Electric Light Orchestra consists of Bev Bevan (drums), Jeff Lynne (lead vocals, songwriter, guitarist), Kelly Groucutt (bass, vocals), Mic Kaminski (violin), Richard Tandy (keyboards).
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) was a successful Birmingham rock music group of the 1970s and 1980s.
The band, formed by Jeff Lynne (of The Idle Race) with Roy Wood and Bev Bevan (the remaining members of The Move) in 1971, used cellos and violins to give their music a " classical" sound. Roy Wood left ELO shortly after the release of their eponymously-titled first album (which produced the UK hit "10538 Overture") and Jeff Lynne stepped up to lead the band (the first album was released with the mistaken title of No Answer in the USA, due to a mix-up with an uncompleted telephone call to the American label and subsequent secretarial message).
The band went through a line-up change (as Wood took some musicians with him to form Wizzard), including a new keyboardist, Richard Tandy, and released ELO II in 1973, from which came their first U.S. chart hit, a hugely elaborate cover of the Chuck Berry classic "Roll Over Beethoven". They also released On The Third Day in 1973, and Eldorado in 1974, scoring another U.S. Top 40 hit with "Can't Get It Out Of My Head".
In 1975, bassist and vocalist Kelly Groucutt joined, and Face The Music was released, from which the major singles were "Evil Woman" and "Strange Magic", marking a shift to a more "radio friendly" sound. From the same album, the instrumental "Fire on High," with its mix of strings and blazing acoustic guitars, saw heavy exposure as background music on CBS Sports Spectacular montages, though most viewers had no idea of the song's origins. The multi- platinum album A New World Record was released in 1976 with hits such as "Livin' Thing" (remade by The Beautiful South in 2004), a re-release of The Move's "Do Ya", and "Telephone Line". The songs "Livin' Thing" and "Telephone Line" were prominently featured in the films Boogie Nights and Billy Madison, respectively.
