Jeff Lynne To Get Hollywood Honour

Jeff Lynne is to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame, it’s been announced.

The ELO mastermind is among one of seven people who’ll be given the honour next year, alongside Motown songwriters Holland Dozier Holland, actor-musician Rick Springfield and funk star Ray Parker Jr.

Lynne has celebrated the “fantastic” news, saying: “I’m thrilled to be recognised by the Hollywood Chamber Of Commerce, and feel honoured to be in the great company of some of my biggest heroes.

“Growing up in Birmingham, England, I never imagined my name on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame.”

The musician and producer last year released brand new recordings of 11 ELO tracks in which he played all the instruments himself, explaining he kept getting upset when he heard the originals on radio. “I really wanted to see if I could get it better,” he said. “I tried Mr Blue Sky and I enjoyed the results so much I tried another one, and another one.”

He recently told how he’d never enjoyed playing live with ELO because that wasn’t why he was part of the band. “My heart wasn’t in live performance – it was in the studio, and it always has been. That’s why I became a producer,” he explained.

Meanwhile, his Travelling Wilburys bandmate Tom Petty has recalled how one of the supergroup’s songs, Tweeter And The Monkey Man, written with Roy Orbison, was “too American” for Lynne and George Harrison.

Petty tells Rolling Stone: “We sat and wrote the song – the English guys left, actually. It was the only song that they were like, ‘This is just too American – we’re out on this one.’ So the two of us sat there for most of the afternoon.”