![\"Jeff](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Jeff-Lynne-Musician-2000s-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Jeff Lynne)<\/p>\n
Sat 24 January 2026 16:30, UK <\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Jeff Lynne<\/a> called the shots in ELO. <\/p>\n Although it\u2019s hard to tell who was doing what with an entire orchestra onstage, all you had to do was turn your attention to the afro-haired man with impeccable sunglasses whenever they performed songs like \u2018Telephone Line\u2019 to see an absolute master pulling music out of every musician onstage. But even if Lynne has become the most malevolent dictator of everything the band does, that wasn\u2019t how he got his start.<\/p>\n If anything, his work with The Move was a lot more straight-ahead rock and roll than what he would ultimately become. He was definitely a fan of bands like The Beatles and The Stones, but since the strings hadn\u2019t come in yet, there are a lot more tunes that stand out as decent blues rock and power pop jams from the time. But when he and Roy Wood decided to form the basis for their next project, they were going to need a whole lot more power once they came up with \u201810538 Overture\u2019.<\/p>\n As if the classical-style didn\u2019t give it away, having orchestral instruments in the mix was almost a no-brainer, but Lynne didn\u2019t want to make baroque pop in the same way that other artists did. If you listen to the string lines of a lot of their classic tunes, all of them are basically the same kind of pentatonic licks that everyone starts out with on guitar, only transposed over to suit the violin and cellos instead.<\/p>\n It was certainly interesting for the time, but it was clear that Wood didn\u2019t really want to stick around that long. It was clear that Lynne was coming into his own as a songwriter, and for the next decade and a half, every musician seemed like one different colour on the musical spectrum for him to play with. And while everyone was fine with following Lynne\u2019s lead, it was bound to be a punch in the gut when he finally decided to fold the band in the late 1980s. <\/p>\n But you can\u2019t really question Lynne\u2019s line of thinking. They didn\u2019t exactly have the same hits they had back in the day, and Lynne\u2019s chance to work with giants like Tom Petty<\/a> and George Harrison were almost too good to pass up. Then again, the rest of the band weren\u2019t going to go back to working day jobs, and drummer Bev Bevan figured that he would try his hand at keeping the band going with ELO Part II.<\/p>\n