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Credit: Far Out \/ Jeff Lynne<\/p>\n
Fri 19 June 2026 18:30, UK <\/p>\n
The Traveling Wilburys<\/a> always went to pains to paint themselves as equals despite their solo megastar statuses. But when you came to unpick that, was it really true? <\/p>\n You might have had to pin each of them up against the wall to elicit the reality, but the answer was probably not. To be fair, as much as they would protest to the contrary, you could see it everywhere in the way they talked, the way they moved, and the way they worshipped a particular individual among them. One man was god, and they knew it. <\/p>\n As it just so happened, Jeff Lynne realised that many years before he would ever fall into the deity\u2019s orbit. He was just 12 or 13 years old, and when his mother and aunt played Roy Orbison\u2019s music in the car, they were head over heels for him. Romance may not have been the way the future ELO frontman would put it himself, but it seemed to be the first warm spark he had ever felt. <\/p>\n \u201cOh, the first time I ever heard \u2018Only The Lonely\u2019 on the radio was\u2026 I couldn\u2019t believe it. My mum and my auntie said, \u2018Ooh, he\u2019s so sexy, he is!\u2019 I said, \u2018Don\u2019t be ridiculous,\u2019\u201d Lynne recalled with a smile about his bandmate in a 2019 interview. It really could have been the making of perhaps the most dysfunctional rom-com of all time.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNot that I knew anything about it \u2013 I was 12 or 13,\u201d he was then quick to offer up. \u201cThey\u2019re going, \u2018Ooh, but he\u2019s too sexy\u2026 I don\u2019t like it.\u2019 And I went, \u2018That\u2019s the best thing I\u2019ve ever heard in my life.\u2019 And it was. Probably still is. Pure magic.\u201d Alas, this was not a Disney film: this was real life. It was just testament to how charming Orbison truly was<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n You can only imagine the scenes whenever the pair did finally get to meet. Lynne was starstruck, overjoyed, possibly trying to push down the memory of his mum and aunt, so he didn\u2019t say anything stupid. For Orbison\u2019s part, after everything he\u2019d been through before the Traveling Wilburys landed at his doorstep, he was just happy to be there.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of course, Lynne had been on hand for Orbison\u2019s big career comeback, but to see him within the ranks of his own band was something different entirely. As he recalled of the recording sessions for the Traveling Wilburys\u2019 first album: \u201cEverybody just sat there going, \u2018Wow, it\u2019s Roy Orbison!\u2019. Even though he\u2019s become your pal and you\u2019re hanging out and having a laugh and going to dinner, as soon as he gets behind that [mic] and he\u2019s doing his business, suddenly it\u2019s shudder time.\u201d<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n Given the tragic ending that would befall Orbison shortly afterwards, it was easy to see why Lynne described the memories as \u201cbittersweet\u201d<\/a>. This was his friend, his hero, and to a certain extent, his childhood sweetheart all wrapped into one. Saying goodbye would have taken him straight back to being that young kid listening to the radio. <\/p>\n Yet at the same time, the sheer love and admiration that flowed from Lynne spoke volumes about just how much Orbison ultimately meant to him. The old adage tries to tell you that you should never meet your heroes, but in Lynne\u2019s case, he befriended him, worked with him, laughed with him, and truly loved him.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Classic Rock Newsletter<\/p>\n