An Appreciation of Roy Wood

Photograph courtesy of The Birmingham Mail

#691: Hello ... Hello ... my old friends ... It's great to see you once again! Seeing the 2014 version of The Move performing, in part, the songs of Roy Wood last week in Worcester and listening to that superb album of Woody covers by The Flashcubes entitled "Sportin' Wood" led me to think this: Have you ever truly considered the phenomenal chart career of Roy Wood between 1966 and 1975?

ELO Beatles Forever (ELOBF) looked in The Official Charts Company Archive at the chart positions for Roy's hits with The Move and Wizzard (as well as his solo career) and then ordered them by date thus:

Date	Artiste	Title	Position
05/01/1967	The Move	Night Of Fear	2
06/04/1967	The Move	I Can Hear The Grass Grow	5
06/09/1967	The Move	Flowers In The Rain	2
07/02/1968	The Move	Fire Brigade	3
25/12/1968	The Move	Blackberry Way	1
23/07/1969	The Move	Curly	12
25/04/1970	The Move	Brontosaurus	7
03/07/1971	The Move	Tonight	11
23/10/1971	The Move	Chinatown	23
13/05/1972	The Move	California Man	7
09/12/1972	Wizzard	Ball Park Incident	6
21/04/1973	Wizzard	See My Baby Jive	1
11/08/1973	Roy Wood	Dear Elaine	18
01/09/1973	Wizzard	Angel Fingers	1
01/12/1973	Roy Wood	Forever	8
08/12/1973	Wizzard	I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day	4
27/04/1974	Wizzard	Rock 'n' Roll Winter (Loony's Tune)	6
15/06/1974	Roy Wood	Going Down The Road	13
10/08/1974	Wizzard	This Is The Story Of My Life (Baby)	34
21/12/1974	Wizzard	Are You Ready To Rock?	8
31/05/1975	Roy Wood	Oh What A Shame	13

In less than a decade, Roy Wood wrote twenty Top 20 singles (if you include Amen Corner's #4 hit cover of "Hello Suzie"). That's fourteen Top 10 hits and three chart toppers! When you look at the above roster, you begin to both wonder and appreciate the huge musical legacy of the co-founder of The Move, ELO and the creator of: Wizzard. Who else (besides John Lennon, Paul McCartney and a few others) can lay claim to such astounding success in so short a time?

Who knows what would have been further achieved with the correct amount of support from the Ardens?

Dr. Roy Wood ... We salute you!

Until next "Time" in the ELO (and related) Universe ... KJS ... 01-Apr-2014