Taken from the Album: ELO's Jet 'B' Sides

#907: Hello ... Hello ... my old friends ... It's great to see you once again! The second in a series of ELO Beatles Forever (ELOBF) articles looking at the tenure of ELO at Jet Records. When Don Arden and United Artists fell out in Spring 1978, Jet entered in a lucrative distribution contract with CBS Records and the two then proceeded to re-issue the odd single release by both ELO and Jeff Lynne ("Rockaria", "Telephone Line", "Doin' That Crazy Thing" and perhaps "Turn To Stone") as well as their albums "On The Third Day" (JETLP202), "Eldorado" (JETLP203), "Face The Music" (JETLP201), "A New World Record" (JETLP200) and more pressingly "Out Of The Blue" (JETDP400) - some in rather attractive coloured (clear, yellow, green, red and blue in that order) limited edition vinyl collectors editions.

As noted in my recent ELOBF article entitled On The Flip Side: ELO's Jet 'B' Sides, there appeared to be at that time a Jet policy that many of the album tracks from the ELO back catalogue, particularly from OTTD up to FTM, turned up as 'B' sides on their single releases from ANWR to "Discovery". This gave the ELO record buying public in the UK good coverage of the discography that they may have missed. This was supplemented by the "Three Light Years" (JETBX1) boxed set issue in late 1978 that, of course, included "On The Third Day", "Eldorado" and "Face The Music".

Thereafter, very few album tracks were used as flip sides for ELO's UK singles - none from ANWR and a couple of cuts from OOTB and "Discovery" (namely "Jungle", "Across The Border", "Midnight Blue" and "Wishing") - as not many were left to choose from! Here are twelve ELO album tracks from OTTD through to FTM that also made their way from LP to 7" in the UK:

On The Third Day
"King Of The Universe" ('B' side: "Telephone Line")
"Oh No Not Susan" ('B' side: "Ma Ma Ma Belle")
"Bluebird Is Dead" ('B' side: "Sweet Talkin' Woman")
"Dreaming of 4000" ('B' side: "Don't Bring Me Down")

Eldorado
"Poorboy (The Greenwood)" ('B' side: "Telephone Line")
"Mister Kingdom" ('B' side: "Turn To Stone")
"Illusions In G Major" ('B' side: "Can't Get It Out Of My Head")
"Eldorado" ('B' side: "Wild West Hero")

Face The Music
"Fire On High" ('B' side: "Livin' Thing")
"Poker" ('B' side: "Rockaria")
"Down Home Town" ('B' side: "The Diary Of Horace Wimp)
"One Summer Dream" ('B' side: "Mr. Blue Sky")

Note that "Daybreaker" backed "Ma Ma Ma Belle", "Eldorado" backed "Boy Blue", "New World Rising" backed "Strange Magic", "Nightrider" backed "Do Ya", "Fire On High" backed "Sweet Talkin' Woman", "The Whale" backed "It's Over", "Poker" backed "Confusion" and "Down Home Town" backed "Last Train To London" during the same period in the United States.

Until next "Time" in the ELO (and related) Universe ... KJS ... 14-May-2015