Credit: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys
Wed 16 September 2026 17:30, UK
When you think of the greatest-ever musicians and songwriters in music history, some of the names that immediately come to mind are Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and George Harrison, so it seems fated, then, that at one point, the stars aligned and all five of those names made history by launching the greatest supergroup lineup of all time, The Traveling Wilburys.
For those who are already familiar with where the idea for the Wilburys came from, it’s clear that this otherworldly collaboration of music’s finest voices was much more than pure happenstance. After all, Harrison was working on his 11th album, Cloud Nine, with Lynne, when he first casually floated the idea of hitting up some of the rock world’s defining trailblazers.
Even Lynne, who, as we know, often embraces any sort of idea, no matter how ambitious, was uncertain at first, especially given that the musicians Harrison had his eye on were more likely to have too many scheduling conflicts to entertain the idea of starting something new.
However, the wheels were already in motion in a few unsuspecting ways, with Harrison working on a B-side for his song ‘This Is Love’ at Dylan’s studio with Petty and Orbison when he suggested extending their work into some collaborative material. The song they came up with, ‘Handle With Care’, ended up becoming a Wilburys song, leading to a broader decision to begin work on a full album.
If you were to ask anyone what the greatest aspect of the Wilburys was, they’d likely mention the obvious one, the culmination of the world’s greatest talents, but what people often neglect to mention is the shared mindset that each visionary brought to the mix, despite having established themselves as differing explosive forces of musical genius.
For instance, it would have been easy for any of those names to butt heads, especially Dylan, considering his track record for antagonising most people he winds up working with. But somehow, that wasn’t the case at all, with most sessions being a joint effort that allowed space for any musician to speak up if they wanted to take the reins.
On ‘If You Belonged To Me’, for instance, Dylan took control, writing the lyrics and singing the lead vocal. According to Harrison, watching the master at work was like witnessing the capturing of lightning in a bottle, and, even though Dylan was only sort of playing around with what sort of style and arrangement worked at the time, the others loved it so much they suggested keeping it.
Further reading: From The Vault
“At that point, we were just making what we call guide vocals,” Harrison later told BBC Radio 1, “We just write the words, and you just have a go to see if the words fit, and it’s like a warm-up thing. So that was Bob’s warm-up guide vocal track, but we liked it so much that, even though he did a different track, a different take the next day, we sort of wanted to keep that one ’cause it just seemed right.”
That approach was very much the secret ingredient to the Wilbury’s core magic. A lot of the time, those sessions were fluid, the floor open to whoever wanted to suggest new ideas, and when something felt right, like the case of ‘If You Belonged To Me’, they knew immediately they had to run with it.
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