A profile of Birmingham-based band Electric Light Orchestra. who started in 1971 as an eight-piece orchestral rock act - founded by former Move members
Roy Wood. Bev Bevan and Jeff Lynne - but who, by 1986, featured just three members, with Lynne on lead vocals. Hugely popular but not without their detractors, the Beatles-influenced group peppered the charts of the 70s and early 80s with a distinctively dense, warm and melancholic sound, typified by Can't Get It Out of My Head, Livin' Thing, Rockaria!, Telephone Line, Sweet Talkin' Woman, Mr Blue Sky , Don't Bring Me Down and many others, including the 1980 number-one single Xanadu - a camp duet with Olivia Newton-John .
Producer Chris Skinner