Credit: Bent Rej

The musician Tom Petty recalls making sly Bob Dylan “bootlegs”

Sun 26 November 2023 15:00, UK

In 1987, one of rock ‘n’ roll’s most star-studded supergroups held hands across the Atlantic. The Traveling Wilburys consisted of American legends Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan alongside their venerable British peers, The Beatles’ George Harrison and Jeff Lynne of the Electric Light Orchestra.

Although most were on friendly terms, the musicians entered the endeavour with one common acquaintance: George Harrison. “None of this would’ve happened without him,” Petty reflected in Willy Smax’s documentary The True History of the Traveling Wilburys. “It was George’s band – it was always George’s band, and it was a dream he had for a long time.”

Harrison was particularly adamant that Dylan join the band. The pair first met in 1964 while both were at the height of their influence. One night in August that year, The Beatles played a concert at Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, New York. They heard that Dylan was in town and arranged to meet him after the show, where the Fab Four would be introduced to cannabis for the first time.

Although the other Beatles maintained friendly yet distant ties with Dylan, Harrison became particularly close with the troubadour. Following the Beatles’ breakup in April 1970, Harrison collaborated with Dylan on his album New Morning and released a cover of Dylan’s song ‘If Not For You’ on his seminal solo album All Things Must Pass. The album also included ‘I’d Have You Any Time’, a song Dylan co-wrote with Harrison.

Over the ensuing decades, Dylan and Harrison maintained a solid personal and professional relationship, but Harrison’s jaw-slackened wonderment never abated. According to Petty, during the Traveling Wilburys’ short stint together, Harrison would record Dylan while he practised to create his own “Bob Dylan bootlegs.”

The Traveling Wilburys recorded much of their material at Harrison’s home studio in the British countryside, where the former Beatle lived with his wife Olivia and son Dhani. “I hung out with my parents. I was always trying to be with the big kids, and the big kids at my house were like Jeff Lynne,” Dhani once told the Daily Mail. “You’d come home, and it was like, ‘Bob Dylan’s here.’ It’s hard to get a bit of perspective on, like, ‘How did your school test go today?'”

“I grew up in that studio,” he added, remembering his father’s home studio. “As a kid, I remember sneaking in, seeing how far I could get in before anyone saw me. You’d smell cigarette smoke, and I’d be thinking: ‘I’m not supposed to be here’.”

“You might catch Roy Orbison singing ‘Not Alone Anymore’ or Carl Perkins or Duane Eddy doing an instrumental,” he added. “It was mind-bending. It offers you a different perspective on life to have these people around the house. It made going to school easier because you wouldn’t take yourself so seriously.”

While Dylan visited, Dhani became close with Dylan’s son Jakob, and Harrison would dote over his hero, making a few bootlegs. “Bob really adored George, too,” Petty once told Rolling Stone. “George used to hang over the balcony videoing Bob while Bob wasn’t aware of it. Bob would be sitting at the piano playing, and George would tape it and listen to it all night. Essentially, George made his own Bob Dylan bootlegs because he loved Dylan so much.”

“One day, George was hiding in the hedge at the house where we were recording,” Petty continued. “As everybody flew off, George would rise up out of the bushes with his video going. And he did that with Bob. I think George frightened Bob.”

Listen to ‘Handle With Care’ by Traveling Wilburys below.