How can a group survive by proudly staying local, being possibly too talented for their own good, not being pigeonholed and rising to the occasion when others drop the ball? Not for long, at least in the case of The Move. #themove #roywood #jefflynne #bevbevan #freakrock #UKrock #psychedelic #powerpop

This is a tale of what it truly means to be a talented musician, at least for the majority who do not achieve stardom.

Though known now as the band that Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) was in prior to his worldwide success, the story of The Move is a the stuff of every VH1 Storytellers episode ever created: People with loads of talent whose careers were sidelined by poor management and changing musical styles as they attempted to adapt to but were considered far ahead of their time regardless.

Cover of the debut album by The Move. Artwork by Roy Wood, courtesy of UMG.

The Move, founded in 1965 by Roy Wood, Trevor Burton and Ace Kefford in Birmingham, England, attempted to be a supergroup made up of the best members of other bands from the local scene. They eventually ended up as a five piece, adding Carl Wayne and drummer Bev Bevan, and early in their career, four of the five members traded off on lead vocals.

After releasing several singles to much success, they started to run into problems. The bands manager, using any attempt to get the band noticed, made the biggest mistake of them all: doing something so controversial the group was successfully sued by British Prime Minister Harold Wilson for libel. Sadly, The Move dropped this manager, Tony Secunda, in favor of Don Arden, the notorious manager of many English artists, who not only stole from them, he pretty much ran their career into the ground. In a strange twist of fate, Arden was also dropped in favor of another manager who did even worse, with the band crawling back to Arden for help.

The Move, 1967. (l-r) Carl Wayne, Roy Wood, Ace Kefford, Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton. Photographer unknown, courtesy of Deram/London.

As if losing a major court battle and revolving bad management wasn’t enough, the band shrunk from a five piece to a quartet, then a trio, with Wood and Bevan sticking around for all line-ups. Wood, a truly eccentric pop genius, was growing tired of The Move, but needed to continue with this project in order to create a vision of a new band with new blood. Additionally, he knew a change was coming from psychedelic British Pop to something heavier, and the change in Wood’s stage persona and the band’s new sound alienated many fans.

“Yeah, it was all pretty wacky, that stuff.”Jeff Lynn on his time in the move

Joining the band a as a session player was Richard Tandy, a multi-instrumentalist, and as a full-time member, a musician named Jeff Lynn, the latter being part of a group called The Idle Race that Wood admired. The feeling was mutual, as The Idle Race’s first single was also written by Wood.

The band, now reduced to a trio with Bevan, Wood, Lynne with some guest players, decided to change their sound dramatically, with enough 9 minute songs on a single LP to make even Emerson, Lake and Palmer blush. This caused some critics to soundly gripe at the band. This was preceded by an absolutely disastrous tour (only two shows in two cities) of the U.S. in 1969, the only dates they played in the colonies, opening for The Stooges.

The Move, 1971. (l-r) Roy Wood, Bev Bevan and Jeff Lynne. Courtesy of Photofeatures.

Of course, the typical record company hassles also became the norm. They switched labels in their native U.K., and their records were difficult to find in the States,