The album Tom Petty called “the germ of the Wilburys”
When the Traveling Wilburys first started, Tom Petty just felt happy to be included.
The idea of working with the greatest songwriters in one band was any other musician’s dream, but the fact that Petty was such a laid-back presence in the studio was half the reason why he seemed like a pal to people like Bob Dylan and George Harrison. He was more than happy to give a few lines here and there when working with legends, but the journey for him started well before Harrison came over with ‘Handle With Care’.
The seeds had already been planted for Petty when he started working with Bob Dylan on his 1980s tours. The Heartbreakers were a natural fit for what Dylan wanted out of a touring band, and even if he decided to switch things up from time to time whenever he performed, Petty and co. were always ready to go with whatever wild tangent he wanted to go on at every single turn. But when working with Roy Orbison on the album Mystery Girl, something felt a little bit different, given how many people were showing up at the studio.
Petty had already had a history of working with legends like Del Shannon, but if that session ended with Petty pissing off the rock and roll legend by stealing bassist Howie Epstein, this was a far more positive affair. Orbison was one of the finest singers who ever lived, and while Petty was helping him work on the song ‘You Got It’, all it took was Jeff Lynne overseeing production to help suggest where The Wilburys would be heading. George Harrison had already begun working on his own comeback, but Petty felt that Orbison’s album was really ground zero for the band.
‘Handle With Care’ was what made everything official, but for Petty, he felt that the initial idea for the Wilburys happened the minute that he started working on Orbison’s record, saying, “Jeff lived not far from me, and one afternoon the phone rang and it was him saying, ‘Hey Roy Orbison’s over here, you’ve got to come over and help me write a song for him.’ And that was on the first day. We came back the next day, too, wrote another song called ‘California Blue’. So this became a kind of circle of friends. Occasionally Roy would show up for dinner, and George was in and out of town. So that was the germ of the Traveling Wilburys.”
But the main reason why Petty worked so well was because of how well he balanced the band out. His voice already sound like Dylan if he bothered about technical prowess, and some of the best moments on those records are looking at how well Petty’s voice helps blend everything together, especially when he harmonises with Lynne and Harrison on some of the deep cuts like ‘You Took My Breath Away’ from the second record.
And the fun didn’t stop once the band folded in on itself. Petty was already there to help his friends, so it was only fair for the rest of them to return the favour when he started working on Full Moon Fever. The Wilburys version of ‘Free Fallin’ was the main reason why Petty was able to make a record by himself, and even after working on his own, Lynne was already on hand to work on Into the Great Wide Open years later.
A lot of Petty’s natural charm might have helped him get his foot in the door, but he did know how to speak everyone’s language as well. No one else would have had the nerve to talk to a Beatle or work with someone like Johnny Cash, but when it came to the nitty-gritty pieces of music history, Petty was the one who knew all of those B-sides and could pull out any of the old rock classics at the drop of a hat.
So while rock and roll was never about following tradition by any means, the friendships that Petty had are proof of what can happen if you bother to do your homework in this industry. He was only looking to be the best artist that he could be, but somewhere along the way, he found the key to becoming one of the junior elder statesmen in one of the biggest supergroups of all time.
