Electric Light Orchestra – The BBC Sessions
Well, I guess this is proof that I’m a sucker for nearly anything with the Electric Light Orchestra’s name on the cover. This latest release from Eagle Records, the people who brought us rather nice CD pressings of concert recordings from ELO’s 1975 and 1978 tours, is a collection of studio numbers from the band’s appearances on BBC Radio’s Bob Harris Sessions show between 1972 and 1974. If it sounds like I’m a little bit skeptical, it’s because in places the songs on this CD sound exactly like the studio versions that eventually saw light on their respective albums. “Kuiama” especially raised my suspicions – are we sure that this isn’t the same cut that wound up on ELO II? Either that, or ELO really was the best live band in the world, managing to duplicate the entirety of a song, right down to its production nuances, in a live performance!
But “Roll Over Beethoven” and “From The Sun To The World” are clearly not the same recordings I’ve heard at least two hundred times. Jeff Lynne’s vocals are a big part of the difference – in some places he sings a little rougher, and in a few places on the latter track, he actually sings a little better than he did on the final cut which made it to vinyl in 1972. The instrumentation is also significantly different on “From The Sun”, including a guitar solo in place of a violin solo during the instrumental break, and some much heavier synth work courtesy of Richard Tandy. Sadly, this song also fades out just as it’s starting to kick into the series of lightning-fast solos.
The Bob Harris Sessions version of “Mama” (listed on this CD, and on quite a few other compilations, as “Momma”) is outstanding – miles ahead of what actually made the cut for ELO II in 1972. Unusually, Lynne’s vocals are very dry, free from the echoplexing and reverb with which he usually drenched his own singing in post-production. And Jeff Lynne is an excellent singer – this track proves that he didn’t need to hide behind all the effects for so many years. The harmonies are also much wider, almost Queen-like, and better mixed. It almost sounds like an Armchair Theatre outtake of a recent cover version of the song.
“In The Hall Of The Mountain King” has never really been an ELO track I’ve listened to a lot, but this live version is another testament to Jeff Lynne’s guitar skills, the strength of ELO’s string section in the early 1970s, and the thundering intensity of Bev Bevan in his prime.
The final suite of five tracks is where I get sorely disappointed with this album. These songs, all from On The Third Day, sound exactly, in every detail and every tiny nuance, like the recordings I’ve heard on Third Day for more than half my life. It’s a damn shame – I would have loved to hear alternate takes or even different mixes of these songs from one of the band’s most mysterious and intricate albums. Simply lifting tracks from the album for this CD is the equivalent of the studio version of “Standin’ In The Rain” which opens the video of the 1978 Wembley Arena concert…it’s more than a little bit misleading.
So, the final question is…for those die-hard fans who have heard every last ELO song in existence a thousand times, is it worth the effort to track this CD down? I’m such a fan myself, so my answer is a “Yes!”…but that’s a qualified yes. Even if it’s just for this version of “Mama”, I recommend the BBC Sessions album to those who have the time and money to blow on finding this one.
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- Kuiama (11:05)
- Roll Over Beethoven (7:40)
- From The Sun To The World (7:19)
- Momma (6:56)
- In the Hall of the Mountain King (5:42)
- King of the Universe (2:35)
- Bluebird Is Dead (4:24)
- New World Rising (4:01)
- Daybreaker (3:31)
- Ma Ma Ma Belle (3:40)
Released by: Eagle / Edel
Release date: 1999
Total running time: 56:56
Somewhere between obscurity and fame – i.e. between their third and fourth albums – ELO recorded this California gig which is one of the most energetic and unusual performances the band ever put on. If the track list for this album looks unusual, that’s because, aside from “Roll Over Beethoven”, it’s the only evidence on record that ELO was a decent cover band prior to their ascension to superstardom. Jeff Lynne’s influences – the Beatles and Jerry Lee Lewis (what a combo!) – receive an homage from the respective (and, I might add, very good) covers of “Daytripper” and “Great Balls Of Fire”. Not used to the thought of him singing other people’s material, I was surprised at how well Lynne could carry off Jerry Lee Lewis’ vocal style. And there are three outstanding instrumentals – one, “Daybreaker”, is an ELO original from On The Third Day; another, “Mik’s Solo / Orange Blossom Special”, runs the gamut from classical to hoedown in a matter of a few hilarious minutes (courtesy of ELO’s resident virtuoso 
Mik Kaminski); and the third, a heavy metal cover of Grieg’s “In The Hall of the Mountain King” (also recorded on Third Day), segues abruptly into the aforementioned Jerry Lee Lewis rocker. This ranks up there with the Winterland CD and ELO Part II’s One Night as yet another example that, at least some of the time, ELO was a damn fine live band.
This classic concert recording, only recently given its own CD release, certainly humbles me a bit. Some time back, in my review of ELO Part II’s One Night live album, I asserted my belief that the original ELO – limited by the number of musicians and the technology available to them at the time – could never hold a candle to ELO Part II on stage. Now, after hearing this concert recording from the early stages of ELO’s superstardom – well over a year before Out Of The Blue was released, and not long after the album containing “Strange Magic” and “Evil Woman” debuted – I have to admit that this isn’t necessarily true.
number of times, something that he didn’t get to do again until the band broke up and reformed.
This has been available on videotape for ages, but in the past three or so years has seen release on CD and DVD as well. Does that really improve it? Well…no. Not really. Despite being a Royal Gala performance (with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester in the crowd), this is far from the best live show ELO has ever put on. There are far stronger performances on the BBC Sessions disc and Live At Winterland. But this was from “the spaceship tour!” So naturally, this is what everyone remembers. (In case you’re one who doesn’t: the spaceship tour is the year-long globetrotting circuit ELO did using an enormous fiberglass spaceship set as its stage; the “flying saucer,” a weak likeness of the famous ELO spaceship on the Out Of The Blue album cover, would open each night with an elaborate fog and light show to reveal the band within – provided that the hydraulics to open the “lid” and lift the band up into view worked. Jeff Lynne has since likened the 1978 tour to Spinal Tap.)
from Zoom this summer.
Originally conceived and recorded as a double album, Secret Messages was for some reason cut down to a single album and released in 1983, bestowing upon the world a somewhat grating single “Rock ‘n’ Roll Is King” (I’m sure you’ll remember the chorus: “Wham-a-lam-a, bam-a-lam-a, rock ‘n’ roll is king!”) and then, for all intents and purposes, disappearing into undeserved obscurity. This entry on my Damn Near Perfect Album List is, like Time before it, an example of just how good ELO was in the 80s, even if radio didn’t think so. I can’t think of a song on here that I don’t like, with the possible exception of the CD bonus track “Time After Time”, which bears
Though this isn’t my favorite ELO album of the 1980s, it contains my favorite song by the group which is also quite likely my favorite song of all time. I can’t say enough good things about “Rain Is Falling”, which achieves an almost perfect balance of orchestral and rock elements, and the vocals aren’t echoed too much (a common ELO failing of which even I tire), and it’s the band at its peak – at least for me. I could take up the rest of this whole review on this one song, but there are a whole dozen other tunes on Time, including the mechanical “Yours Truly, 2095” (with the great lyric “I met someone who looks a lot like you / She does the things you do / but she is an IBM”!), the laid-back harmonies of
At the time of this review, Xanadu doesn’t seem to have been pressed on CD in the States, at least not recently, so I had to get a Japanese import, but at least the Japanese realized where the true value of this movie’s music was and put the ELO tracks first! (Oh, all right, just to be fair, I really, really like Olivia Newton-John’s “Magic”, and the big-band/rock combo “Dancin'” featuring The Tubes is really nifty. There, I admitted it.) Among the ELO tracks, the only weak entry is “Xanadu” itself, but even so
For me, this is ELO’s low ebb, the point at which they pretty much hit bottom. But I suppose nearly every band must have come close – even the Alan Parsons Project broke into an embarassingly disco-esque boogie in the middle of “The Voice” from their 1977 album, and so ELO was bound to go disco, however briefly. Sadly, it seems to be this phase which everyone remembers, consigning ELO to a fate of forever being relegated to Hits of the 70s! collections. “Last Train To London” is just about my least favorite ELO song of all time – it’s got good bass work, and that’s really all I can say in its favor. “Don’t Bring Me Down” is okay, though I preferred the later version played by the group live, which transformed the 
You have to be in the mood for ELO, and a whole lot of ELO at its most ELO-esque, if you’re going to absorb this entire double album in one sitting. This album contains the singles “Turn To Stone”, “Sweet Talkin’ Woman” and “Mr. Blue Sky”, three of the best ELO singles ever to hit the airwaves. Some of the best album tracks also come from this one as well, including “Starlight”, one of the best songs ELO ever recorded. Don’t ask me why, but my favorite Jeff Lynne compositions show their 50s-retro roots quite audibly. Also included are “Jungle”, a song that sounds incredibly silly on the surface but is appealing all the same; “Standing In The Rain”, keyboardist Richard Tandy’s most jaw-dropping performance (and this was years before MIDI, children); the rough-edged Birmingham Blues (about the band’s home town – England, not Alabama); “Summer And Lightning” and “Night In The City” (two of the very few songs in which every possible good clichè of ELO’s sound converges), and one of my favorite instrumentals, “The Whale”.