“It’s in the genes”: why Jeff Lynne trusted only one outsider with the Traveling Wilburys
While The Traveling Wilburys were ultimately torn apart after just two albums when they realised they couldn’t carry on following the death of Roy Orbison, it would have been a shame to never hear the songs that the band created together in a live context again.
Of course, there was no reason why the other four members couldn’t continue performing the songs they were part of; it’s just that they weren’t prepared to do them as a fraction of the ensemble that they’d formed together. Orbison himself probably wouldn’t have minded whether they had chosen to carry on beyond the release of the ironically-named Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3, but almost as a mark of respect, they chose to put an end to proceedings and disband following their 1991 album.
Besides, all of the remaining members were incredibly busy and in-demand artists in their own right, so it does make sense that they’d knock it on the head in the absence of their departed friend. There were always going to be opportunities for them to collaborate again, but doing it under the Wilburys name wasn’t going to be feasible without the ‘Big O’.
However, given none of the members were spring chickens when the supergroup formed, death was always going to be an inevitable obstacle to overcome, and while Orbison’s passing came first in 1989, much earlier than any others, time was not necessarily on the side of the remaining foursome.
Since then, two more members in George Harrison and Tom Petty have passed away, but that doesn’t mean that Jeff Lynne and Bob Dylan couldn’t still pay tribute to the work they made together. However, Lynne has expressed certain stipulations about venturing into that territory, and in a 2019 interview with Record Collector, he said he’d only be tempted to touch certain songs by the band under a very specific condition.
During the interview, Lynne was asked about his decision to continue playing songs that had been written by the three deceased members, and the Harrison-penned ‘Handle With Care’ was brought up as a significant example of one song that was still in rotation, although he argued that it only really worked when he had help from one particular person.
“I enjoy playing it,” Lynne confessed. “On our last American tour we had Dhani Harrison singing it, as he was supporting us. It’s his dad’s song, so we encouraged him, and it always went down well because it was a true Harrison voice singing it.”
However, while having the offspring of one of the members singing a Wilburys song might not be exactly the same, he said that it was the closest he’d ever be able to get to performing it authentically again. “[It’s] in the genes,” he continued, referring to Dhani’s ability to sing like his father. “He can sound the spitting image of George, when he sings. He doesn’t normally copy him, but he can when it’s appropriate, when we’re doing that one.”
The loss of a close collaborator and friend in Harrison would undoubtedly have been hard for Lynne to take, but to perform one of his greatest songs that he was also a part of alongside a direct descendant of his old pal must have been an emotional occasion.
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