Well... That's who Roy Wood is. Never was a big ELO fan so he's in a complete blind spot for me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Wood
They don't list Southern Girls though.
Cheap Trick covered more than a few though. May have to go find myself The Move here pretty soon.
Yeah, Roy Wood founded a band called The Move in the 60's, out of Birmingham, UK.
Their masterpiece was called "Message From The Country", and is well worth tracking down. It was remastered to cd a couple years ago. They had a couple of hit singles in the late 60's, like "Brontosaurus" and Blackberry Way" (very Beatlesque).
Roy is also credited as a strong influence by Rod Argent for the delightful Zombies album "Oddesey and Oracle" (that's the correct spelling) - another fascinating story in its own right, a wonderful album that was almost never made.
The Move had a small but devoted following (me among them), and was considered fairly avante-guarde at the time, featuring savage crunchy bass (Bev Bevan) and imaginative melodies and arrangements, as well as unique instrumentation like rock&roll cello. Way ahead of their time, basically.
Jeff Lynne joined the group just before its breakup, and is heard only on a few recordings with them.
Roy then went on to form ELO, then pretty much got pushed out after a power struggle with Jeff Lynne after the first couple of ELO albums. You can clearly hear Roy's influence in the early ELO recordings - I think he left ELO just prior to the release of "Eldorado", which is the first obviously Jeff Lynne ELO album.
Jeff was a rich boy, and could afford to hang out in the studio all day, while Roy wasn't and needed to work.
After a few ELO albums, Roy took off and released a solo album called "Boulders", which is pretty good.
Roy then went on to make a number of very bad albums as "Wizard" and "Eddie And The Cruisers". He's still around, though few people have ever heard of him, but has faded into obscurity.
Meantime, Jeff and ELO achieved world-wide fame, and rightly so. Their masterpiece was "Out of the Blue", just a tremendous album that still plays well today.
My ex-boss is Joe Cocker's brother, another Birmingham product - so I actually got to meet Roy once. Definitely a very weird dude.
As you can tell, I'm a student of English 60's bands.
If you're really interested, I'd be happy to burn you a copy of the re-mastered "Message From The Country". Just PM me with your mailing address.
bill2
