The 1989 guitar solo that blew Jeff Lynne away: “Jeff was hard to please”
In today’s music landscape, there is perhaps no more profitable position than a producer. But, for a time, the positions were held by icons of the art form, and in the 1970s, these mixing-desk maestros became integral to the rock proliferation. The glossy-haired Jeff Lynne.
When you’re constantly working with some of the greatest musicians and songwriters of all time, the pressure to continually impress them in new ways must reach an almighty level to have to deal with.
Considering they’ve probably heard everything before, and that after lengthy careers their belief that the creative well is running dry when people begin to retread the same steps as they have in the past, you’ve got to go some distance to impress the masters of rock music.
By the late 1980s, Jeff Lynne had already established himself as one of the most sought-after producers in rock music, bringing his unmistakable polished sound to artists ranging from George Harrison to Roy Orbison. His perfectionist tendencies in the studio became legendary, with musicians often describing sessions with Lynne as both intensely demanding and hugely rewarding.
Mike Campbell has always possessed enough talent to impress his peers, but even though he was comfortable in the company of Tom Petty during his time with the Heartbreakers, there were always others in his presence that he needed to arouse the interest of. As one of Petty’s closest friends and collaborators, Jeff Lynne spent a lot of time around the rest of the Heartbreakers as a producer and co-writer, and was present for one song in particular that Campbell was determined to get right.
The sessions for Full Moon Fever marked a slight departure from the traditional Heartbreakers dynamic, with Lynne’s layered production style pushing the band into more meticulous territory. While Tom Petty embraced that approach wholeheartedly, it also meant the musicians involved felt a greater pressure than usual to deliver performances worthy of Lynne’s famously exacting standards.
‘Runnin’ Down A Dream’ is now regarded as one of Petty’s best songs, but it didn’t arrive without some stress on Campbell’s part. Tasked with coming up with a solo that would feel appropriate to close out such an emphatic slice of heartland rock, Campbell realised that he would be able to extend his moment in the spotlight a little longer than usual.
Speaking in an interview about his experience of working alongside Petty and Lynne on the Full Moon Fever track, he revealed that “when I did the solo at the end, we left it long. Most of our songs don’t have long solos because we’re not wired that way, but this song we thought could go on a little bit, and I could play off it.”
In a moment of improvised inspiration, Campbell began what would become his one and only take of the solo, which runs at almost two minutes and takes up almost half of the song’s length. “It was all off the cuff,” Campbell explained. “It wasn’t rehearsed or anything and I did it off the top of my head.” However, just because he was clearly in the zone didn’t mean that he didn’t have anything in the back of his mind troubling him, and the presence of Lynne in the studio was a little disconcerting.
Part of what makes the solo so memorable is the way it balances technical precision with spontaneity. Rather than sounding overly constructed or self-indulgent, Campbell’s playing mirrors the restless momentum of the song itself, gradually building intensity without ever losing the loose, open-road spirit that defines ‘Runnin’ Down A Dream’.
“Jeff was hard to please, and I remember he was watching me, and when I did one of the more intricate things, he kind of went like this,” said Campbell, before mimicking Lynne bringing down his glasses and staring intensely over the top of them. Campbell would then continue by saying that this was one of Lynne’s trademark moves in the studio, and that it could have meant one of two things. “Any time Jeff looks over his glasses, either you’re in big trouble or it’s really good, so he was real proud of that.”
After this moment of relief in having nailed his solo in a single take, he laughed and recalled just what had pushed him to his limits on the solo: “I had Jeff Lynne and Tom standing there, I had to do something good – I can’t be posing!”
If it was enough to impress one of the greatest rock and pop songwriters of all time, then he really must have gone the extra mile in the studio on that day, and the final result is evidence that he did.
