What was meant to be the first “big moment” for musician Jeff Lynne “turned to shit” according to the Electric Light Orchestra frontman.
Lynne, who will perform with the Mr. Blue Sky and Don’t Bring Me Down hitmakers for the final time at Hyde Park later this year, recalled his early days as a musician and said it was a moment he would never forget. But it is an unforgettable part of his discography for an embarrassing reason, one which would leave Lynne “very upset”. The release came long before he was a member of ELO, and in fact pre-dates his time in The Move. The song, Impostors of Life’s Magazine, was released by The Idle Race, of which Lynne was an early member.
Lynne would leave The Idle Race in 1970, after being offered a position in The Move by Roy Wood. A condition for Lynne joining The Move was the band would eventually retire the name and create a new outfit, which would become Electric Light Orchestra. But before he left The Idle Race, Lynne had his first brush with released music, an exciting moment for the songwriter.
In the Mr. Blue Sky: The Story of Jeff Lynne & ELO documentary, Lynne recalled the early years spent with the band, and the disappointment that followed the song’s release. He said: “We finally got a record deal so I wrote this song called Imposters of Life’s Magazine, and I can’t wait for this thing to arrive in the mail, this record I’ve made.
“It’s gonna have my name on the label, I’m gonna be a songwriter. The thing comes and I look at it and I go ‘what the hell is that,’ and it says Imposters of Life’s Magazine, by G. Lynn, without the ‘E’ on the end, just ‘L-Y-N-N-.’
“And G? I thought, ‘who’s that? Gordon?’ I dunno any G Lynn round here, so I was very very disappointed and very upset, because it was really my big moment and it just turned to shit.”
Lynne would later have success in releasing albums under the ELO name, but his first brush with music releasing proved embarrassing for the songwriter. The Idle Race would release just one more album after Lynne’s departure, 1971’s Time Is, which was issued in the UK only.
After Lynne left the band, both Mike Hopkins and Dave Walker were hired to the band, on guitar and vocals, respectively. They had little success and managed to get into the Argentinian charts top ten with a cover of Mungo Jerry’s In the Summertime.
The Idle Race disbanded in 1972, while Electric Light Orchestra would release both ELO 2 and On the Third Day just a year later.
I think On The Third Day is the most criminally underrated albums of all time. Everyone talks about Out Of The Blue or A New World Record, but OTTD really solidified the “Jeff Lynne sound” in ELO.