The one rule George Harrison had for the Traveling Wilburys
No one in the Traveling Wilburys seemed to have any grand plans for the group when they were starting out.
As much as they loved the idea of working with each other, it was anyone’s guess whether the electricity would be in the air or if things would crumble when they first started playing. Once they realised the magic they had on their hands, though, George Harrison needed to lay down rules if they were to go any further.
Because as much as the band left their egos at the door, it was clear that Harrison was the boss behind the whole operation. Outside of being the most famous person in the group, Harrison first hatched the idea of getting this imaginary group together, and if there was going to be any massive career choices that needed to be made, they were going to have to go through him in order to get everything right.
But that didn’t exactly apply when they were playing music. The last thing that Harrison was ever going to do was tell Roy Orbison what to do, and when he came in on ‘Handle With Care’, it didn’t really take much direction to tell him to sing how he normally would sing the prechorus. Everyone had their individual parts on the record, but when it became a runaway success, that’s when the suits started coming in.
If I can commit the cardinal sin of actually defending record executives, though, they at least had one good idea by telling Harrison to make the Wilburys a full project. ‘Handle With Care’ would have easily been one of the greatest B-sides ever made had Harrison kept it for his solo career, but getting everyone together to have a laugh in the studio did result in the most fun that any of them ever had.
So once the album started selling in droves and gaining momentum, there was one question on everyone’s mind: when’s the next one coming out? It was a difficult decision to make since Orbison had passed away, but since Bob Dylan was open to the idea of making a new record, Harrison knew that it was never going to work if they didn’t have the same kind of fire that they had on the first one.
There was a certain energy radiating off that first album, and Harrison knew that was the only way the band could continue, saying, “When we do another Wilbury album, it’s going to be just as much fun, otherwise I’m not doing it. But the thing is, it can’t be as spontaneous because we already know about it. I think the songs can be spontaneous, and we can make it with the same vibe and the same atmosphere in which we wrote the songs and recorded them.”
And while Traveling Wilburys Vol. III was always going to be a little bit of a letdown since Orbison wasn’t there, it’s still fantastic in its own ways. Nothing featuring Tom Petty, Dylan, and Harrison could possibly be considered below average, but without that golden voice, it does definitely feel like something is missing, especially on ‘Inside Out’ where the bridge is absolutely begging for that operatic voice.
Even if it didn’t satisfy everyone’s need for more Wilburys music, the energy on the record was all the band needed to keep the momentum going. It’s a shame that this would be the final Wilburys release the band ever put out, but it’s probably better that they didn’t carry on than having to worry about them losing their momentum after too long.
