The Travelling Wilburys

[luisam]

Once in a while you can encounter with some mention to this band. So, who were The Traveling Wilburys? For a start they were neither called Wilbury nor were they a travelling band. They were a British-American supergroup made up by some most renowned stars!

 

The Traveling Wilburys line-up was:

Jeff Lynne (of Electric Light Orchestra (ELO)
Tom Petty (of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers)
George Harrison (of The Beatles)
Bob Dylan
Roy Orbison
 

The band recorded only two albums, the first in 1988 and the second in 1990, though Roy Orbison died before the second was recorded.

 

It all started when George Harrison was in Los Angeles in the spring of 1988 putting together tracks for a single to be released from his Cloud Nine album, he was seeking a B-side, so he contacted Jeff Lynne who was co-producing with him to participate in a song-writing session. George had left his guitar at Tom Petty's house a few nights earlier, so he invited Petty along. When Lynne arrived, Roy Orbison accompanied him because Jeff had also been working on Roy's album Mystery Girl at the time. Certainly, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne had co-written 'You Got It' for Roy and sang backing vocals on the track. George was delighted when Orbison volunteered to sing with him on this extra track.

It wasn't worth booking anywhere expensive so George telephoned Bob Dylan in nearby Santa Monica who had a studio in his garage. While George and Jeff worked on the song, Dylan prepared a barbecue.  Then George looked behind the garage door and there was a cardboard box with "Handle With Care" on it. So, that should be the name of the song!

From merely providing refreshments, Dylan lent a hand when Harrison - with his ‘B-Side’ only half-finished - said, "Give us some lyrics, you famous lyricist." It is said that Harrison had long admired Dylan and rated him a better artist than either Lennon or McCartney.

George added what he called 'a lonely bit' for Orbison, while Dylan wheezed the trademark harmonica on the fade. Quote George: " ….. and so everybody was there and I thought I'm not gonna just sing it myself, I've got Roy Orbison standing there. I'm gonna write a bit for Roy to sing. And then as it progressed, I started doing the vocals and I just thought I might as well push it a bit and get Tom and Bob to sing the bridge." The next day they added electric guitar and bass and mixed it. It was instant.'

When WEA Records heard `Handle With Care' they considered it to be too good to throw away as a makeweight on a single so George put it aside. He then thought it would be a good idea if they turned the collaboration of the five into a full-scale album project so he discussed the prospect with Jeff over a quantity of Mexican lager. All parties were keen so it was a runner

Owing to Orby's tour, only ten days could be set aside for recording – this was the summer of 1988. “It worked because it was so unplanned'". Most of the composing took place at Dylan's then at producer, Dave Stewart’s. Nourished by a continuous barbecue, George's team would "assemble at about one in the afternoon and just sit around with acoustic guitars - then someone would have a title or a chord pattern and we'd let it roll." What developed was the album The Traveling Wilburys Volume 1. George and Jeff returned to England, where they added the final overdubs

Michael Palin wrote the sleeve notes for the album. The tracks are: `Handle With Care', `Dirty World', `Rattled', `Last Night', `Not Alone Anymore', `Congratulations', `Heading For The Light', `Margarita', `Tweeter And The Monkey Man', `End of The Line'. It was issued in America and Britain on 25 October 1988 soon after the release of the single `Handle With Care'.

Harrison jokingly remarked to Lynne, "We'll bury 'em in the mix". Thereafter, they used the term “wilbury” for any small error in performance and the term was used again when the group were together.  The name Wilbury had been a suggestion from George and Jeff. While they had been recording Cloud Nine, when there were any technical problems with their equipment, they said that gremlins were at work.

Then Harrison suggested 'The Trembling Wilburys' as a name for the group and ultimately the vote went to Traveling, which was certainly the preference of the persuasive Dylan.

The five appeared under their chosen pseudonyms masquerading as half-brothers, all sons of Charles Truscott Wilbury. Bob Dylan was Lucky or Boo Wilbury. Jeff Lynne was Otis or Clayton Wilbury. Tom Petty was Charlie T. Jr or Muddy Wilbury. Roy Orbison was Lefty Wilbury and George was Nelson or Spike Wilbury.

The other musicians who participated were referred to as `the Sideburys'. They comprised Jim Keltner on drums, Jim Horn on sax and Ray Cooper on percussion. Ian Wallace played tom-toms on the `Handle With Care' track. After the death of Orbison it was rumoured that Del Shannon might replace him in the group. When told about the rumours, Shannon said, `At the moment it's not likely to happen until the band gets back together from doing their own individual stuff. If they decide on a second album, I'd be interested.'

The Wilburys did go ahead and made a second album but only as a quartet as they felt that Roy Orbison couldn't be replaced. It featured Tom Petty as Muddy Wilbury on acoustic and lead and backing vocals; Bob Dylan as Boo Wilbury on acoustic guitar, harmonica and lead and backing vocals; Jeff Lynne on acoustic guitar, bass, keyboards and lead and backing vocals; and George Harrison as Spike Wilbury on acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, sitar and lead and backing vocals.

George only submitted one of his numbers, 'Maxine' but this was rejected and so he had none of his own compositions on the album. The first number recorded was `Nobody's Child', a number that The Beatles had originally backed Tony Sheridan on in Hamburg in 1962.

Gary Moore, under the name Ken Wilbury, played lead guitar on the actual opening track, `She's My Baby'. The other tracks were: `Inside Out', `If You Belonged To Me', `The Devil's Been Busy', `7 Deadly Sins', `Poor House', `Where Were You Last Night?', `Cool Dry Place', `New Blue Moon', `You Took My Breath Away', `Wilbury Twist', `Runaway'

It appears that `Like A Ship' was also recorded but like `Maxine', didn’t make the cut

This second and final album was called Traveling Wilburys Volume 3 and it’s dedicated to ‘Lefty Wilbury’. There was no Volume 2 due to the fact that a bootleg album called Traveling Wilburys Volume 2 had already been released.

Following his tour of Japan, his first in seventeen years, George began to talk of a Traveling Wilburys tour, but it never happened. He commented, `That would be something I'd like to experience. I've always played around in my own mind what a Wilburys tour could be. Would each person do a solo set and then do Wilburys at the end, or would we all go right on from beginning to end and make everything Wilburys? It's an intriguing thought. We could have a great band up there and the four of us could play acoustic if we wanted to. We could all sing `Blowin' In The Wind' and Bob could sing `Something'. Or we could just sing our individual songs and make them Wilbury tunes, as if we'd recorded them that way. Whatever it was, we could do it.'

Tom Petty also commented on the lack of a tour, since people said they were the Traveling Wilburys: `I think it would work, if we wanted to do it. I don't think we ever considered it, really. There were a lot of nights when the conversation would roll around to that. But I don't think anybody ever took it seriously. I think it would ruin it in a way. Then you're obligated to be responsible and it's not in the character of that group. It would make it very formal and that would be the wrong spirit.'

No third album was to be produced. Following the death of Roy Orbison, the rumours of Del Shannon replacing him and doing another album never took placed. At least there was consolation that two platinum-selling albums had materialised.

George Harrison was to say, `We were trying to make a Wilbury film. We were going to film all the songs, it was all read - we had the studios booked, we had director David Leland, and every song filmed in a different location. Unfortunately Roy died but I'd still like to do it sometime.' But neither was there a Wilburys film.

Tom Petty said the various Wilburys had a real ball, effectively making the records for themselves. Any commercial spin-off was incidental. One quote has the arrival of The Wilburys ‘a breath of fresh air, so different from the climate of the late 80s. In fact, almost a throwback to George’s skiffle past ……… like a Viking ship docking in a hovercraft terminal’

Objectively, the quality of the second batch of songs is inferior basically owing to the absence of Roy Orison, the Big O, in the whole scheme of things. His voice could never be replaced, either as a solo artist or as part of this ensemble.

 

 

 

Source: Traveling Wilburys

 

[funkyy]

I bought the first album (CD) after hearing "Handle With Care" and liking it first time. "End Of The Line" is also a great track. I still have the CD today and the aforementioned songs are on my playlist on my computer. Together these guys made a unique sound...talent is boundless and timeless.

[spudboy]

Jim Keltner always gets the short end of the stick for everything he does. The drums on both albums didn't play themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keltner

[luisam]

2 hours ago, spudboy said:

Jim Keltner always gets the short end of the stick for everything he does. The drums on both albums didn't play themselves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keltner

 

While my post is not supposed to be a complete hicstorical recount of The Travelling Wilburys and all the production related to them, it does mention the participacion of Jim Keitner:

Quote...

"The other musicians who participated were referred to as `the Sideburys'. They comprised Jim Keltner on drums, Jim Horn on sax and Ray Cooper on percussion. Ian Wallace played tom-toms on the `Handle With Care' track."

[spudboy]

23 hours ago, luisam said:

 

While my post is not supposed to be a complete hicstorical recount of The Travelling Wilburys and all the production related to them, it does mention the participacion of Jim Keitner:

Quote...

"The other musicians who participated were referred to as `the Sideburys'. They comprised Jim Keltner on drums, Jim Horn on sax and Ray Cooper on percussion. Ian Wallace played tom-toms on the `Handle With Care' track."

 

I was speaking generally.