The most natural artist in the Traveling Wilburys, according to Tom Petty: “He could make it a lot better”
They say too many cooks spoil the broth. Well, The Traveling Wilburys was like having Ronald McDonald and Colonel Sanders in the same kitchen and somehow making it work.
Heightened by how casually they came about as a simple barbecuing side project, you could be forgiven for thinking they’re actually just a myth, a mad AI invention. Things like four icons and Jeff Lynne coming together for a joyous jaunt just don’t happen.
Thankfully, Tom Petty remembered the inner workings of those days with great clarity as he soberly learnt from an assortment of his heroes while playing alongside them. These were the greatest days of his life, but that didn’t mean he was too caught up in delirium to study his older cohorts. Alas, there was one fellow with traits that stretched beyond typical tutelage.
From the outside looking in, everyone in the band seems integral, offering their own shade of genius. Bob Dylan’s innate sense of melody and lyrical prowess propped up the tunes, George Harrison threw in his trademark chords, compositional chops, wistful songwriting and upbeat ways, the frizzy-haired Jeff Lynne offered production and arrangement wizardry, Roy Orbison had pipes from heaven and solid rock ‘n’ roll sensibilities, and Tom Petty injected the visceral edge of cool youthfulness.
However, from Petty’s viewpoint, one person stood out as the paramount genius of the golden bunch. Speaking to Mojo in 2010, the late ‘American Girl’ star heaped praise on his old pal Bob Dylan. “There’s nobody I’ve ever met who knows more about the craft of how to put a song together than he does. I learned so much from just watching him work,” he said, highlighting the most vital musical cog in the Wilburys.
Above all, his peak skill was taking something flippant from their friendly little meetings and transfiguring it into magic, all while grilling up some sausages. That’s a natural gift. “He has an artist’s mind and can find in a line the key word and think how to embellish it to bring the line out,” Petty recalled. As it happens, this is pretty much exactly how their first hit single, ‘Handle With Care‘, came about: Dylan simply spotted the phrase on a box in the garage.
Petty continued: “I had never written more words than I needed, but he tended to write lots and lots of verses, then he’ll say, this verse is better than that, or this line. Slowly, this great picture emerges. He was very good in The Traveling Wilburys: when somebody had a line, he could make it a lot better in big ways.”
When did Tom Petty first meet Bob Dylan?
As it happens, Petty was the man who actually caused Dylan to question his own grasp of the craft. “I’d been on an eighteen-month tour with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. It would be my last,” he mournfully wrote in his 2004 memoir.
Continuing, “I had no connection to any kind of inspiration. Whatever had been there to begin with had all vanished and shrunk. Tom was at the top of his game, and I was at the bottom of mine.”
Our hero was crushed. Young blood had swept him off his tracks, and he was having to be bludgeoned by this reality night after night as The Heartbreakers seemingly soared to new heights with each new show and Dylan sank ever lower. The 1986 to 1987 True Confessions and Temples in Flames tour started Down Under in Wellington, New Zealand, and Dylan figured he never found his way back Up Top, so to speak.
His latest studio album, Empire Burlesque, had been rightfully derided. Even the gaudy cover showed a man out of sorts. And, as hard as it is to believe now, his wider reverence was waning. Touring with the most blossoming band of the moment turned out to be a bad move. “I couldn’t overcome the odds,” he continues.
“Everything was smashed. My own songs had become strangers to me,” the maestro solemnly reflected. Thankfully, he refound his confidence, perhaps in part due to the praise that the likes of Petty lauded upon him. And if the recollections of his peers in the Wilburys are anything to go by, largely, this return to form came about by Dylan trusting his natural instincts and finding joy in music once more.
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