester end of lucky
...the likes of Bez, Bonehead and Guigsy certainly took very little to achieve very much as anyone who has read the account of Julia Roberts trying to pull Bez would know.
My favourite quote from Bonehead at the time following an audience member berating him backstage for his lack of axe skills - "listen, dickhead, I might well have only played A, C and D, but you just paid £20 to watch me do it"
Jeff Lynne
...also worked with Olivia Newton-John. In 1980. Now that *is* jammy ;-)
She's quite jammy, too
Aye, but..
What's the very fragrant Ms Vela got to do with Jeff Lynne? (Quick Wikipedia check)
The lucky, lucky bastard!!
I remember first seeing this video and it making me stop being all excited about the Fagen / Becker / Katz thing and and start being all excited about the eyes / hair / legs / mouth / smile thing, thus engendering another broken glass and shadow moment.
A Tangential Query
Does anyone know the backstory behind "The Ghost at Number One" by Jellyfish? It certainly seems to be a rather stiletto-shaped attack on Mr. Lynne, but I've not been able to find any explanation online. I mean, did Jeff strangle their puppy, or what?
An attack on Mr Lynne
But is it Jeff?
The song only refers to "Mrs Lynne's son"
Might be someone else..
That's certainly possible
There's plenty of comments on the web claiming it's about Jeff, but perhaps that's just a myth that I have been gullible enough to swallow. I thought the 'nappy superstar' phrase was a reference to his iconic coif, and that the title was saying he's a ghost of the Beatles. Or something. Surely there's a Jellyfish expert among the Word massive, can sate my curiosity?