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.
