The guitarist who always belonged in The Traveling Wilburys: “I was intimidated”
The Traveling Wilburys would have never worked if they had planned everything out from the beginning.
The idea of getting that many legends together in one place only comes from people who are operating on the spur of the moment, and George Harrison had the perfect idea when he came up with the list of names that he wanted to help fill out his musical roster. And while he didn’t intend it to be a band when he began working on their first tune, there were a bunch of people who were odds and ends from their time together that could fit in as well.
The entire history of the band all circled back around to them jamming with their friends, but Harrison didn’t want to just have a bunch of buddies that he could hang around with. He wanted to surround himself with the best players that he could, and while Jeff Lynne made for a great producer behind the scenes, having Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison standing by his side had to have been like paradise for him. Harrison was already a major Dylan fan, and Orbison was blessed with one of the greatest voices on Earth, but getting Tom Petty in the group happened through sheer luck.
Harrison’s guitar was over at Petty’s house when he was working on the first demo for ‘Handle With Care’, and it didn’t take long for Petty to start thinking that he could find his way into the group as well. He had the easygoing demeanour that every member of the band needed, and since he was already going to be working with Lynne on some of his next projects, he didn’t think twice about bringing Mike Campbell to the meeting.
After all, Campbell knew better than to act up around some of the biggest names in the music world. The Heartbreakers had already come to know Dylan as a friend after working with him on their joint tour together, and since Harrison said that he liked Campbell’s style of playing, it didn’t take him long to have a rapport with the rest of the band. But Campbell could never bring himself to be counted among the greatest acts in the world.
Anyone else would have said ‘yes, please’ the minute that any of the band members asked them to play, but Campbell’s role pretty much lived in the background of all of his songs. He wanted to be the one filling out the sound rather than creating it, and while he did have the chance to be a member of the band by jamming on ‘Handle With Care’, he knew that he just couldn’t go through with it.
The blues licks that he put in there were great for what they were, but Campbell was going to be the last person to try and step on Harrison’s toes, saying, “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!”
But even if Campbell didn’t have time to be a Wilbury, he would remain friends with every member of the band in some capacity. Obviously, he had his hands full working with Petty, but the fact that he managed to contribute something to Orbison’s records and play alongside Dylan was more than enough for him to rest easy at night.
Most people don’t even get nearly as close as Campbell did when working with the band, and having an open invite to jam with them was a bigger compliment than anything. He didn’t see himself as someone who belonged alongside that frontline, but the fact that they even thought to include him is one of those moments where anyone else would have been pinching themselves.
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