Mr Blue Sky, the story of Jeff Lynne

Years ago friend who had been in a local band, said he hated Lynne and his band, he really wanted more of a Stax sound and aggressive.  I said I thought Lynne was very colorful and was a good partner with Harrison because he could get that production type in George's work, and they were obviously great friends.

My friend was really opinionated and once he got his degree became very superior to me.  We haven't talked in years so that's over.  In grad school 3 of us would go to a pizza parlor on Friday nights and would solve the worlds problems.  Paying up it would always turn into 3 pitchers , Really?  oh well, I only had 6 blocks to drive home.

Actually I like Jeff Lynne's work with ELO but wasn't too keen on his production input on George Harrison's work or the Beatles Free As A Bird. I feel it took away the character of their performances.

I was a big fan of "Out Of The Blue" and "A New World Record". I thought "Free As A Bird" was a commendable production on Lynne's part, especially given the monumental expectations; very Beatle-esque and the heavy distortion seemed warranted to keep Lennon's low quality demo consistent with the modern contributions. Same for "Real Love" and to me both fit well into the overall Beatle lexicon.  "Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1" is outstanding both for the music and SQ; easily among the best albums to come out of the late-1980's. A brilliant production by Lynne and Harrison.

I was listening to Full Moon Fever last night which is my fave Tom Petty album and I think the production on that album is excellent. Although once you realise that it is a Jeff Lynne production you can hear his influence I don't feel it is immediately obvious or that it takes away from Tom's style