In 1986, Jeff Lynne spearheaded the release of Balance of Power, the 11th studio album from his long-running and extremely successful band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO, for short). Sensing that the band had run its course for the time being, he essentially disbanded ELO following that record. It’s likely that people wondered back then how Lynne was ever going to pass the time now that he was no longer leading a rock juggernaut.
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We found out the answer, again and again, over the next five years. During that stretch, he was in the producer’s chair for some of the biggest rock artists in the world, many of whom had been struggling somewhat before collaborating with Lynne. As time and again those artists triumphed, the narrative was how they had all managed to break out of their artistic slumps. Lynne didn’t get a ton of mention, in part because he’s not the type to seek out accolades anyway. But as we look back at that period, it’s clear now that Jeff Lynne put together one of the finest stretches of producing in popular music history.
Famous Friends
After Balance of Power, Lynne not only didn’t want to front ELO any longer, he also considered taking a major break from music as a whole. That’s when he got a call from a fellow who had been in a band that Lynne always idolized. George Harrison phoned Lynne and wanted to know if he would produce his next album.
The dominoes started falling in rapid succession. Tom Petty randomly saw Lynne in the street in Los Angeles one day and called out to him how much he loved the work he’d done with Harrison. In addition, an offhand conversation that Lynne had with Harrison about starting a band indirectly led to the Traveling Wilburys, which brought him into the orbit of Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison, as well.
Heartbreakers, Beatles, and Supergroups? Oh My!
Yet for as much as you can say that Lynne benefitted from the serendipity of working with all these folks, you can also argue that they needed him even more. Harrison’s solo career was in limbo and hadn’t really been strong in more than a decade. Orbison was essentially an oldies act trying to reignite his recording career. Even Petty met Lynne at a time when he had hit a kind of dead end with the Heartbreakers and needed a restart.
Lynne rose to the occasion each time. Harrison’s Cloud Nine, which started Lynne’s run of producing success in 1987, focused the ex-Beatle’s sound and pared it down to a beguiling combination of rockabilly and mysticism. Petty was able to focus on his songcraft on Full Moon Fever instead of worrying so much about rocking out. And even though he didn’t produce all of Orbison’s comeback album, Mystery Girl, Lynne did co-write and produce the breakout hit “You Got It.”
And we haven’t even mentioned the two Traveling Wilburys albums, which Lynne helped to define with his production aesthetic. Lynne was able to give the rootsy songs created by the quintet a glistening sheen that made them stand out on the radio stations of the day.
One can only wonder what might have come of a pure pairing of Lynne and Bob Dylan. He’s the only Wilbury who didn’t have a solo record produced by Lynne, but the marvelous job that Lynne did with Dylan’s Wilbury songs, such as “Dirty World” and “Tweeter and the Monkey Man,” suggest such a collaboration would have been epic.
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By the way, if you’re looking for the most underrated project Lynne handled as a producer in this stretch, it might just be his own solo album, Armchair Theatre (1990). Harrison guested and Petty co-wrote one track, while ex-ELO member Richard Tandy played on the album as well. But it was ultimately a showcase for Lynne’s underrated songwriting and interpretive skills.
As the ‘90s dawned, Petty decided he wanted to pull the Heartbreakers back together, but he also wanted Lynne to bring his skills as producer to the party. There was a clash of styles at play. Lynne was known for his meticulousness in getting the right sound for each instrument, which meant recording different parts separately. This was a new twist for the Heartbreakers, who were known for getting in the studio and working the songs into shape as a unit. But the resulting record, Into the Great Wide Open, was a massive hit, showing that Lynne’s Midas touch was still in evidence.
After that record, Lynne dialed back his producing schedule a bit. He did pitch in on Ringo Starr’s ’92 LP Time Takes Time, which began a stretch where he would be heavily Fab Four-adjacent. He was chosen by Starr, Harrison, and Paul McCartney to produce the “new” Beatle tracks emanating from John Lennon demos for the Anthology project in 1995. Two years later, he did the bulk of the production on McCartney’s Flaming Pie, completing his Beatle trifecta. Not bad for a guy who once famously claimed he started ELO to pick up where “I Am the Walrus” left off.
In the new millennium, Lynne mostly set aside his outside production work, save for projects with Harrison and Petty before they passed away. He has periodically revived ELO for both tours and studio albums over the past few decades.
Because of ELO’s massive success, it’s likely that Jeff Lynne’s musical legacy will always be tied to them first and foremost. But his production work would have to be close behind, especially for that one magical five-year period when he was ubiquitous and peerless as a producer all at once.
Photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage for Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
