mostly david ephgrave

No-one knows what Jeff Lynne’s face looks like. It’s the greatest mystery of the late 20 th / early 21 st Century; something the fantastically talented singer / songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist couldn’t even answer himself. When he burst on the scene in 1970 as a member of Roy Wood’s band The Move, the trademark ginger beard and afro were already present. By the time they’d morphed into ELO, he’d discovered his love for sunglasses. Since then, he’s never looked back (unless turning left or right). He’s maintained the same stylistic choices for forty-four years. Until I see evidence to the contrary, I wouldn't be surprised to learn he'd had facial hair since birth. Perhaps he kept the look to protect his anonymity. All he has to do to keep a low profile is remove his glasses and straighten his hair. Shave off the beard and he’d be unrecognisable. Noel Edmonds adopts a similar approach, to less success: run a razor across his ...

One song that never fails to get me in a good mood is ELO’s Mr Blue Sky. It evokes very specific memories of mine and Glyn’s first Edinburgh Festival in 2008. We wrote a comedy three-hander play set in the basket of a hot-air balloon, titled ‘The Balloon Debate’ – and every night we used Mr Blue Sky as our playout. We had a very tight get-in and get-out for the show, in which we had to build and then dismantle our faux-wicker basket. The technician would leave the song playing while we packed up; all of us singing along as we did it. The show was well-received by our audiences, but less so by critics. We also lost a lot of money. Despite overwhelming odds, the song still brings back happy memories. It is written in the style of the late-Sixties Beatles, ‘Peppered’ with references in more ways than one. The “everybody’s in a play” lyric of the first verse gently paraphrases Penny Lane, as does the fire bell a few bars later. The song is irresistibly upbeat; little won...