(Credits: Alamy)
Mon 22 September 2025 20:00, UK
The magic of the Traveling Wilburys came from them being in the right place at the right time together.
There are many stars that needed to align to get them all into one spot, but by the time that George Harrison came up with the idea, it would have been stupid for them not to see what happened when they first got together. But that didn’t mean that every one of their songs was going to be for everybody.
Despite them being some of the biggest musicians to walk the Earth, a lot of the Wilburys’ material tended to go back to the early stages of rock and roll. There was the occasional skiffle number or the track that channelled their heroes like the Everly Brothers or Chuck Berry, but it didn’t matter so long as they seemed to be having fun making. This was what the sound of content middle age sounded like as an album, but even then, it was hard to really hate on any of the tunes.
‘Handle With Care’ is deserving to be counted among the best tunes that Harrison ever made, and even if Roy Orbison didn’t have much time, Jeff Lynne made sure to add that extra polish to make ‘Not Alone Any More’ one of the greatest performances that the shaded rock icon ever gave. Hell, even Bob Dylan’s subpar albums during this time didn’t seem to matter when he first started pumping out tracks like ‘Tweeter and the Monkey Man’.
That kind of magic doesn’t happen for very long, but as soon as Orbison died, it felt like the beginning of the end. They had spent their entire existence trying to get the best performance out of everyone, and now that one of their musical big brothers wasn’t there anymore, it didn’t feel like the band wanted to continue on.
So, if anything, the fact that Harrison had enough gas in the tank for one more album is at least somewhat commendable. The cheekiness of naming the record Vol. III was a decent enough dad joke to keep in the spirit of the band, but when looking at the kind of material that they had to work with in comparison, the former Beatle felt that no one was paying attention once they came back for one more go-around.
Granted, it’s not like Harrison didn’t see the greater problems that were going on with the world that led to them being ignored, saying, “I think a lot of people who liked the first album didn’t get the second one, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3. Unfortunately, it came out just when the Gulf War was starting and the economy was going down. I remember we were going down to choose outfits for our first video and we heard that they had just bombed Baghdad. But a song like ‘New Blue Moon’ has that slap-back echo and the feel of all those great Fifties records I loved.”
And for what it’s worth, Vol III does have its fair share of moments that are on par with the first record. Sure, Dylan is far too dominant on most of the album, but that hardly matters when we still get those soaring Harrison vocals in the middle of ‘Inside Out’ or watching them being absolute goofs in the middle of the video for ‘Wilbury Twist’.
A lot of the after effects of the Gulf War were bound to turn up in their solo works, but the Wilburys were never a band to talk about large world issues. They were getting together for a laugh every time they got in the studio, and bringing any of that into the situation would have ruined the vibe.
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