Electric Light Orchestra mastermind Jeff Lynne was in the midst of producing George Harrison’s 1987 comeback recording Cloud Nine when the former Beatles star made a left-field suggestion.
“As we were doing it, about three weeks in, George said to me, he said: ‘You know what? You and me should have a group.’ And I go [sarcastically]: ‘Wow, that’s a great idea! Who should we have in it?,'” Lynne tells VH-1. “And he says [matter of factly]: ‘Bob Dylan.’ And, of course, I’m thinking he’s going to say, like, Nigel Trilby, from up the road. But no, you know, Bob Dylan!”
A deeply incredulous Lynne then started riffing with Harrison, saying: “Bob Dylan?! Yeah, OK. Well, can we have Roy Orbison, then?” Harrison’s reply? “He said: ‘Yeah, of course we can. I know Roy; he’s great. Tom Petty? Let’s have Tom Petty in it, because he’s great.'”
A supergroup, as unlikely as it was offhanded, was in the making. “Everybody wanted to be in it,” Lynne says. “Nobody had a second thought; they just said “yes,’ and we made those 10 songs on the first album in 10 days. … It was a wonderful experience.”
Lynne also confirms work on a new songs with Bryan Adams, and confirms his plans to record a new Electric Light Orchestra album and then mount his first tour in decades. “Maybe, hopefully, early in the spring,” he says of the upcoming ELO studio project.
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