Colin Walker (cellist)

Colin Walker (born 8 July 1949) is an English cellist who played with Electric Light Orchestra from 1972 to 1973.

He was born in Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire, and was educated at Marling School in Stroud and the Royal Academy of Music in London. By his own admission, his greatest regret was not playing on The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby" (Haines, Guttenbacher, and Petersdorff 2000).

Walker was recruited into ELO after founding member Roy Wood quit the band and took cellist Hugh McDowell and horn player/keyboardist Bill Hunt with him and also joining at the time on bass was Mike de Albuquerque. Their new bandmates were singer/songwriter/guitarist/bandleader Jeff Lynne, drummer Bev Bevan, keyboardist Richard Tandy (who had previously played bass, but switched to keyboards), violinist Wilf Gibson and cellist Mike Edwards (Larkin 2016) and, at the time, Walker lived in a bachelor flat in the London suburb of Queen's Park.(Haines, Guttenbacher, and Petersdorff 2000)

During his time with ELO, Walker contributed cello to ELO 2 and side two of On the Third Day as well as the single Showdown, but left during the sessions for On the Third Day for family reasons and he was later replaced by a returning McDowell.

After leaving ELO, Walker returned to teaching. He played cello on "Fool's Gold", a track on the album Thought Talk by Starry Eyed and Laughing (Haines, Guttenbacher, and Petersdorff 2000).

Sources

• Haines, Marc, Patrik Guttenbacher, and Alexander von Petersdorff. 2000. "Colin Walker, Cello". www.facethemusic.de, Fanclub of the Electric Light Orchestra and all related artists.
• Larkin, Colin (20 July 2016). "Electric Light Orchestra". Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 20 July 2016.