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(Credits: Far Out \/ The Traveling Wilburys)<\/p>\n
Mon 6 April 2026 20:03, UK <\/p>\n
In the world of the Traveling Wilburys, it\u2019s strange to think that Bob Dylan<\/a> even found a place among his bandmates. <\/p>\n While he\u2019s one of the greatest figures in rock and roll history, Dylan never seemed to be the kind who plays well with others, and even when he did, he was always the leader of the band rather than a team player when working with The Band or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers behind him. But even if the Wilburys were a democracy, he had a better idea of who should be taking charge every single time that they kicked off one of their sing-along tunes.<\/p>\n If you want to be objective about it, though, the Wilburys\u2019 idea really belongs to George Harrison. He was the one who came up with the idea, and even when the whole thing came together by happenstance on \u2018Handle With Care\u2019, he wasn\u2019t about to let a good thing slip away when he got Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty together all in one room. But all of the members seemed to contribute equal weight to everything when you look at the vocal and songwriting credits.<\/p>\n Harrison could never have written a song like \u2018Tweeter and the Monkey Man\u2019<\/a>, but Dylan could probably not have come up with as great a hook as \u2018Heading for the Light\u2019 or \u2018End of the Line\u2019, either. But even if all of them were different puzzle pieces that made a better picture together, Dylan felt that nothing that any of them did was going to compare to what Orbison could sing whenever he got in front of the microphone.<\/p>\n Because, really, everyone in the band was already in awe of what Orbison could do. He had one of the gentlest voices of all time whenever he sang a ballad, but when you listen to some of the leaps that he makes on tunes like \u2018Crying\u2019 or even the song \u2018Not Alone Any More\u2019 from this album, you can feel every single ounce of emotion in his voice as he\u2019s singing his heart out. And when looking back on the record, Lynne remembered that Dylan would have gladly played backup for Orbison alone if he had the chance.<\/p>\n Despite not doing any press for the record, Lynne remembered that Dylan had always wanted the band to be a supergroup backing up Orbison, saying<\/a>, \u201cI was mainly the producer of it, trying to get it all as good as it could be. They all knew that everything was covered. Nobody thought that they were better than anybody else, really. I actually made up the name Traveling Wilburys. I don\u2019t think Bob was that keen \u2014 he wanted to call it Roy and the Boys.\u201d<\/p>\n Even though they were all equals, no one was ever going to claim that they were a better singer than Orbison. His voice shook with emotion on any tune he made, and while Harrison is responsible for being a part of some of the best harmonies to come out of rock and roll, Orbison\u2019s voice had all of the drama that a teenage rock and roll song was supposed to have whenever he sang.<\/p>\n That\u2019s half the reason why the band wanted him in the group in the first place. At first, they didn\u2019t even think a legend of his status would be remotely interested in joining their little band, but when you look at the kind of pedigree each of them, they were all in awe of what Orbison could do, to the point where half of them ended up working on some of Orbison\u2019s solo work in between the sessions for the album.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Bob Dylan Newsletter<\/p>\n