The Move: California Man

This is The Move at the end of their career, when their chief movers were Roy Wood, who wrote California Man, and Jeff Lynne. Those two were, at the same time. also the founders of the Electric Light Orchestra, who became better known as ELO.

Roy Wood became disenchanted with the Electric Light Orchestra project, whose idea was to combine rock with classical instruments, because it proved difficult to balance the different instruments in live performances.

He went on to found Wizzard, so perhaps it's not surprising that California Man, with its rock and roll pastiche and comic staging, sounds most like one of that band's singles.

Wizzard faded after a stellar 1973, but the ELO seemed to go on for ever. Their singles were radio friendly but as the late Simon Titley once remarked, the problem with Jeff Lynne's music was that it all sounded like Jeff Lynne.