How Lindsey Buckingham almost joined the Traveling Wilburys
Being invited into a band like the Traveling Wilburys would have been the musical equivalent of getting a Lifetime Achievement Award. Every band member may have come together because they simply loved to play, but while it was a dream in George Harrison’s mind for a while, there were other people he would have considered in his “other band”.
But there were never any rigid rules around how could or couldn’t be in the band anyway. None of them took things that seriously whenever they performed, and while they enjoyed the idea of playing together, they would have never kept everything going if they felt they weren’t having fun. It was always about getting together for a few jam sessions, but some of the fun did get sucked out of the room when Roy Orbison passed away.
Outside of being one of the finest singers in the group, Orbison had that musical magic in him whenever he walked into the room. He was more than happy to finish at the top when he passed away from a heart attack, but when listening to Traveling Wilburys Vol. III, you could tell something was missing when he wasn’t there. They needed some new blood in the mix, and Harrison had his eye on one other guitarist to join their ranks.
Although Gary Moore did contribute that fantastic guitar solo to ‘She’s My Baby’, Harrison was more interested in what Lindsey Buckingham was doing at the time. The guitar genius had already departed from Fleetwood Mac around that time, but before folding the Wilburys, Harrison felt that the idea was still on the table for bringing in someone new and seeing how it sounded.
Buckingham even remembered being told about the possibility later on in life, saying, “After George Harrison passed away, I ran into George’s wife, Olivia. She told me that they had considered me if they had made another album. Things just didn’t get to that point, but I’m touched – that’s an amazing group of guys.” But had Buckingham joined, what would that have sounded like?
First of all, the band would have been given a shot in the arm in the musical department. Buckingham could play nearly anything with strings on it, and while he had a fingerpicking style compared to everyone else, it would have been a delight to hear what his musical chops would have sounded like working off of Harrison’s slide guitar and the Southern drawl of Tom Petty. Then again, there were bound to be a few hiccups there as well.
If you listen to any of the horror stories from Fleetwood Mac’s career, Buckingham was known to be an avid perfectionist, and it’s anyone’s guess whether that would have worked with Jeff Lynne’s music. Lynne had picked up where The Beatles left off to many people, and since Buckingham was from the Brian Wilson school of production, it could have been a disaster or the perfect ‘Dueling Banjos’-style back-and-forth for everyone involved.
While Buckingham did find some time to work with Tom Petty later on in the 2000s for the album The Last DJ, it’s interesting to think of what songs from an album like Say You Will could have been like on a Wilburys release. It would have definitely been different, but given how well all the other Wilburys got along, they wouldn’t have contemplated letting Buckingham into the band if it wasn’t for the right reasons.
