“Liberated”: The 1988 album that gave George Harrison his identity back
You could argue that George Harrison once found himself in the ultimate supergroup. No, not The Traveling Wilbury’s just yet – but The Beatles.
Now obviously, they didn’t form as one when they were four unknown scrappy lads from Liverpool, but by the time they disbanded in 1969, there weren’t four more famous musicians on the planet, and so, one could argue, that they became the de facto supergroup.
But Harrison was never really considered as super as his two counterparts, John Lennon and Paul McCartney. For a long time, Harrison was considered the less superior support act, there to humbly lay down guitar parts when the others were pulling genius out of their sleeve. But with a few flourishes on the ‘66 record Revolver, Harrison proved there was more than just subservience in his musical style; there was originality of its own.
For the tail part of that decade, he wrote songs that would later be considered some of their finest. ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’, ‘Here Comes the Sun’ and ‘Something’ confirmed that this band was one of songwriting balance, even if the world and his bandmates refused to believe it.
So it was a brave move for Harrison to recruit a string of music’s greatest stars in 1988, and form what many would consider the avengers of supergroups. Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty all climbed aboard this runaway train of music stardom, committing to what must have felt like a high-risk music project: The Traveling Wilburys.
The sheer talent and reputation in the room were unmatched, yet somehow, this unlikely brotherhood of A-listers perfected the collaborative recipe and became an egoless band of brothers. One who respected and nurtured Harrison’s ideas without any relationship politics getting in the way.
“It’s more fun to just hang out with your friends, sod it, you know, just do something,” he said, recounting the halcyon days of this unlikely project. “I had to shake The Beatles off from around my neck. I had to do something other than being ‘Beatles George’… Now I’ve come full circle, I’m free of it, and I’m liberated. I can go on and be a Wilbury.”
Harrison was fully willing to give up any ambitions of a solo career to focus fully on being a Wilbury. It gave him everything great about The Beatles, and nothing bad about it all at the same time. Despite the fact it was five of the most famous musicians in the world, there wasn’t mass hysteria around their mere existence, the music was created from a deeply democratic standpoint and it gave him that keen sense of camaraderie that he once loved from his former band.
But not for the first time in his musical career, tragedy would strike Harrison. After the massive success of Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 Roy Orbison died of a fatal heart attack, leaving the band with the option of making one more record before calling time on the project and moving on. Heartbreak, sadness and a nagging feeling of what could have been once again struck Harrison and sent him back to solodom.
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