Richard Tandy (March 26, 1948 – May 1, 2024) was an English musician. He was the keyboardist in the band Electric Light Orchestra (“ELO”). His palette of keyboards (including Minimoog, Clavinet, Mellotron, and piano) was an important ingredient in the group’s sound, especially on the albums A New World Record, Out of the Blue, Discovery, and Time.
Tandy was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 7, 2017, as a member of Electric Light Orchestra.
Tandy was born in Birmingham and educated at Moseley School, where he first met future bandmate Bev Bevan. Tandy would later be reunited with Bevan in 1968 when he played the harpsichord on The Move’s UK number one chart single “Blackberry Way” and briefly joined them live playing keyboards, but switched to bass while regular bassist Trevor Burton was sidelined due to a shoulder injury. When Burton was able to play again, Tandy left to join The Uglys.
In 1972, Tandy served as the bassist in the first live line-up of Electric Light Orchestra (originally a side project of The Move), before becoming the band’s full-time keyboardist. He has collaborated musically with ELO frontman Jeff Lynne on many projects, among them songs for the Electric Dreams soundtrack, Lynne’s solo album Armchair Theatre and Lynne-produced Dave Edmunds album Information.
Tandy’s keyboards are an integral part of ELO’s sound, and include piano, Minimoog, Clavinet, Oberheim, Wurlitzer electric piano, Mellotron, Yamaha CS-80, ARP 2600, and harmonium. He was also proficient on guitar. On some albums he is also credited with vocals or backing vocals, without any specification of which songs. Tandy was Jeff Lynne’s right-hand man in the studio and co-arranged the strings with Lynne and Louis Clark from Eldorado onwards.
In 1985, Tandy formed the Tandy Morgan Band featuring Dave Morgan and Martin Smith, both of whom had worked with ELO in live concerts. In 1985, the Tandy Morgan Band released the concept album Earthrise. A remastered version was released on CD on the Rock Legacy label in 2011. A follow-up to Earthrise with previously unpublished tracks was released as The BC Collection, containing one track written by Tandy: “Enola Sad”.
Tandy is featured on every ELO album except 1971’s No Answer, recorded by Wood, Lynne, Bevan, Bill Hunt and Steve Woolam prior to his arrival, and 2015’s Alone in the Universe, on which all of the instruments aside from some percussions were played by Lynne.
In 2012, Tandy reunited with Lynne to record another ELO project, a live set of the band’s biggest hits recorded at Lynne’s Bungalow Palace home recording studio, which was broadcast on television.[5] In 2013, Tandy joined Lynne in performing two songs for Children In Need Rocks, “Livin’ Thing” and “Mr Blue Sky”. He was also part of ELO’s set on Radio 2’s Festival In A Day in September 2014, and played a piano solo on the song One More Time from Lynne’s ELO 2019 album From Out of Nowhere.
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