The “best producer in the world,” according to ELO’s Jeff Lynne
Birmingham’s finest, Jeff Lynne, began his musical career in 1963, aged just 16. His formative groups, The Andicaps and The Chads, played classic rock ‘n’ roll music heavily inspired by the British Invasion era and its esteemed proponents, The Beatles. Little did Lynne know then, but his subsequent musical journey would find him sharing stage and studio with not only George Harrison but Tom Petty, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison as a member of Traveling Wilburys.
By the time Lynne was rubbing shoulders with the Wilburys in the late 1980s, he had cut his teeth as a producer, with George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever, and Roy Orbison’s Mystery Girl, under his belt. As the 1990s dawned, Lynne stepped up to the plate to his biggest production task yet: joining George Martin on the credits for The Beatles’ 1995 compilation, Anthology 1.
As Lynne stepped back from ELO to pursue a quieter existence as a producer, he counterintuitively elevated his rockstar status to still-higher heights. His induction to Traveling Wilburys alongside such kingpins of the industry gave him a platform from which to seize these golden production opportunities.
One of the opportunities that presented itself during this meteoric chapter was the chance to work with The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson. “I had just finished George Harrison’s album [Cloud Nine] when Warner Bros. asked me to produce Brian Wilson,” Lynne remembered in an interview with Rolling Stone. “I was like, ‘You can’t produce Brian Wilson. He’s the best producer in the world.’ But I said yes, and I co-wrote a song with him. We wrote ‘Let It Shine’ at his house in Malibu.”
Famously, during the 1980s, Wilson found himself in a rut. Dipping in and out of The Beach Boys several times over this period, Wilson was under the strict supervision of his controversial psychiatrist, Eugene Landy. It’s generally understood that Landy took advantage of Wilson’s unstable mental state to profit from such a famous and well-monied client.
“He was really struggling in his life. It was horrible, and he was being treated badly,” Lynne continued. “But you could see what a nice guy he was despite everything happening in the background. It was all very distressing. I only saw Dr. Landy a couple of times, walking around with his cape and walking stick. I don’t really want to talk about that, though. Brian’s doing great now and has a lovely wife.”
Landy’s ominous presence plagued Wilson’s eponymous debut solo album of 1988. Alongside ‘Let It Shine’, Wilson’s collaboration with Lynne, Landy was credited as a songwriter on five of the record’s 11 tracks, with his wife Alexandra Morgan credited to four. When the album was reissued in 2000, the credits for the couple were removed.
Listen to ‘Let It Shine’ by Brian Wilson and Jeff Lynne below.
