ELO (Electric Light Orchestra) ~
A New World Record
In addition to my 20,000 Vinyl LP collection I'm selling, I have reel-to-reel, pre-recorded tapes for sale as well (see link below). If interested, contact me by email please, not by a comment.
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A New World Record is the sixth studio album by
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO); it was released in 1976. The intro to the album,
Tightrope, snags you and the album keeps you locked into the journey it takes and doesn't let go until the final song,
Shangri-La, has finished.
Electric Light Orchestra ~
A New World Record
The tour, dubbed "A New World Record Tour Of America" toured North America only, running from October 1976 to April of
1977 with a break in December. The reason the tour was only in North
America can probably be attributed to the band's high success rate in
the USA. If so, it's somewhat ironic given that late in 1976
Livin' Thing was ELO's breakout hit in England. The book,
Unexpected Messages, states that it was a 40 city tour, but as the book only mentions
the second leg of the tour (January to April 1977), it is unclear if the
40 cities was for the entire tour or the second leg only.
Another explanation for the tour being only in North America (and brief
compared to previous tours) could be simply due to scheduling issues.
The band may have had the tour booked without consideration for when an
album was to be released, thus the timing was that the A New World Record tour only happened in North America.
As in previous shows,
Mik Kaminski and Hugh McDowell performed solo
violin and cello performances during the show. Mik performed a
self-written and unnamed solo piece which merged with the drums, bass
and keyboards joining in on a modern arrangement of the traditional
Jewish folk song
Hava Nagila. Hugh performed his own self-written
and unnamed solo piece which similarly merged with bass, drums and
guitar joining in for a modern arrangement of the traditional Hungarian
folk song
Csárdás and more of Hugh's self-written piece. This
information is drawn from the one an only bootleg recording of a
performance from the
A New World Record tour, so it is also possible that the performance varied from show to show.
Beyond
these small bits and one bootlegged performance from New York City's
Madison Square Garden on February 11, 1977, very little else is known
about this tour.
The band's frontman Jeff Lynne regards his own songwriting at this point to have reached a new high.
"The songs started to flow and most of them came quickly to me. To
have all those hits, it was just ...I mean amazing really. Going from
doing okay for probably three or four years to suddenly being in the big
time, it was a strange but great thing."
- – Jeff Lynne 2006; A New World Record remaster
ELO spent a staggering 225 weeks in the singles charts and 393 weeks in
the album charts, worldwide sales were in excess of 100million records,
in the UK they had 27 top 20 hits and 11 top 10 albums, including two
number ones –
Discovery and
Time.
The band and crew on the tour were:
Other crew is uncertain, although probably
Jake Commander,
Brian Jones
and Phil Copestake were involved as engineers or technician as they were
known to be good friends with the band and involved in most of their
tours.
Tightrope, recorded in 1976 at
Musicland,
Munich,
West Germany), has a dramatic and spacey but reverent feeling intro with its orchestral (
real strings, not synthesizers) sound and chorus. It goes into a bouncy but delightful and grand tune that is truly wonderful.
Telephone Line became their "biggest single success in the US and was their first UK
gold award for a single. With ELO's continuing success in America it
seemed obvious to Lynne to use an American ring tone during the song.
Writer/guitarist, Lynne explained:
|
"To get the
sound on the beginning, you know, the American telephone sound, we
phoned from England to America to a number that we know nobody would be
at, to just listen to it for a while. On the Moog we recreated the sound
exactly by tuning the oscillators to the same notes as the ringing of
the phone." |
The song charted in the Top Ten in both the UK and the US, peaking at number 8 in the UK
and number 7 in the US.
The tune was on the Hot 100 for 23 weeks, nearly a full month longer on
that chart than any other ELO tune. In 1977, the song would reach
number 1 in
New Zealand and
Canada.
As was the norm, many ELO singles were issued in different colors, but
the US version of this single was the only green single ELO issued. It
became the band's first single to achieve Gold sales figures.
It opens with the typical telephone sounds of the day with
vocoder processed vocal at the start by Lynn. It goes into a slow, dreamy ballad about loneliness and and possibly lost love.
Rockaria!
opens with a short but beautiful soprano (Mary Thomas) intro that is glorious, then
the song bursts into a delightfully ambitious romp with the soprano
making an appearance throughout the song. To me, it has a sort of
Little Richard feeling to the rhythm.
Thomas
flubbed the first take of the introduction by starting the vocal too early. However, Lynne
elected to use the take (complete with her interjection, "Oops!")
anyway (later pressings of the album are missing this
part). During live performances, the 'aria' was provided by the band's
bassist
Kelly Groucutt, illustrating his wide-ranging vocal talents.
Mission (A World Record) is about an alien who has been charged to watch over us poor earthlings; he watches and does nothing other than observe. A slow, dreamy melody that strolls along wondering about life in general.
Livin' Thing has a great, gypsy-sounding violin intro that is beautiful. The gypsy violin returns from time to time.
Above the Clouds
opens with a male vocal with a blues feeling and goes into a moderate tempo, syncopated,
staccato tune that is fascinating. It has a
theremin which adds a very nice touch.
Track listing
All songs written by Jeff Lynne.
Side one:
"
Tightrope" – 5:03
"
Telephone Line" – 4:38
"
Rockaria!" – 3:12
"Mission (A World Record)" – 4:25
Side two:
"
So Fine" – 3:54
"
Livin' Thing" – 3:31
"
Above the Clouds" – 2:16
"
Do Ya" – 3:43
"Shangri-La" – 5:32
Personnel:
- Jeff Lynne – vocals, lead, rhythm and slide guitars, percussion, piano, producer
- Bev Bevan – drums, Minimoog drum, percussion, vocals
- Richard Tandy – piano, Minimoog, Micromoog, polyphonic keyboard, electric guitars, clavinet, grand piano, Mellotron, percussion, vocals
- Kelly Groucutt – vocals, bass guitar, percussion, backing vocals
- Mik Kaminski – violin
- Hugh McDowell – cello
- Melvyn Gale – cello
- Orchestra conducted by Louis Clark
Additional personnel:
Released on 11 September 1976 (UK)
Released on 12 September 1976 (US)
ELO 1987 World Wide Tour souvenir program
ELO program on eBay
reel-to-reel tapes on eBay
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Electric Light Orchestra - 1978
