Jeff Lynne recalls the moment he first met The Beatles
The Birmingham-born star Jeff Lynne began his musical career in 1963 at the age of 16. His foundational bands, The Andicaps and The Chads, embraced rock ‘n’ roll music heavily inspired by the British Invasion era and its most 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 become a star in his own right as the frontman and creative lead of the Electic Light Orchestra. During his band’s most successful spell in the 1970s, Lynne became a consummate producer.
After producing most of his own hits for ELO, Lynne agreed to produce Harrison’s 1987 album, Cloud Nine. This success allowed him a platform from which to enter a lucrative spell in production, featuring collaborations with Paul McCartney and Bryan Adams. Lynne also co-produced for The Beatles’ retrospective Anthology series, most recently working on the band’s last ever single, ‘Now and Then’.
Although Lynne would become better acquainted with The Beatles, especially Harrison, over the 1970s, he first met the band in the late ’60s while they were still an item. In a past documentary (see below), Lynne revealed that, while working on material for the first ELO album, his engineer invited him to watch the Fab Four record at Abbey Road Studios.
“The engineer said, ‘Anybody wanna go down to Abbey Road [Studios] and watch The Beatles recording?’ And I was making my very first album at about 20. I went, ‘What?! Can’t you see we’re busy?'” Lynne remembered joking. “I said, ‘Yeah. Let’s go,’ and I was down there in about ten seconds.”
Lynne recalled that the security was fairly relaxed. “Once you got past the bloke on the door, it was a bit dodgy; it was like going to this palace of recording,” he continued. “And this was just at the time I was wanting to be a producer, I was making my first album”.
Adding: “I sort of crept in and said, ‘Hello, John. Hello, George.’ It was so scary, just unbelievable, surreal. It was like a dream, hanging out in all this wonderment. We got chucked out of there after about ten minutes, but I couldn’t sleep for nights after that, just reliving it.”
Summarising the experience, Lynne noted that it was one of the most important moments of his career. “It was the biggest thrill ever because I got to see something I never dreamed possible,” he added. “Going in there and getting into that space, it’s scary. Because it’s all the history, you know, the atmosphere of the place.”
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