The genius Jeff Lynne found it “distressing” to work with
By the late 1980s, Jeff Lynne had completed his transition from rock star to producer.
Having notched three mega-successful albums under his belt with George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever, and Roy Orbison’s Mystery Girl, Lynne was ready to step up to the biggest stage imaginable: producing The Beatles’ Anthology project. Needless to say, by this stage, he considered himself a competent figure behind the mixing desk.
Ironically, Lynne’s desire to step out of the spotlight made him a bigger star than ever. Just as Lynne decided to bring Electric Light Orchestra to an end and begin producing, he was recruited into the supergroup The Traveling Wilburys. The success of the Wilburys put Lynne on the same ground as his famous bandmates, and since he still had an interest in producing, Lynne took the next big opportunity that came his way.
“I had just finished George Harrison’s album [Cloud Nine] when Warner Bros. asked me to produce Brian Wilson,” Lynne told 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.”
For Lynne, this was like working with Mozart. Everyone from Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan to Carole King and Stevie Wonder has happily hailed Wilson as a genius. Lynne was no different, so working with him presented itself as a dream come true. Or at least that’s how it seemed on paper. The reality would be rather different.
The record he never wanted to produce
Wilson was not in a good place when Lynne arrived to work with him. Having come and gone from The Beach Boys a number of times, Wilson was bewildered by fame and under strict 24-hour surveillance from his controversial psychiatrist, Eugene Landy. The unconventional program worked as a way for Landy to profit off of Wilson’s name, which he did on Wilson’s 1988 solo debut, Brian Wilson.
The former ELO man got to witness this first-hand and he was filled with a welter of emotions. “He was really struggling in his life. It was horrible, and he was being treated badly,” Lynne recalled. “But you could see what a nice guy he was despite everything happening in the background.”
The pair bonded and expressed mutual admiration. And they even managed to produce a track that Lynne was rightly proud of in the end, despite the peculiarities of the album as a whole. Yet, that didn’t stop Lynne from feeling conflicted and concerned about the whole thing.
“It was all very distressing. I only saw Dr Landy a couple of times, walking around with his cape and walking stick,” he recalled. “I don’t really want to talk about that, though. Brian’s doing great now and has a lovely wife,” he happily added in 2016. Indeed, in his later years, Wilson managed to achieve a new lease of life and relative good health.
But in ‘88, Landy’s presence was all over Brian Wilson, the self-titled album that featured ‘Let It Shine’ and that marred the experience for Lynne. Landy is even a credited songwriter on five of the album’s tracks, with his partner, Alexandra Morgan, also being credited on four tracks.
In 2015, Wilson would address the crooked nature of their relationship, simply saying, “I thought he was my friend, but he was a very fucked up man.” It is a tragic admission given that concerns were raised early doors, but Wilson dismissed them, saying, “I’m in charge.”
Since the LP’s reissue in 2000, both Landy and Morgan’s names have been removed from the official credits in a telling edit. Lynne’s distaste for the situation caused him to only work on one of the album’s tracks, bringing a premature end to one of rock music’s most fascinating collaborations.
Needless to say, his admiration for Wilson, however, remained. But he’s not alone there. As Pete Townshend put it, “I love Brian. There’s not many people I would say that about. I think he’s a truly, truly, truly great genius.”
