At long last, ELO's Jeff Lynne has been saluted by royalty. Lynne received the prestigious OBE (Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list. Lynne said in a statement, 'I am extremely humbled and grateful to be awarded this honour for my services to music. To be recognized for my work is an extraordinary privilege.” Royal honors are awarded twice yearly — on the queen’s official birthday and at new year.
Although Jeff Lynne is about as British as they come — he explained why nearly all of his songs sound as if they're sung by an American: “It's just that when you start, all the records you learn, listen to and learn, they're all singing in this twang — like a dialect. Y'know, it sounds so cool with music put to it. But when you start doing it, like somebody who's very posh or something, it just doesn't have any — it just sounds wrong. So we all tend to go onto the American dialect.”
