Once Roll Over Beethoven had become a Top 10 UK hit single, the reaction to ELO’s string section from fellow classical musicians was incredible, as if playing alongside rock musicians amounted to treachery and a waste of time, talent and training. The Daily Mail in London on April 24, 1973, in an article written by Roderick Gilchrist, reported that in some circles, Wilf Gibson, Mike Edwards and Colin Walker’s decision to leave the LSO and play with the ELO had been unkindly compared to “Dame Margot Fonteyn forsaking Covent Garden for the job of a discotheque go-go dancer.” Even Deborah Thomas in the Daily Mirror’s pop music column Tuesday Scene on March 13, 1973, seemed taken aback by classical musicians forsaking their training to join a rock band. Leading music paper Disc even devoted a whole front-page article to the subject, entitled “Classical Gas”. Focusing on Peter Skellern, Jim Lea from Slade and the ELO string section, Brian Southall’s lengthy piece was well researched and accurately caught the prevailing mood of fascination around classical players “currently surprising musical eggheads and weeny-boppers alike with the innovations they have brought to progressive pop.” All great fun of course and used to maximum advantage by Don Arden and ELO’s then-publicist, Eric “Monster!” Hall. The feature below is a combination of articles and interviews taken from the above and other publications that focused on ELO’s string section following ‘Roll Over Beethoven’s’ chart success.

ELO's String Section - Top Of The Pops 1973 l-r: Colin Walker, Mike Edwards and Wilf Gibson. Photo copyright EMI Records

The two cellists, Colin Walker and Mike Edwards and the violinist Wilf Gibson, know all about Beethoven. They have performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and other top classical outfits. Wilf played under Andre Previn and Leonard Bernstein but like the cellists, he became bored with the rigidity of the classical world and quit. The LSO’s loss was the ELO’s gain, says band leader Jeff Lynne: “They didn’t need any persuasion to join us. They were right chuffed. They were dead straight at first. They read the dots on the score and didn’t swear. Now they’ve changed completely. They play by ear and improvise as they go along. With us now it’s like just one group and I’ve changed my opinion completely because the string players are just like guitar players in their attitude – and that’s just in a short space of time so they’ll probably get really stupid in a few months’ time. When they’ve been to America, they’ll be unbearable!”

Wilf Gibson, in from the start and a violinist of long standing in the classical field, explains why he changed. “It was an interesting idea that Roy (Wood) and Jeff put to me. As a classical musician it’s always nice to play new and different types of music. The attitude of classical people towards us is really most interesting. Those I played with can appreciate, some even envy me, but my mother just says ‘all that training wasted’. After the bizarre element in their stage that Wood introduced (he was clad in monks habit with a silver wig and beard) the new ELO have concentrated more on the musical side of it. But Colin explains that showbiz is not totally forgotten.

Both Colin and Mike are cellists and were students before they joined ELO and the reaction they still get from their fellow students is one of surprise. They can’t understand why they entered rock and not the field they knew. The financial aspect really doesn’t enter into it all. Wilf explains that he earned much more when he was playing with the larger orchestras then he has ever earned with the band. However, all three supplement their earnings with session work when the time allows. Mike Edwards: “It can never be money that attracted us. I know of rock musicians who get no more than £7 a week. But the audience reaction does make up for this in many ways. You can really find yourself in pop, get up there and enjoy it. It’s difficult to get across in evening dress.” “We started from scratch again with the new band and just worked our way into whatever feels right as far as stage clothes are concerned.”“I think we play a new kind of music which, obviously has classical deviations. Our numbers are long and getting longer and are music to be listened to.”

Wilf is a man who remains adamant that there has been, as yet, no satisfactory blending of rock and the classics, despite the various attempts. “They normally turn out as being just a group augmenting an orchestra, they have never yet blended.” Will the ELO be the first to achieve it?

By fusing the contradictory rhythm patterns and styles of Beethoven and Chuck Berry and marrying them with amplified guitars, two cellos, violin and Moog synthesiser - a keyboard that produces eerie electronic sounds - they are generating more excitement than any other performers on the music scene. Despite the critical acclaim, former colleagues have charged them with wasting their time, talent and training by switching to the hippy, freewheeling image associated with a rock band. Indeed, when your ambition is to play Elgar on a Stradivarius alongside Menuhin - for which Wilf Gibson once practised 14 hours a day until his fingers bled - the influences that make a musician shelve such ideals must be remarkable.

Wilf Gibson: “When I first lined up on stage surrounded by guitars and all the acoustic equipment and I saw the kids dancing and screaming in the hall, my reaction was – ‘what am I doing here?!’. There I was in extravagant clothes, a cape and velvet trousers - quite a contrast to the black tails of the LSO – and the girls were screaming. That doesn’t happen very much if you’re playing Beethoven at the Royal Albert Hall. At that moment, I probably would have given my best violin to be back in the second row of the string section. But really it was simply a panic reaction. Almost immediately, I discovered the individual opportunities for self-expression - the encouragement to improvise and explore new ideas - were far greater than are offered in classical music. The ELO make no great claims to be in the vanguard of a musical revolution but we are experimenting blending what we have always considered incompatible harmonies to produce a sound we hope arrests the imagination. This is one of the tragedies surrounding classical music today. It’s stagnating. There are no new major symphonies being written, No fresh interpretations. It’s led to an apathy which affects the audience. I am certain that when Beethoven wrote his symphonies he didn’t mean everyone to sit stiffly to attention and applaud politely at the end. He would have loved it if they had jumped up and showed their affection for the music in a demonstrative way. But that doesn’t happen. The enthusiasm, the spark you find in pop, is missing.”

The three agreed as classical men they held no contempt for the average rock musician. “Why should we? We appreciate what they can do. Probably more than they appreciate our well-trained talents” says Colin. Mike Edwards: “There’s nothing more difficult than writing a good pop song. We can all write long classical works but to write a commercial, good pop song is really difficult for us. We appreciate Jeff very much and what he can do. He has no desires to learn anything else. He is quite happy with his guitar. He writes most of the material and produces us but we all chip in with ideas. I think we would all like to write for the group but at present, it works out quite well.”

Guitarist Jeff Lynne explains how such a bizarre band as the Electric Light Orchestra was formed: “We got to hate bashing away at the same old thing night after night. We wanted to use nice instruments like cellos and violins… Instead of it being a group with one guitar, bass and drums and some strings it’s like we’re all playing guitars – that’s the approach now. It’s a group, a complete group and it’s so integrated now that you can’t really call them a string section – they could be playing any instrument. They’ve forgotten about dots now, they don’t need to have the music in front of them, they can play by ear. They’re beginning to take solos, they love ‘em, which gets us away from the usual guitar solo. There’s only so much a guitar can say.” The group’s second album, called ELO2, is out this week. It includes their latest hit Roll Over Beethoven but is basically a collection of serious works. As for their next singles chart contender, Jeff Lynne promises a mini-symphony. Seriously, though…