At the top of my short list of favorite musicians is the Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO for short. They came of age about the same time I came of age, although their history reaches back into the '60s. They were the first band to seriously combine classical instruments to rock and roll music, and they made their first big impression with a hysterical cover of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven".
From there, they continued their experiment, adding choirs, layers of strings, and spacey instrumentation to their music. Some of it got played on the radio ("Livin Thing", "Telephone Line", Evil Woman") but the joy in any ELO record was the stuff that didn't make it to commercial radio.
They are finding a renaissance recently, as "Mr. Blue Sky" was featured in the opening credits sequence of Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2. What's unfortunate is that "Mr Blue Sky" was actually the last song of an arc titled "Concerto for a Rainy Day" that had some really great tunes in it. Today's Time Machine destination is for one of those songs.
"Standing in the Rain" opens Side 3 of the two-album set Out of the Blue, released in 1977. All the components of a classic ELO tune are here--strings, vocoder (something Jeff Lynne, brain and soul of ELO) experimented with from time to time. A long instrumental introduction leads to the song, a mid-tempo song with echo, reverb, and bombastic classical chords.
It's ELO at the height of their powers. Sit back and enjoy it...
Have a great weekend--see you Monday (26)...
Pete
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