The Electric Light Orchestra

About

"The Electric Light Orchestra" is the debut studio album by English rock band Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), released in December 1971. In the US, the album was released in early 1972 as No Answer, after a misunderstood telephone message made by a United Artists Records executive asking about the album name. The caller, having failed to reach the ELO contact, wrote down "no answer" in their notes, and this was misconstrued to be the name of the album. "Queen of the Hours", which became the b-side to "Roll Over Beethoven" from the band's second album, was the first ever ELO published song, released by Harvest Records in November 1971 in a compilation called The Harvest Bag which featured various Harvest records artists. The original LP was mixed in Quadrophonic sound but was only released in this format in South America. Many of these "quad" tracks appeared with the SQ encoding intact on the "First Light" series edition of the album and on a later double-CD release entitled Early ELO, 1971–1974 (available only as an import in the US). The entire "quad" version with SQ encoding intact has since been released on Disc 3 of the Harvest Years compilation. The original album art was designed by Hipgnosis and the photographs of the band on the back of the album cover, dressed in seventeenth century period costume, were taken at the Banqueting House in Whitehall, adding to the Baroque flavour and emphasis on Stuart Britain found on the record. "Mr. Radio" was intended to be the second single from the album, but was subsequently withdrawn. The edited single version made its first appearance on the 2005 compilation album Harvest Showdown instead. Personnel Jeff Lynne – Vocals, Piano, Electric guitar, Percussion, Bass guitar Roy Wood – Vocals, Cello, Acoustic guitar, Bass guitar, String bass, Oboe, Bassoon, Clarinet, Recorders, Slide guitar, Percussion, Krumhorn Bev Bevan – Drums, Percussion Bill Hunt – French horn, Hunting horn Steve Woolam – Violin Additional personnel Rick Price – Bass guitar on some original tracks (erased and redubbed by Wood and Lynne respectively) Richard Tandy – Bass guitar, keyboards Wilfred Gibson – Violin Hugh McDowell – Cello Mike Edwards – Cello Andy Craig – Cello.

via Last.fm