Even with a lifetime of other musical accomplishments, Jeff Lynne is and always will be known as the man who turned on the Electric Light Orchestra. Today, nearly forty years after Lynne's Orchestra first shed a little light, the luminous and heartfelt music of ELO continues to burn as brightly as ever.

The vivid, artfully crafted songs that Jeff Lynne wrote and sang -- and the exquisite recordings that he so expertly arranged and produced for Electric Light Orchestra -- have endured beautifully and are perhaps even more beloved today than they were back in the Seventies and Eighties.

By any standard whatsoever, Electric Light Orchestra is one of the most remarkable success stories in rock history. Consider just the facts: Electric Light Orchestra has sold well in excess of 50 million records worldwide, and continues to be a remarkably popular catalog. Between 1972 and 1986, ELO enjoyed twenty-six Top Forty hits in the United Kingdom, and twenty Top Forty hits in the United States, including twenty Top Twenty smashes in the UK and fifteen Top Twenty smashes in the U.S. Even more remarkably, the ELO catalog continues to have tremendous impact here in the Twenty-First Century, as demonstrated powerfully when the compilation All Over The World: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra was released in 2005 and became a Top Ten album hit in a number of international markets including England.

Beyond all the best-known hit songs, fans everywhere continue to explore the remarkable series of albums that combined Lynne's remarkably ambitious and accomplished craftsmanship from the group's 1971 debut - accidentally titled No Answer due to a miscommunication on a telephone about what the album would be called - through 1973's ELO II and On The Third Day, 1974's breakthrough Eldorado, 1975's Face The Music, 1976's A New World Record, 1977's double-record epic Out Of The Blue, 1979's Discovery, 1981's Time, 1983's Secret Messages, 1986's Balance of Power, as well as 2001's Zoom, the first new Electric Light Orchestra studio album in fifteen years that found Lynne reunited with longtime band mate and collaborator Richard Tandy, as well as guests including George Harrison and Ringo Starr.

What is it about the music of Electric Light Orchestra that endures so powerfully for millions of music lovers around the world? “It's a great question -- and I wish I could answer it,” Lynne says with a humble laugh. "it's nice to have songs in your catalog that stand the test of time".

As global superstar visionaries go, Lynne is an unusually humble man. Not that Lynne has much to be humble about -- even outside of the success of Electric Light Orchestra, Lynne has led a remarkable career that has found him taking the lessons learned leading Electric Light Orchestra and using them to help produce and collaborate with many of the greatest musical artists of all time, including a number of Lynne's all-time heroes. That list includes George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, The Beatles, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Brian Wilson and Del Shannon. Together with Harrison, Orbison, Petty and Bob Dylan, Lynne was, of course, a member in good standing of the Grammy award-winning Traveling Wilburys - a supergroup like no other.

Even with his remarkable and singular track record as a rock star, Lynne has never sought the spotlight, “I don't think of myself as a rock star,” Lynne says with a laugh. “I'm more of a singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer. It's more about what I do than any sort of persona.” Not that Lynne doesn't enjoy the passion that fans have brought and continue to bring to ELO's music. “I love recognition for the work, and for writing all those songs. I find it a pleasure having done so, especially now when they keep getting played more than ever. Working on the Flashback box set that came out in 2000, reminded me how much I like the music. And ever since then, it seems like ELO songs are even more in demand, especially in my house.”

For Lynne, such major and ongoing success is a remarkable side effect of a lifetime of working hard in the place that has always been his musical home -- the recording studio. “To me, the recording studio really became my Eldorado,” Lynne explains today. “Just to go in the studio, to be there for a few weeks at a time and use all the latest equipment, try all the amazing instruments and do harmonies -- that was a total pleasure for me. In the original run with ELO, I believe that having the studio time -- and also having constant deadlines at the end of it - no time to second guess -- was possibly the best thing that could happen for me. Mind you, at the time, I didn't think so, probably because it got pretty hectic some of the time. My life back then was to write and produce an album, go out and tour for two or three months to support that album, then go back and make another album. Then go out on tour again. It was a non-stop cycle, and could be exhausting, but I'm proud of the music that came out of it.”

For Lynne, “It all comes down to what you truly love doing, and what I love doing is overdubbing and making new sounds out of things that are sometimes quite ordinary on their own, but when you put them together, they make something new -- or something that sounds new. Just discovering things like that musically is a pleasure. I love creating, more than re-creating. That's why I never really loved playing live as much. There were lots of great nights that I enjoyed, but for me it wasn't as satisfying as making the next song.”

So was working often behind the scenes as leader of the Electric Light Orchestra the perfect place for this pop genius to hide in plain sight? “I suppose that it was in a way,” Jeff Lynne says. “Back in those days I didn't think of it that way. Then it seemed more about my desire to get away from the normal rock band line up of three guitars, or two guitars and drums,” Lynne explains. “Having come through the Idle Race and the Move, and listening to what was in the air in those days, I wanted to get away from what I was hearing and make a different sound.”

With Electric Light Orchestra, Jeff Lynne brought the world a different sound that still sounds modern, relevant and great.

Asked what he's most proud of about the legacy of the Electric Light Orchestra, Lynne pauses for a moment, and then says, “I think that I stuck with it all those years and didn't waver. I just kept at it, and I'm glad I did because the songs are still out there.”