Traveling Wilburys

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys, left to right: Lucky-Boo (Dylan), Otis-Clayton (Lynne), Charlie T. Jnr.-Muddy (Petty), Nelson-Spike (Harrison), and Lefty (Orbison).
Background information
Origin	Santa Monica, California
Genre(s)	Folk Rock Rock
Years active	1988 - 1990
Label(s)	Wilbury/Warner Bros.
Members
George Harrison Jeff Lynne Bob Dylan Tom Petty Roy Orbison

The Traveling Wilburys were a supergroup created by George Harrison and Jeff Lynne. Initially an informal grouping with Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, they got together at Bob Dylan's studio (Santa Monica, California) to record an additional track as a B-side for the single release of Harrison's "This is Love". The song they came up with was "Handle With Care". However, the record company immediately realized it was too good to be released as a single "filler".

They enjoyed working together so much that they decided to create an album together. Written by all its members, writing and recording was accomplished by this group over a ten-day period because Dylan was due to go on tour. Released in October 1988 (under various pseudonyms as half-brothers, supposed sons of Charles Truscott Wilbury, Sr.), the album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 was immediately dubbed as one of the top 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone. The death of band member Roy Orbison (on December 6, 1988) prevented further full collaborations; however, the band continued without him.

"Wilburys" was a slang term coined by Harrison and Lynne during the recording of Cloud Nine as a reference to "gremlins" in the recording equipment and process. The term was used again when the entire group was together. Harrison suggested "The Trembling Wilburys" as the group's name, but they decided to use "Traveling" instead.

After Orbison's death, there was undocumented speculation in the news media with Del Shannon as a new member, but his 1990 suicide precluded any possible involvement.

A charity single entitled "Nobody's Child", aimed at drawing attention to the orphaned children of Romania, followed in early 1990, also with an album with others. A second album titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 was released in October 1990. However, the album met with less success. Some possible reasons for the skip from Vol.1 to Vol.3 include the fact that some consider Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever as Vol. 2 (Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison perform on the album), a nod to the many bootlegs titled "Volume 2" containing early studio mixes/alternate takes, to honor the death of Roy Orbison by not releasing the project started with Orbison, or as a simple joke.

The two Traveling Wilburys albums have limited availability. However, Tom Petty announced on his XM radio show that both albums would be re-released sometime in the near future, with bonus tracks.