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Obituaries
Early ELO member dies
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 7 September 2010
An early member of ELO and founder member of the Devon Baroque orchestra, Mike Edwards, has died after a freak road accident in Devon. Edwards was killed after his van was crushed by a bale of hay as he drove down the A381 on Friday. It is thought the 600 kilo hay bale fell off a tractor on nearby farm land and rolled onto the road into the musician’s vehicle, killing him instantly.
A member of ELO between 1972 and 1975, cellist Edwards was trained at the Royal Academy Of Music. Although ELO are often referred to as a “rock band with classical overtones”, they were quite removed from most of the other groups and bands Edwards performed with during his long mainly classical music career. His live performances while with ELO became legendary, mainly because of his ‘party tricks’ which, according to the Face The Music website, included playing the cello with a grapefruit. Edwards later said he played around in that way to make his time with ELO “more entertaining”.
Although he subsequently played with a number of outfits as well as working as a music teacher, he became particularly associated with Devon Baroque, which specialises in performing baroque and early classical music played on period instruments and in an appropriate style.
Paying tribute to Edwards yesterday, the Chairman of that orchestra, Angus Gordon, told the BBC: “He was simply the nicest guy and a brilliant musician. He was capable of turning his hand to any type of music at all. He taught the cello and his incredible patience and encouragement – even with the slowest of students – made him a very good teacher. I’m devastated. He was a really likeable person and such good fun that I keep thinking this has been a horrible mistake”.
