Jeff Lynne

Jeff Lynne will bring back ELO for a high-profile concert at Hyde Park this summer.

Jeff Lynne has contributed a wealth of important influence to the world of recording over the decades that he’s been engaged in making music. If the albums crafted with Electric Light Orchestra had been his sole contribution as an artist, it still would have been an impressive legacy to leave behind.

Jeff Lynne and ELO are beginning 2013 in the same way they ended 2012, with three new CDs. On April 23, Frontiers Records will release a live album from Electric Light Orchestra, a reissue of one of the band's more recent albums and a reissue of Lynne's debut solo album.

Jeff Lynne seems to be in a reflective mood lately -- the two albums he released in 2012, 'Long Wave' and 'Mr. Blue Sky - The Very Best Of Electric Light Orchestra,' found him recording classic pop standards and revisiting hits from the ELO catalog -- and he continued his focus on the past in a recent Clash interview that looked back on the earliest years of his career.

Electric Light Orchestra singer Jeff Lynne has been busy over the past year, re-recording past favorites for the 'Mr. Blue Sky' album as well as taking on a number of older standards for the companion disc, 'Long Wave.' Despite the wealth of new music, it's likely that Lynne will not be touring.

Fans waiting for Jeff Lynne's first solo album of original material since 1990 will have to wait an indefinite bit longer, with the 11 songs on 'Long Wave' being hits that influenced the ELO singer as a child in England. The cloud of disappointment lifts however when one plays 'Mercy Mercy,' his first single.

Check out the video of ELO's 'Telephone Line' from the album 'A New World's Record'.  Outstanding song from Jeff Lynne and company. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRJQLzc-bco&feature=fvwrel

I know he's not a guy you think of as a virtuoso guitar player, but he's actually one of the great players on the planet in my humble opinion. This video is from a Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame performance of 'While My Guitar Gently Weeps', and features Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, George Harrison's son Dhani (check him out on the right side of the stage, looking just like a young George)...