October 25, 1988: The Traveling Wilburys

Left to right: Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne,

Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and George Harrison.

Or: Lucky, Otis, Charlie T. Jr., Lefty and Nelson.

October 25, 1988: The album Traveling Wilburys, Vol. 1 is released. You've heard of rock and roll "supergroups"? This was the most super group of them all.

Former Beatle George Harrison made a comeback with his 1987 album Cloud Nine, produced by Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne, who also played several instruments on it. Among the other guest musicians: Former Beatle Ringo Star and Jim Keltner on drums, Eric Clapton on guitar, and Elton John and Gary Wright on piano.

During the recording of the album, there were some mistakes caused by faulty equipment. George said to Jeff, "We'll bury 'em in the mix." For the rest of the sessions, any mistake became known as a "We'll bury," or "Wilbury."

For a follow-up album, George got an idea to get some friends together and have some fun. For a name, George suggested "the Trembling Wilburys." Jeff suggested "Traveling Wilburys," and George agreed that this one was better.

George had worked with Bob Dylan before, and wanted him for the new group. Jeff wanted Roy Orbison. And Jeff had already agreed to collaborate with Tom Petty on an album that became Full Moon Fever. Petty and his band, The Heartbreakers, had backed Bob on a European tour.

Aside from being rock and roll legends, they shared a common love of the founding rock of the 1950s, and of the Monty Python comedy troupe, which led to them asking Michael Palin to write the album's liner notes. So they got together, and picked out names:

* Roy Orbison, then 51 years old: Lefty Wilbury.

* Bob Dylan, 47: Lucky Wilbury.

* George Harrison, 45: Nelson Wilbury.

* Jeff Lynne, 40: Otis Wilbury.

* Tom Petty, 37: Charlie T. Wilbury Jr.

The "real names" of Lefty and Lucky have never been divulged; maybe those were the real names. And it was never explained why the youngest son, rather than the oldest, had the father's name. An interviewer asked them, in character, if Charlie T. Sr. was also an itinerant musician, and Roy said, "The way I remember it, Daddy was a preacher." Keltner became the drummer, a.k.a. Buster Sidebury, a play on the term "sideman."

The lead song, "Handle With Care," became the lead single. George sang the 1st 2 verses, Roy a bridge, Bob and Tom a 2nd bridge, George the 3rd and 4th verses, then Roy again, then Roy joined Bob and Tom, and then they all sang the last verse, with George on the lead. There was no fancy production for the video: Just the five of them standing around a microphone and singing -- in black and white, just as an all-star concert headlined by Roy the year before was, released as the film Roy Orbison & Friends: A Black and White Night.

"Not Alone Anymore" was designed to sound like one of Roy's early 1960s heartbreak classics. "Heading for the Light" could have been mistaken for one of George's late Beatle or early solo efforts. Bob's song "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" reminded everyone of just how much he influenced Bruce Springsteen, especially since the song drops more New Jersey references than even a typical Bruce song. And the last song was, fittingly, titled "End of the Line."

"Handle With Care" only reached Number 44 on Billboard magazine's Hot 100, and no other single even got that close. But the album reached Number 3 on Billboard's album chart, and sold 2 million copies in the 1st 6 months. And "Handle With Care" did reach Number 3 in Australia and Number 21 in Britain. The critics loved the album, too.

By that point, Jeff had produced Roy's next album, Mystery Girl, with Tom also playing and singing on it. And Jeff had also produced Tom's next album, Full Moon Fever, with George, Roy, Jim, and one of Tom's favorite performers of all time, Del Shannon, also appearing on it. The video for its big single, "I Won't Back Down," included George, Ringo, and Jeff.

And then, on December 6, 1988, at the age of 52, Roy Orbison died of a heart attack. The world was stunned. He was at the peak of his fame. He was not known to be in ill health. But he had publicly confided to Johnny Cash, a close friend, that he'd been having chest pains, and was working like crazy in those last few weeks.

They had to film the video for "End of the Line" without him. They did it on a moving train. George, Bob, Jeff and Tom sat around playing their guitars. Jim sat at a drum kit. And when they got to the 3rd verse, which was Roy's verse, the camera focused on a rocking chair, rocking, with a guitar in it, with a shot of a photo of Roy on a shelf in the boxcar in the middle of it. It gets me every time.

In 1990, without replacing Roy, the 4 surviving Wilburys released their 2nd album, titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3. Not 2, 3. It included Shannon's biggest hit, "Runaway." There had been a rumor that Del was going to replace Roy, but it never happened. And then, the next year, Shannon died, too.

There were no more Wilbury albums. In 1992, Columbia Records celebrated 30 years of Dylan recording with them with an all-star concert at Madison Square Garden in New York, and Harrison, Lynne, Petty and Keltner were included. Harrison introduced Bob: "Some of you may call him Bobby, some of you may call him Zimmy, I call him Lucky."

Harrison died in 2001, Petty in 2017. As of October 25, 2022, Dylan, Lynne, and Keltner are still alive.

There couldn't be a Traveling Wilburys now, or ever again. Seriously, who would it be? Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, so a substitute could be the 1st personality outside of classical and jazz to win the Pulitzer Prize for Music, Kendrick Lamar. Since Lynne was the producer, the Wilbury reboot could have Timbaland.

It couldn't be Justin Timberlake or Harry Styles, because they were the "Paul McCartney" of *NSYNC and One Direction, respectively. So... let me see if I can remember any of the other names of the boys in One Direction... Niall Horan. But who's the Petty equivalent, the great band frontman? Maybe Danny Reynolds of Imagine Dragons. And the Orbison equivalent? Forget it: As Springsteen taught us, "Everybody knows that nobody sings like Roy Orbison."

*

October 25, 1988 was a Tuesday. Baseball season ended 5 days earlier, with the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the Oakland Athletics in the World Series. Football was in midweek. The NBA season didn't begin for another 10 days. But there were 7 NHL games played:

* The New York Islanders lost to the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-3 at the Nassau Coliseum.

* The New Jersey Devils lost to the Buffalo Sabres, 7-4 at the Brendan Byrne Arena at the Meadowlands.

* The Chicago Blackhawks beat the Quebec Nordiques, 7-4 at the Colisée de Québec.

* In an "Original Six" matchup, the Montreal Canadiens and the Boston Bruins played to a tie, 1-1 at the Boston Garden.

* The Pittsburgh Penguins beat the Calgary Flames, 6-1 at the Civic Arena in Pittsburgh. Mario Lemieux, Randy Cunneyworth and Phil Bourque each scored 2 goals.

* The Edmonton Oilers faced the Los Angeles Kings for the 2nd time since the Oilers traded Wayne Gretzky to the Kings. On October 19, at the Northlands Coliseum in Edmonton, the Oilers won, 8-6, a game filled with both goals and penalties. For the Kings, Gretzky had 2 assists, and Bernie Nicholls had 2 goals and 2 assists. For the Oilers, Mark Messier had 2 goals.

On this night, at The Forum, outside Los Angeles in Inglewood, California, the Oilers won again, 5-4. Again, lots of goals and lots of penalties. This time, though, all 9 goals were scored by different players, while Gretzky was limited to 2 assists.

* And the Washington Capitals beat the Vancouver Canucks, 4-3 at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver. Mike Ridley scored the winning goal with 2:05 left in overtime.

July 31, 1981: Journey Release "Escape"

July 31, 1981: The rock band Journey release their album Escape. It turns out to be their biggest hit, with their signature song, "Don't Stop Believin'," and what a 2003 VH1 special called the top "power ballad" of all time, "Open Arms."

The cover lists the title as "E5C4P3," as it it's a personalized license plate, and someone already had the California plate reading "ESCAPE." It's an early example of what the Internet would come to call "Leetspeak."

Left to right: Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory,

Neal Schon, Steve Perry, Steve Smith.

Journey were a "supergroup," consisting of musicians who had already starred with previous groups:

* Steve Perry, lead singer, formerly of Ice and Alien Project.

* Neal Schon, lead guitar, formerly of Santana, later of Bad English and Hardline.

* Ross Valory, bass guitar, formerly of The Steve Miller Band and Frumious Bandersnatch

* Jonathan Cain, keyboards, formerly of The Babys, later of Bad English.

* Steve Smith, drums, formerly of Focus.

In 1983, Bally Midway released a video game based on the album, with Atari licensed to produce a home version. The premise was that each of the 5 members at the time had to get past various obstacles, in the fashion of games like Breakout, to reach their instruments: Perry his microphone, Schon his guitar, Valory his bass, Cain his keyboard, and Smith his drum kit. Once reaching the instrument, the performer would use it as a weapon to blast himself to safety.

If all 5 were successful, the band would reunited for a concert, and the player would then use the joystick to operate a fat security guard, in order to block fans from rushing the stage. Once that failed, the fans would then carry the bandmembers off, and it would start all over again, on a more difficult level.

As of July 31, 2022, all 5 members are still alive. Cain is married to sketchy "prosperity gospel" televangelist Paula White. He and Schon formed Bad English with John Waite of The Babys. Valory has begun recording with Neal's son, Miles Schon, playing guitar.

For years, on "Don't Stop Believin'," I thought Perry was singing "Streetlife people, living with profound emotion." Was I ever disappointed when I found out it was "living just to find emotion." Far be it from me to tell him how to write songs, but I still like my version better. Finding emotion is easy. "Profound Emotion" sounds like the title of an epic album.

Of course, there is no "South Detroit." That would be Windsor, Ontario, Canada. But Perry, a native of central California's San Joaquin Valley, just liked the sound of it.

*

July 31, 1981 was a Thursday. English soccer player Titus Bramble was born.

The only major league sport in season at the time was baseball, and the Strike of '81 was on. So there were no scores on this historic day.

July 7, 1959: Rock and Roll’s 1st “Supergroup”?

Phil (left) and Don Everly

July 7, 1959: A recording session is held at RCA Records' Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee. From 1957 to 1977, this studio, at 1611 Roy Acuff Place (at the time, Sigler Street), was the site of the recording of some of the greatest songs in the history of rock and roll and country music.

This session may have been the first of what would later be known as rock "super sessions," and, possibly, rock's first "supergroup."

The song is "(Till) I Kissed You," by The Everly Brothers, Don and Phil. The song is written by Don. Among the other musicians on it were guitarist Sonny Curtis and drummer Jerry Allison, who were members of Buddy Holly's band, The Crickets. As a result, the song sounds like a tribute to Holly, who was killed in a plane crash 5 months earlier.

The song also has the man regarded as country music's greatest guitarist (and also as one of its best producers), Chet Atkins; Hank Williams' bass fiddle player, Floyd "Lightnin'" Chance; and Elvis Presley's pianist, Floyd Cramer, in one of his best performances.

The producer is Archie Bleyer, The Everlys' usual producer, who was also the producer for pre-rock acts The Chordettes (which included his wife, Janet Ertel), Julius La Rosa and Andy Williams. So the song has representatives from several of the top music "franchises" of the 1950s -- pop, rock and country. It is recorded on the label that Bleyer founded, Cadence Records, who rented the studio from RCA.

According to Billboard magazine, "Till I Kissed You" -- or "Till I Kissed Ya," in the Brothers' Kentucky accent -- hit Number 4 on their main popular music chart, the Hot 100; Number 8 on their C&W (Country & Western) chart; and, although everybody involved was white, not black, Number 2 on their R&B (Rhythm & Blues) charts.

The song was covered by reggae singer Jimmy London in 1975, and a version by Connie Smith reached Number 10 on Billboard's country chart in 1976.

Steve Beisser, a friend of mine who was a professional musician, cited the December 4, 1956 "Million Dollar Quartet" at Sun Records in Memphis, with Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, as the first great rock jam session. But he added, "Really, as a record, though, and not just as a jam session, this might be one of the first recordings to feature that many people who were marquee names on their own working together."

Later "supergroups" would be intentionally formed. In the 1960s, these included Cream; Blind Faith; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; and the 1968 "Super Session" brought together by Al Kooper, with Stephen Stills and Michael Bloomfield. In the 1970s: Humble Pie; The Eagles; Emerson, Lake & Palmer; Beck, Bogert & Appice; Journey; and Bad Company. In the 1980s: Asia, The Honeydrippers, The Highwaymen, Rollins Band, The Traveling Wilburys and Bad English. And, in the 2000s: Audioslave, Velvet Revolver, Gorillaz, and, in a one-shot deal for the 2001 movie Moulin Rouge!, Christina Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mya and Pink.

Archie Bleyer died in 1989, Floyd Cramer in 1997, Chet Atkins in 2001, Lightnin' Chance in 2005, Phil Everly in 2014, and Don Everly in 2021. As of July 7, 2022, Sonny Curtis and Jerry Allison are still alive. (UPDATE: Allison died later in the year, and Curtis died in 2025.)

*

July 7, 1959 was a Tuesday. Only one game was played on this day: Major League Baseball's All-Star Game. For the 1st time, MLB played 2 All-Star Games in 1 season, added to make money for the players' pension fund. This 1st game was played at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. A home run by Eddie Mathews of the Milwaukee Braves gives the National League a 5-4 win.

The 2nd All-Star Game of the year was played on August 3, at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The American League won that one, 5-3.

May 29, 1969: The Album "Crosby, Stills & Nash" Is Released

Left to right: Stephen Stills, David Crosby,

Neil Young and Graham Nash

May 29, 1969: The album Crosby, Stills & Nash is released. It is part of the rise of rock and roll "supergroups."

David Van Cortlandt Crosby was born on August 14, 1941 in Los Angeles. He was a descendant of the old-line New York State Van Cortlandt and Van Rensselaer families, and the son of Academy Award-winning cinematographer Floyd Crosby. From 1965 to 1967, he was a guitarist with the rock band The Byrds.

Stephen Arthur Stills was born on January 3, 1945 in Dallas. His father was an Army officer, so he moved around a lot, never having a real hometown. After dropping out of Louisiana State University, he was in a band named The Continentals, which included future Eagles guitarist Don Felder. He became a part of the Greenwich Village folk music community in New York, where he met Richie Furay.

A subsequent band named The Company toured Canada, where Stills met Neil Young. He was born on November 12, 1945 in Toronto. Stills said that Young "was doing what I always wanted to do: Play folk music in a rock band." He convinced Furay to move to Los Angeles with him, and try out the West Coast music scene. He tried out to be one of The Monkees, but was rejected, allegedly because of his teeth. He recommended to his friend Peter Tork that he audition for the band and the show, and he was accepted.

Young and 2 fellow Canadians, bass guitarist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, joined Stills and Furay in Los Angeles, and formed The Buffalo Springfield. The group's name was taken from a brand of steamroller, made by the Buffalo-Springfield Roller Company. They only had one real hit, but it was unforgettable: "For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey, What's That Sound)," reaching Number 7 in the Spring of 1967. The group broke up early in 1968.

Graham William Nash was born on February 2, 1942 in Blackpool, Lancashire, England. In 1962, he and Allan Clarke founded The Hollies, named for Buddy Holly. Like The Byrds, the Hollies had some of the best harmonies of the 1960s, and had more hits than The Byrds and The Buffalo Springfield combined.

Nash met Crosby and Stills on The Hollies' 1966 U.S. tour. In 1968, that band moved to Los Angeles, and the 3 men came into contact again. Coming together at a party hosted either by Joni Mitchell, whom Nash was dating, or Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas (they couldn't get their stories to agree as to which of them it was), they ended up singing together, and seeing how good their harmonies were.

Nash quit The Hollies, and the men formed a new group. The album Crosby, Stills & Nash was released, including Nash's "Marrakesh Express" and Stills' tribute to Judy Collins, "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes." Their 1st concert together was on August 16, at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago. Their 2nd was the next day, at Woodstock, and it came to define them, to the point where Crosby began to refer to "The W-Word."

Neil Young was brought in as a 4th member, and their 2nd/1st album, Déjà Vu, was released on March 11, 1970. It included the song "Woodstock" -- written by Mitchell, who wasn't even there -- "Teach Your Children" and "Our House." Within 2 months of its release, the Kent State Massacre happened, and Young wrote "Ohio." The live album 4 Way Street was released on April 4, 1971.

The various members appeared together in various combinations as long as they were all still alive, even though there was the occasional feud, to the point where the band became known as "Crosby, Stills, Nash and Sometimes Young" -- alternately, CSN, CSNY, or CSN and Sometimes Y, reflecting the fact that the vowels of the English language conclude with "and sometimes Y."

Elections to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: Crosby, with The Byrds, in 1991; Young, as a soloist, in 1995; Crosby, Stills and Nash as a trio, but not with Young, in 1997; Stills and Young with Buffalo Springfield, also in 1997; Nash, with The Hollies, in 2010. In other words, all 4 men are "double inductees."

On December 22, 2016, I saw this question on Twitter: "Whose fault is it that streaming pays so little to the artist? The record companies, the artists, or the streamers?" Crosby said, "Not us.. we are the ones getting short changed"

Which led me to respond: "Apparently, the one constant in the music business since Bach's time, 300 years ago." David Crosby liked my tweet.

It was amazing that he was still alive at all, given how much he had harmed himself, to the point of needing a liver transplant. In a 1995 interview, he said of his fellow Hippies, "We were right about a lot of things. We were right that peace is better than war. We were right that love is better than hate. We were not right, as it turned out, about drugs." But, as of May 29, 2022, he, Stills, Nash and Young are all still alive.

Reuniting against Spotify, February 2, 2022:

Young, Crosby, Stills and Nash.

This turned out to be their last meeting.

And on a 1997 episode of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, Crosby managed to perfectly sum up the difference between 1960s hippies and modern conservatives: Conservatives say they believe in freedom, the hippies actually did believe in it. Conservatives don't want you to tell them how to live, but they want to tell you how. Crosby said, "We didn't say you had to smoke pot and dress funny, we said that you could."

UPDATE: As it turned out, Crosby was the 1st to die, on January 18, 2023. He was 81.

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May 29, 1969 was a Thursday. These 4 Major League Baseball games were played:

* The Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Montreal Expos, 5-3 at Jarry Park in Montreal.

* The Cincinnati Reds beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 10-4 at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. Johnny Bench hit a home run, and Pete Rose, oddly, did not play. For the Pirates, Roberto Clemente hit a home run, and Willie Stargell went 1-for-4.

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Kansas City Royals, 8-6 at Kansas City Municipal Stadium. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4 with a walk.

* And the Detroit Tigers beat the Oakland Athletics, 8-4 at the Oakland Coliseum. Al Kaline did not play. Reggie Jackson went 1-for-5.