Photo: Martyn AtkinsElectric Light Orchestra frontman Jeff Lynne is releasing new versions of some of the group's classic tunes on his solo CD Mr. Blue Sky: The Very Best of Electric Light Orchestra, and he told Billboard.com  why he was on a mission to improve ELO's most popular songs.

"They weren't as tight as they could have been. And some of the sounds on there, like some of the guitar sounds, didn't sound as good as they could," he says.  "A lot of technical stuff.  It wasn't the performance, particularly; it was my maybe lack of knowledge as a producer. I didn't really understand some of the things I was doing…I've had another 30 years' practice of doing lots of other folks since then... and now I know enough to actually know what I'm talking about."

The forthcoming CD contains 11 ELO hits including "Don't Bring Me Down," "Do Ya," "Evil Woman" and "Turn to Stone."  Lynne says he discovered that people find those songs more inspirational than he originally intended.  "I get comments like, 'Wow, that uplifts me so much, that song,' and I never thought they were that uplifting, or that they would help people enjoy themselves more," he says. "So they're slightly different than what I thought I was writing, but I'm much less critical about them now."

Lynne's Mr. Blue Sky CD will be released on October 9 along with a second album, Long Wave, a selection of classic covers including Chuck Berry's "Let It Rock," The Everly Brothers' "So Sad" and Roy Orbison's "Running Scared."

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