The “timeless” Motown classic Jeff Lynne called the pinnacle of music: “As good as it gets”
Among the UK prog explosion that dominated the charts in the early 1970s, one Birmingham band managed to break through the stuffy trappings of the scene’s bloated and self-satisfied excesses.
Coating their ambitious, classically inspired arrangements with a colourful and radiant pop sheen possessed with such sunny, melodic cheer, they found themselves comfortably in the record collection of those who otherwise may never have heard of Yes or Emerson, Lake & Palmer.
Founded in 1970, Electric Light Orchestra, along with glam rock’s glitter, countered the double-denim seriousness plaguing the charts and offered the decade a futurist symphonic pop that proudly eschewed any notions of cool.
Co-founder and sole member Jeff Lynne also became a highly sought producer and creative collaborator. He formed part of the supergroup of all supergroups The Travelling Wilburys in 1988 along with a who’s who of yesteryear’s rock and pop stars in need of a career rejuvenation: Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison all successfully repackaged for the MTV age after being hit hard by the 1980s’ seismic culture shifts.
Lynne’s gift as a producer lay in knowing when not to interfere. Rather than reinventing established artists, he found ways to modernise their sound without sacrificing the qualities that had made them iconic, a balance that helped revive several legendary careers while cementing his own reputation behind the mixing desk.
He was also instrumental in polishing The Beatles’ three singles after their break-up, co-producing the pretty good ‘Free as a Bird’ and alright ‘Real Love’ from the Anthology series, plus the deeply underwhelming AI-dusted ‘Now and Then’ in 2023.
When speaking to The Quietus, Lynne reeled off his 13 favourite albums, which largely stayed put in his formative era of the 1960s and ’70s. Rounding off his selections following The Who, The Zombies, The Beach Boys, and choice picks from his fellow Wilburys, Lynne rounded off his collation with one of the many soul hits pumped out of Detroit’s Motown label.
“Beautiful drumming and bass playing,” he said. “And the song I really like is called ‘The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game’. It’s a timeless sound with really wonderful bass parts that are so intriguing. Those kind of soulful bass bits were just wonderful and their voices are so classy. It’s the classiness of it, you know? It’s cool, wonderful rhythm and this is as good as it gets, probably.”
Written by Smokey Robinson and released on the Tamla sub-label, the ‘Please Mr Postman’ pop group The Marvelettes won a Billboard number 13 in 1966 with ‘The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game’, a curiously barbed take on romantic adoration with singer Wanda Young-Rogers detailing the stalking of her lover but become obsessed with the ‘game’ she’s playing. It’s an intriguing cut for Motown that’s inspired a disparate scope of artists keen to offer their rendition, from Grace Jones, Blondie, and Massive Attack with Tracey Thorn on the Batman Forever soundtrack.
For Lynne, the song represented everything he admired about the Motown approach. Its immaculate rhythm section, understated arrangement and crystal-clear production demonstrated how sophistication could be achieved without sacrificing accessibility, principles that would later become hallmarks of his own work with ELO.
“It doesn’t take me back, listening to it these days; it just impresses me more,” Lynne confessed, still struck by the song’s hold on him all those years later. “Like, wow! How did they do that? How did they get that sound then? What a beautiful mix. I’m always impressed by the balance of things. I’m blown away by the balance. How they did it, I don’t know.”
That enduring admiration says as much about Lynne as it does about ‘The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game’. Even after decades spent creating some of the most recognisable productions in rock history, he still listens with the curiosity of a fan, searching for the details that made a great record timeless. It’s an attitude that explains why his own music has continued to resonate across generations.
