Few people can ever claim to have been a cellist in a successful rock band. Mike Edwards was.
Formed in 1970 by Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne, Electric Light Orchestra has had many members in the band’s 50+ year history. Their music is best described as Beatles-style rock and roll that includes classical stringed instruments.
Among the group’s earliest musicians, Edwards joined ELO for its first live performance at a venue in Croydon, England in 1972.
The band changed members straight away. When Roy Wood departed, some predicted the end of the group. But Jeff Lynne stayed on and became their leader.
Mike Edwards remained and took part in ELO’s early recording successes.
A quiet man who often wore a suit and tie, Edwards was a classically trained cellist who shrugged off modern music.
Onstage with the rock band, however, he had a unique flair for showmanship.
He sometimes performed while wearing a knit ski mask or balaclava.
Instead of playing the frets of his cello with his fingers, he used an orange.
Other times, his cello would be rigged to explode, a variant on guitar smashing.
Edwards played on ELO’s earliest hit songs, including Roll Over Beethoven, Showdown, and Can’t Get It Out of My Head.
At the peak of the group’s success in 1975 after the release of the best-selling album Eldorado, Edwards voluntarily left the band.
During the 1980s, he became a follower of the spiritualist Osho and lived in communes in the UK, Germany, India, and the US.
In middle age, he became a music teacher and formed an orchestra that focused on Baroque music.
In the final years of his life, Edwards was in great demand with numerous groups of all genres - not just classical but also jazz and folk music.
He died at age 62 in a bizarre accident.
In 2010, near his home in the English countryside, a gigantic round bale of hay tumbled off a hill toward the road on which Edwards was driving. The bundle, which weighed over 1,000 pounds, struck his van and killed him.
Hay rolled over Beethoven.
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