(Credits: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys)
Sun 12 October 2025 17:30, UK
Mashing together a whole plethora of incredible talents might seem like an easy way to get a hit, but supergroups don’t always work. The Traveling Wilburys were, in many ways, the supergroup of all time.
Where else would you find the skittish Bob Dylan, the Beatle George Harrison, the genius Jeff Lynne, the deep, passionate vocalist Roy Orbison, the warbled bass player Tom Petty, and – pause to catch a breath here – the thunderous drummer Jim Keltner?
This list isn’t intended to separate out each member into their respective functions, and doom them forever to one role in the group. The point was that, having renown and stature elsewhere in their career, these five men could come together and collaborate in an ego-free environment. The point was that everybody could do everything.
Now, Bob Dylan’s current relevance might lead any fan to point to him as their favourite vocalist of the group. Whether that be due to the special warmth in his unpredictable flurry of vocals, or whether that be Timothee Chalamet’s recent attempt at trying on his likeness in the biopic, A Complete Unknown, is anybody’s guess.
Let’s spin the question on its head for a second here. We’re all in agreement that, by God, Bob Dylan can sing. But who did Mr Dylan consider the greatest vocalist in his beloved supergroup? Now, there’s a question.
Thankfully, Dylan has never stopped writing. And in the pages and pages he scribbles through, transcribing his thoughts like gushing rivulets of genius, he gave us the answer. “I was always fishing for something on the radio,” Dylan admitted in Chronicles, Volume One. This constant search led him straight to his favourite vocalist of the group: Roy Orbison.
Dylan was forever kept on his toes by Orbison’s singing. He went on to write, “Orbison, though, transcended all the genres – folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn’t even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next.”
Ever the poet, Dylan continued, “He sang like a professional criminal. Typically, he’d start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, “Man, I don’t believe it.” His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic.”
A certain level of jealousy rings throughout this entry, for Dylan was attempting to get to this status, this level of skill, in his own mind. A lot of his songs are about just that – breaking out of himself, his humanness, into the realm of greatness. The group was never toxic, but an air of competition must have zipped throughout each practice, as each musician proved – more for themselves than anyone else – that they were truly the greatest of the greats.
Still, Dylan dumped more praise on his friend, admitting, “Orbison was deadly serious – no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn’t anything else on the radio like him.”
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