{"id":495837,"date":"2026-03-26T05:20:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:20:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/495837\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T05:20:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T05:20:10","slug":"the-only-traveling-wilburys-song-george-harrison-couldnt-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/495837\/","title":{"rendered":"The only Traveling Wilburys song George Harrison couldn&#8217;t play"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <img width=\"1140\" height=\"855\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/The-Traveling-Wilburys-George-Harrison-Tom-Petty-Jeff-Lynne-Bob-Dylan-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\" class=\"attachment-single-feature size-single-feature wp-post-image\" alt=\"The Traveling Wilburys - George Harrison - Tom Petty - Jeff Lynne - Bob Dylan\" layout=\"fill\"  style=\"object-position: 50% 20%\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" \/><\/p>\n<p>(Credits: Far Out \/ The Traveling Wilburys)<\/p>\n<p> Wed 25 March 2026 20:45, UK <\/p>\n<p>There isn\u2019t a soul on this Earth who was going to be complaining that the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/tags\/the-traveling-wilburys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Traveling Wilburys\u00a0<\/a>didn\u2019t have the right people for the job in their band.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Any member of the group was <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/the-one-musician-that-insisted-on-not-joining-traveling-wilburys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\u201cHe didn\u2019t want to be\u201d: The one musician that insisted on not joining Traveling Wilburys\">a living legend in their own right<\/a>, and while George Harrison may have been the one who got every member together, there\u2019s a good chance that they could have made any song work once they began harmonising together. But even with all the chops that Harrison had acquired over the years, he felt that some people were better suited to playing the guitar when working on a few of their best tunes.<\/p>\n<p>Then again, who is going to be that person who claims that they can <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/the-album-that-made-eric-clapton-avoid-george-harrison\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"The album that made Eric Clapton avoid George Harrison\">play something better than Harrison?<\/a> His lead breaks in The Beatles and his solo career are some of the most fantastic songs ever created, and you\u2019d be a fool to think that the solo in \u2018Something\u2019 or \u2018My Sweet Lord\u2019 needed to be improved in any fashion. But there were options where other people could get a word in once Harrison was in his new group.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Because even though he had a fantastic solo career, Harrison always seemed to be more comfortable playing music with his friends. He didn\u2019t like the idea of being in the spotlight every single time he performed, and even if they weren\u2019t trying to hide the fact that they were all friends getting together for a jam session, he could at least share the spotlight when he had everyone from Tom Petty to Bob Dylan standing by his side whenever they played songs like \u2018Handle With Care\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>But after Roy Orbison passed away, there was always going to be a question of who was going to replace him. There were plenty of other living legends that could have slid into that spot, but when you hear Harrison talking about the evolution of the band, replacing Orbison was never on the table. He was a once-in-a-generation talent, and there was no reason to think that anyone from Del Shannon to Bruce Springsteen could have done things better if they came in for a jam session.<\/p>\n<p>That didn\u2019t mean that they couldn\u2019t bring in some honorary Wilburys every now and again. <a href=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/the-one-musician-that-insisted-on-not-joining-traveling-wilburys\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">Jim Keltner<\/a> always swore up and down that he never wanted to be a true member of the band whenever he played drums with them, but when working on \u2018She\u2019s My Baby\u2019, Harrison admitted that what Gary Moore laid down on the track was much better than anything else he could have thought of for the lead break.<\/p>\n<p>He was far more suited to approaching guitar solos like a song within the song, so having someone that could play rapid fire licks made more sense for Moore\u2019s style of playing, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=QZFRXJk037o\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" title=\"\">saying<\/a>, \u201cWhen we did that song, we felt it had to have a guitar solo on it, and I can just imagine me or Jeff Lynne trying to figure out a guitar solo, but it wouldn\u2019t really be in that style. So why not just get Gary to play it? He came down and it took him five minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Harrison might have claimed that he wasn\u2019t good at that style of playing, but he might have been a bit more acrobatic with his lead playing than he let on. Petty remembered moments where he could easily throw down the greatest blues licks that anyone had ever thought of, but he seemed far better suited to make solos with a melody behind them rather than delve into the territory that Eric Clapton was used to.<\/p>\n<p>He could still do tremendous things with a guitar in his lap and a slide on his finger, but getting Moore in on the session made him one of the few honourary Wilburys that could outplay almost any other blues guitarist. The band wasn\u2019t going for flash when they met up, but sometimes the greatest guitarists don\u2019t have to play the most lightning-fast leads to get people\u2019s attention when they play.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>  <a class=\"fw\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\" style=\"\"> ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"28\" height=\"28\" src=\"https:\/\/faroutmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/themes\/far-out-magazine\/img\/google-discover.svg\" alt=\"\"\/> <\/a>   <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ The Traveling Wilburys) Wed 25 March 2026 20:45, UK There isn\u2019t a soul on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305481,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,26940,128,26285,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-495837","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-george-harrison","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-the-traveling-wilburys","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}