The 1988 solo that was never good enough for Traveling Wilburys: “Wasn’t my best”
Anyone who got the opportunity to join the Traveling Wilburys would have probably accepted before the offer was even finished.
George Harrison was always looking for people to play with in his new band, and what better way of learning from legends than having a strum along with a member of The Beatles? It would have been any other classic rock fan’s dream come true, but anyone who ever actually got that invitation also needed to know what they were getting themselves into whenever they made a record.
There are a lot of expectations that come with being seated among other music legends, and sometimes not everyone is up to that task. In fact, Roger McGuinn only seemed passively interested in the idea of jamming with the guys, and even if he didn’t realise that he was being asked to jam with the band, he was never all that broken up about not getting a call back. It was a lot of pressure on someone all at once, but that’s the reason why every member worked so well.
Everyone was so easygoing in the studio, and given that the first record was made within a matter of days, the fact that they still sounded great is a testament to the professionals in the room. Even if someone like Jim Keltner insisted that he not be named as an official member of the band in any capacity, his heartbeat on all of those songs is what made all of them work, especially when he “played” Dave Stewart’s refrigerator on the song ‘Rattled’.
But was anyone going to really argue about who was going to play the guitar breaks on their songs? Roy Orbison already had some of the songs covered vocally speaking, but Harrisonw as the one who seemed to have the purest touch on guitar. He was singing through his instrument almost every single time he played, and even if there were a few moments where he would have the occasional clunky solo in his Beatle years, he had transformed into one of the most tasteful musicians in the world.
So naturally, when ‘Handle With Care’ came on, the first official person for the job was…Mike Campbell. Yep, during the first official sessions for the song, the former Heartbreaker was right by Tom Petty’s side when they were working on the tune and was asked to throw in a couple of blues licks. Campbell was certainly no stranger to that kind of music when he first began playing guitar, but even if he whistled through every single lick in his mind, nothing could have replicated what Harrison did on the track.
He could have gone uncredited if he wanted to, but Campbell felt that it was best if he stepped aside and let the real legends play, saying, “I thought — because I was intimidated, you know, I’m sitting there with George and Jeff — ‘Okay, I’ll try something.’ That wasn’t my best, but I had a hunch that he could pull something out with the slide that would be more in the soul of the song, which he did. I just handed him the guitar, I had handed him a slide. The amp was already set up, and he just did it. Took the pressure off me!”
Campbell may have been too intimidated at the time, but the fact that they even saw something in him should have been the ultimate confidence booster. Members of The Beatles liking a musician is enough to consider that person to be on a higher musical plane than anyone else, and since Campbell had his fair share of great slide moments on Heartbreakers tunes, getting the nod from Harrison at all would have been enough for him to never need to answer to anyone ever again.
The Wilburys may have been one step too far for his liking, but that didn’t seem to matter to the rest of the band. He may have missed out on a little piece of music history, but Campbell was able to rest easy at night knowing that he didn’t need to worry about embarrassing himself standing next to some of the greatest rock and roll musicians that had ever walked the Earth.
