Credit: Far Out / Jeff Lynne
Tue 19 May 2026 17:30, UK
Being one of the greatest producers of all time didn’t always come easy for Jeff Lynne.
Despite having that magic touch when working with ELO, there were more than a few times where he would get frustrated trying to recreate the sounds he heard in his head onto the record, to the point where he gave up the road altogether because he couldn’t get everything to sound right. But even if he could work miracles when working on projects with The Beatles, there were more than a few times when he felt like he couldn’t contribute anything when working with some of his heroes.
Because, really, how the hell is someone supposed to be the critic of the legends that Lynne was working with? Sure, there are more than a few times where he felt like he was within his rights to tell someone to do something over again, but if you were in his shoes, would you have the guts to tell Paul McCartney and George Harrison that their harmonies are a little bit off when working on The Beatles’ Anthology? It’s not an easy task, but Lynne wasn’t going to get in the way of making a great record, either.
He was the one who could suggest different chords or see if a song could go in a much different direction than what it started out as, but when you’re working with someone like Brian Wilson, it’s a bit more difficult to come up with a better idea. This guy was the equivalent of Mozart in the world of rock and roll, and even if Lynne had the best resources at his disposal, it wasn’t going to come anywhere close to Wilson’s sense of harmony.
Or at least that’s what would have happened if Wilson was in his right frame of mind. You see, this was during the years when Wilson was still under the influence of his abusive therapist, Dr Landy, half the time he was in the studio, and while Lynne knew to leave his personal opinions of everything at the door whenever he was turning the knobs, he did admit that it was a bit difficult trying to figure out what Wilson was going for.
Anyone would have still been on cloud nine for having worked with one of the biggest names in rock and roll, but Lynne felt that there were more than a few times when he would have rather been anywhere else, saying, “We wrote ‘Let It Shine’ at his house in Malibu. He was really struggling in his life. It was horrible, and he was being treated badly. But you could see what a nice guy he was despite everything happening in the background.”
“It was all very distressing. I only saw Dr Landy a couple of times, walking around with his cape and walking stick. I don’t really want to talk about that.”
Jeff Lynne
But that shouldn’t diminish the fun that they did have during that time. ‘Let It Shine’ is one of the better cuts that Wilson released during this period, and while The Beach Boys were off doing their fun in the sun schtick, Lynne was at least happy to relate to Wilson on a musical level that didn’t have to focus on the countless meetings that he had to go to behind the scenes with Landy.
Further reading: From The Vault
And when you look at Lynne’s work after that record, he did take a few cues from what Wilson was teaching him. Some of the biggest records that he made had that same wall of sound that Wilson could do with harmonies, and even though Lynne still had his own signature touch, there are more than a few harmonies on his later records that feel like a pure ray of sunshine whenever they come out of the speakers.
So while everything surrounding his time with Wilson wasn’t all that it was cracked up to be, that didn’t diminish the fun that Lynne did have during that time. He was witnessing one of his idols going through one of the darkest periods of his life, but whenever the music started, all of that seemed to fall away for a few minutes.
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