Electric Light Orchestra
Electric Light Orchestra
ELO in 1979, from left to right: Hugh McDowell, Melvyn
Gale, Kelly Groucutt, Jeff Lynne, Bev Bevan, Richard
Tandy & Mik Kaminski.
Background information
Origin
Birmingham, England
Genre(s)
Rock, progressive rock, pop rock,
symphonic rock, cello rock
Years
active
1970–1983
1985–1986
2000–2001
Label(s)
Harvest, Warner Bros., United
Artists, Jet, Columbia, Epic,
Legacy, Sony BMG
Associated
acts
The Move, The Idle Race,
Wizzard, Violinski, Black
Sabbath, ELO Part II, The
Orchestra, Traveling Wilburys
Website
Official website
Members
See Personnel section
Electric Light Orchestra, commonly abbre-
viated ELO, were a symphonic rock group
from Birmingham, England, who released el-
even studio albums between 1971 and 1986
and another album in 2001. ELO were
formed to accommodate Roy Wood and Jeff
Lynne’s desire to create modern pop songs
with heavily classical overtones, but falling
under a light rock category. However, the
band’s direction for most of their existence
was set by Lynne who, after the band’s debut
record, wrote and arranged all of the group’s
original compositions and produced every
album.
The band was first successful in the Un-
ited States, billed as ’The English guys with
the big fiddles’.[1] They soon gained a cult
following despite lukewarm reviews back in
their native United Kingdom. They were man-
aged by agent Don Arden, father of Sharon
Osbourne.
By the mid-1970s, they had become one of
the biggest selling bands in music. From
1972 to 1986, ELO accumulated twenty-sev-
en Top 40 hit single appearances in both the
UK and the US. The group also scored twenty
Top 20 U.K. hit singles, as well as nineteen
Top 20 hit singles in the U.S. Billboard
charts, with fifteen in the Hot 100. The band
also holds the record for having the most Bill-
board Hot 100 Top 40 hits of any band in
U.S. chart history without ever having a #1
single.[2]
Despite the fact that the majority of the
group’s material was never researched,
audited and certified, ELO collected 21 RIAA