Jeff and George Harrison

[bluejim]

Hi, I'm doing some research at the moment into the creative partnership between Jeff Lynne and George Harrison, and have been struggling with certain aspects of the chronology. Wondering if anyone can help?
Specifically I'm looking at when it was that Jeff first visited George at Friar Park....the work I've done so far suggests it was sometime in 1985, though I'm having difficulty fitting it around the recording and remixing sessions for Balance of Power. I'm hearing conflicting accounts of when BOP wrapped up production, but given that Mack was working with Queen by August of '85, I guess it was before then.  I'm inching towards saying that Jeff and George first met in late spring/early summer of '85.
This conflicts with Jeff's oft-repeated testimony that when he first met George, George immediately invited him to the Adelaide Grand Prix happening a couple of weeks later. Unfortunately though, that was at the end of 1986, so I'm thinking Jeff's own chronology is wonky there, particularly as he and George worked together on the track 'Zig Zag' in the spring of '86.
Any pointers would be gratefully received!

[Horacewimp]

I don’t know if you have seen this website, if you click on each song title it gives you further information and dates if available.

www.jefflynnesongs.com/jlworks8.php

Hopefully that helps you, otherwise it’s possible ShardEnder has some timeline.

[lasttrain929]

You probably already heard this interview but Jeff talks about how he met George and his visit to George’s home. The bit about George starts at the 13 minute mark.

[bluejim]

Thanks both.
Yeah, the Jefflynnesongs guy is very vague about the BOP dates (just says 1985 or 1986) for the songs. The audio Jeff interview is one of those ones where he says he went to Adelaide 2 weeks or so after the visit to Friar Park, and that 'Fab' was the first thing he and George wrote....but I'm thinking this is unlikely to be true unless they went to the '85 Grand Prix together as well as the '86 one (where they were photographed).

[Chippa]

There might be some info in this article somewhere.

www.mixonline.com/recording/classic-tracks/classic-tracks-george-harrisons-got-my-mind-set-you-366313

[lawrev]

Apr 14, 2023 23:47:49 GMT Chippa said:

There might be some info in this article somewhere.

www.mixonline.com/recording/classic-tracks/classic-tracks-george-harrisons-got-my-mind-set-you-366313

Great article. But the drums on the song sound as artificial and sterile as anything on the last two ELO albums. But as we all know, and the article comments, that Cloud Nine sounds like ELO. But I digress.

[ShardEnder]

To my knowledge, the Balance Of Power sessions were split over three periods. The first of these was the six weeks spent at Compass Point, starting in September 1984. From there, the band relocated to Hartmann Digital with engineer Tom Thiel (due to Bill Bottrell having other commitments) and had Mack come in to finish the mixes at some point before February 1985, as that's when a photo session was taken during rehearsals for an imminent tour. At the very last minute, both planned live shows and the release of the album were pushed back a year while Jeff tended to his ailing father, who passed away a few months later. Saying that, just because the tracks were finished by then doesn't necessarily mean a running order was entirely decided on, as an acetate dated 5/8/85 with an early tracklist surfaced a few months ago.