Jeff Lynne on why he could “do without” the second Travelling Wilburys album
There was never any hesitancy that Jeff Lynne had about the Travelling Wilburys. The legendary classic rock supergroup was spearheaded by Lynne and George Harrison, each of whom handpicked their ideal collaborator. Lynne chose Roy Orbison, and Harrison chose Bob Dylan. When Harrison retrieved one of his guitars from Tom Petty’s house, the final lineup of the band was solidified.
“One night while we were recording [Harrison] said, ‘We should form a group.’ I said, ‘Who should we have in it?’ He said, ‘Bob Dylan.’ I’m going, ‘Bloody hell.’ I never expected that answer,” Lynne told Rolling Stone about the initial formation of the Wilburys. And then I said, ‘Can we have Roy Orbison?’ He said, ‘Great, I love Roy.'”
“It was a marvellous time,” Lynne added. “I thought to myself, ‘Wow, I should have been doing this years ago.’”
Together, the quintet recorded their first album, Vol. 1, in 1988. Lynne was especially pleased that Orbison was involved, with Lynne citing the ‘Only the Lonely’ singer as his main childhood idol. “When I was a kid, I loved the plaintive songs of Del Shannon and Roy Orbison,” Lynne said. ‘They wrote songs that were really sad and those were the best. I thought I was writing those sort of songs. People tell me the song gives them a boost, but I never dreamed I was doing that for anybody.”
As songs like ‘Handle With Care’ and ‘End of the Line’ became radio hits, the band’s success was undercut by tragedy when Orbison died just two months after its release. Lynne, who was co-producing Orbison’s comeback record Mystery Girl with Harrison, took the death especially hard.
Eventually, Harrison rallied the troops to work on a second LP, Vol. 3. At that point, Lynne was happy to contribute but felt a notable absence in the band without Orbison’s presence. “We did a second album after Roy died, but I could have done without it,” Lynne explained. “Roy was just too big a part of the original group.”
“We never played any concerts, though George had some whack ideas about how we’d do this tour,” Lynne added. “His first idea was that we’d rent an aircraft carrier and then we’d just fly to different ports and let everyone climb onto the aircraft carrier and have a listen to us. The next idea was we’d do it on a train. We’d pull into a station and drop a stage and play for the people that came to see us at the station. But we never got around to either of them. Everyone else had their own tours.”
