Bev Bevan – ELO

Dennis Elsas and Bev Bevan

One of my favorite bands, the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO), were in the midst of one of their most creative periods when I welcomed their drummer Bev Bevan to the studio on December 5, 1977.  Though Jeff Lynne would emerge as the group’s leader, it was Bev who had become the group’s spokesman.  We discussed their origins as the Move, breaking new ground with orchestral rock, their graphics and album covers and a strange coincidence from the previous summer.

It was ELO that was spinning on the turntable during my show just a few months earlier on July 13, 1977 when a major blackout crippled the New York area.  Here’s how it sounded at WNEW-FM when Scott Muni and I returned to the airwaves the following day.