19 Dec 2020 Written By Matthew Eastley
Out of the Blue

I grew up in a household obsessed with music with an older brother and sister (born in 1960 and 1962 respectively) who played music constantly. So in the seventies it meant a LOT of ELP, Yes, Genesis and Deep Purple (brother) and David Essex, The Stylistics and Queen (sister). I was nuts on The Beatles from the age of about six, Stones from the age of about nine and The Who at ten. I was also an obsessive chart listener from about 1973 and also loved a bit of Wizzard, Chicory Tip, Sparks and Slade. However, there is one album which stands out for me in St Mary’s terms. That is ELO’s Out of the Blue. Now I know ELO are painfully unfashionable but for those of us born in the mid 60s, this was really one of the first concept albums that we could call our own even if the concept was essentially the, er, weather. Yet importantly, this came out at almost exactly the same time as we started at St Mary’s in 1977 and Jeff Lynne’s magnum opus provides a decent soundtrack to that first year in the huts and the second year, high up in the room at the front overlooking Chislehurst Road and the A20. Mr Blue Sky, Wild West Hero, Turn to Stone all remind me of St Mary’s and I have an indelible memory of myself and my great, much-missed friend Peter Varnes singing Sweet Talking Woman on a Friday afternoon in double art with Mr Pratt. Time for a spin of Out of the Blue I think.
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