ELO biography
Global success
For the band's fourth album,
Eldorado, A Symphony, a concept album about dreams, Lynne was finally able to stop overdubbing strings, and hire an orchestra and choir. Louis Clark joined the band as string arranger. The first single off the album, "Can't Get It Out of My Head", became their first US Billboard charts Top 10 hit, and
Eldorado, A Symphony became ELO's first gold album.
After the release of Eldorado, A Symphony, bassist and vocalist Kelly Groucutt and cellist Melvyn Gale joined, replacing de Albuquerque and Edwards respectively. The lineup stabilised as the band took to a decidedly more accessible sound.
Face the Music was released in 1975, producing the hit singles "Evil Woman" and "Strange Magic". The opening 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.
ELO had become successful in the United States at this point and they were a star attraction on the stadium and arena circuit, as well as regularly appearing on The Midnight Special (1973, 1975, 1976 & 1977). They were still largely ignored in the United Kingdom until their sixth album, A New World Record, hit the top ten there in 1976. It contained the hit singles "Livin' Thing", "Telephone Line", "Rockaria!" and "Do Ya", a rerecording of a Move song.
A New World Record was followed by another multi platinum selling album, the double-LP Out of the Blue, in 1977. Out of the Blue featured the singles "Turn to Stone", "Sweet Talkin' Woman", "Mr. Blue Sky", and "Wild West Hero", each becoming a hit in the United Kingdom. The band then set out on a nine-month, 92-date world tour, with an enormous set and a hugely expensive space ship stage with fog machines and a laser display. In the United States the concerts were billed as The Big Night and were their largest to date, with 80,000 people seeing them at Cleveland Stadium. The Big Night went on to become the highest-grossing live concert tour in music history up to that point (1978). The band also played at the Wembley Arena for eight straight sold-out nights during the tour as well, another record at that time. The first of these shows was recorded and televised, and later released as a CD and DVD.
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