Countdown to this week's Vinyl Sessions Christmas event in Harrogate at Starling bar
It’s not long now before a musical treat to perk ELO fans up after Boxing Day takes place in Harrogate.
The popular British pop-rock band’s million-selling All Over the World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra album will be presented in all its analogue glory in the Vinyl Sessions "Betwixtmas" Event Special between Christmas and New Year.
Taking place at Starling Independent Bar Café Kitchen in Harrogate on Friday, December 27, this much-loved greatest hits reached number one in the UK album charts on its release in June 2005.
The charity event has free entry, as always, but advance booking is advised and donations are requested with all monies going to Harrogate Hospital Community Charity,
Packed with hit singles such as Mr Blue Sky, Evil Woman, Livin' Thing, Hold On Tight and Turn to Stone, the album covers just ten years in the band’s career after it was formed in 1970 - but what a ten years.
Although ELO have never recorded a Christmas song, one of their founder members, Roy Wood, did release one of the most popular festive smashes with the band Wizzard – I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day.
In 2017, four key members of ELO – Jeff Lynne, Roy Wood, Ben Bevan, and Richard Tandy – were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
But ELO also hold the record for having the most Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 hits – 20 - without a number one.
MC-ed by Vinyl Sessions founder Colin Paine, the usual speaker, Graham Chalmers, is away so the event has a different mystery ‘Professor of Pop’.
October’s Vinyl Sessions – an ‘In Person’ Q&A with legendary Supertramp and David Bowie producer Ken Scott – raised £800 for Harrogate Hospital Community Charity.
Next week’s event, which starts at 7.30pm and features a slide show by Jim Dobbs, is a case of coming full circle for the event.
First launched in 2018, one of the earliest Vinyl Sessions featured ELO in the shape of their classic 1977 album Out of the Blue.