(Credits: Far Out / Jeff Lynne)
Sat 31 January 2026 17:00, UK
Jeff Lynne wasn’t going to settle for anything less than perfection whenever he walked into the studio.
Whether it was working with ELO or working his magic for the Traveling Wilburys, Lynne was looking at the bigger picture whenever he made records, always trying to make sure that each vocal line was perfect or fine-tuning a guitar lick until he felt that it sounded pristine. But sometimes the best kinds of players are the ones that have that human element underneath all of those chops.
Lynne certainly had a taste of what a rough rock and roll act could be when he first started working with The Idle Race and The Move, but as soon as he hit on the first ELO songs, there was no chance that he was going to be a standard rock band. ‘10538 Overture’ demanded to have the most ambitious arrangement that he could think of on that debut record, and the rest of his career was like watching Lynne continually try to top himself when it came to making the biggest orchestral epic that he could think of.
A New World Record and Out of the Blue were sonic masterpieces, but that also provided one big problem when Lynne started playing live. There was no way for him to reproduce every single thing he played in a live setting, and even if he didn’t need to hire a full string section to go out on the road, there were always going to be sacrifices that he had to make when bringing a song like ‘Mr Blue Sky’ to life. He had gone beyond anyone’s wildest dreams when making his records, so working with the Traveling Wilburys had to have been a breath of fresh air.
After trying his best to make everything perfect, working on simple rock and roll with his musical heroes was a reminder of why they all loved the genre in the first place. But even after making friends with everyone from George Harrison to Tom Petty to Bob Dylan, Lynne would have been losing his mind when he was asked to help put together the final songs that The Beatles would ever record together.
For any other musician, this would have been an impossible task, but Lynne had been training for this kind of tune all his life. ELO practically picked up where the Fab Four left off when they made their experimental masterpieces, but when he saw the remaining Threetles performing together, Lynne remembered how solid Ringo Starr could be behind the kit across their entire discography.
He may have had the closest friendship with Harrison, but Lynne said that no one could replace the kind of passion Starr brought to every song he played, saying, “Ringo’s one of the best drummers I’ve ever heard. Probably the best. He’s just so…I don’t know whatever it is. His fills are just right. He’s a great drummer.” And compared to every other drummer, Starr’s greatest strength was in his willingness to listen whenever his bandmates played alongside him.
Any other rock and roll outfit would normally have to worry about the drummer speeding up or dragging every once in a while, but Starr was practically a human metronome whenever he counted off a Beatles tune. His fills might not have been the flashiest things in the world, but all of his signature drum parts became rhythmic hooks in their respective songs, from the strange offbeat accents in ‘Ticket to Ride’, the inventive drum part of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, or the one and only drum solo he ever played on ‘The End’.
So while Lynne was interested in making perfect rock and roll records every single time he performed, Starr was always the best example of bringing a human heartbeat into those tunes. John Bonham and Neil Peart might have relied on pure power whenever they played, but there was no shame in bringing a bit more subtlety every time Starr hit the drums.
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