The Traveling Wilburys member that George Harrison coaxed out of retirement
When The Beatles came to the end of the road in 1970, George Harrison didn’t have to work another day in his life.
After spending close to a decade turning over material at the speed of light and not having a moment to rest, Harrison deserved a break. Nevertheless, rather than put his feet up, Harrison dived headfirst into creating the seminal All Things Must Pass, which established him as a solo star.
However, as much as creating music was a necessary artistic release for him, Harrison had no ambitions to tour, and instead, he lived a balanced life post-Beatles. He was content with spending his days gardening at Friar Park, and could happily go years without making an album.
In the 1980s, following the release of Gone Troppo, Harrison became semi-retired from the music business for a few years. As money wasn’t a worry, the guitarist was more interested in pursuing his Handmade Films venture, which he greatly enjoyed. However, eventually, he came back to his first passion.
Another artist who had ambitions of calling it quits in the ’80s was Jeff Lynne. By the time 1986 had rolled around, he planned to give up on music after a dozen albums with the Electric Light Orchestra. However, his hiatus didn’t last as long as planned, thanks to a phone call from Harrison that made Lynne reassess his retirement plans.
Lynne was only 39 years old at this point, and although he likely didn’t envisage his retirement would last forever, there was no rush to make music anytime soon. Following an ELO show supporting Rod Stewart in Germany, the group disbanded, and Lynne had no desire to return to the stage.
He didn’t exit the group with a plan to start a solo career. Refreshingly, he genuinely had no strategy for the next chapter of his career. Yet, after six months of sipping margaritas on the beach, Harrison proposed an offer to work on his forthcoming solo album, Cloud Nine, which Lynne couldn’t resist. It was an earlier return than he would have liked, but there was no way Lynne was prepared to turn down a Beatle.
“I decided to pack it in in 1986,” Lynne explained to Rolling Stone during a discussion about his favourite songs he’s been involved in, which included Harrison’s ‘When We Was Fab’. “About six months later, George Harrison got in touch with me to ask me to work on his new album. A few days after he met me, he said, ‘Let’s go on holiday. I’m going to Australia for a while’. He took me to the Grand Prix in Adelaide, which was amazing.”
The trip was a dream come true for Lynne, who said, “It felt like an adventure,” and it was also the chance to work in a different environment, as he was used to making “tunes in my little studio.” He profoundly realised, “It was now on an international scale.”
Lynne reflected, “George came up with the words for ‘When I Was Fab.’ It was magical for me, since it was supposed to sound like a Beatles song, even though we didn’t exactly use Beatles sounds. The album was a tremendous success and sold about five million copies. I was just so touched he wanted to work with me.”
The track, as Lynne noted, was Harrison reminiscing about life as one of the Fab Four, and aiming to capture “that period of ’67.” While the endless summer of 1967 was a distant memory, Harrison and Lynne stumbled into a new partnership that was beautiful and fruitful, which they cherished.
This experience helped Harrison get his mojo back after losing the desire to create records, and made Lynne realise that he didn’t want to depart the music industry after all. Therefore, when Harrison decided he wanted to form a band again, Lynne was his first port of call.
According to Lynne, the birth of The Traveling Wilburys came about one day when Harrison casually said during conversation, “‘D’you know what? Me and you should have a group.’ I said, ‘What? That’s good. Yeah, I’m in! Who should we have in it?’ And he said ‘Bob Dylan’.”
Lynne continued to Hot Press: “Of course, I’m half laughing, but then I realise he’s serious. So I said, ‘Can we have Roy Orbison as well?’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’ll have Roy’, ’cause they used to tour together and we both loved Tom Petty. So we said, let’s have him. And of course, when it’s George Harrison that’s doing it, it was ‘Do you want to join our group?’ and the answer was ‘Yes’.”
Although this would be a fictional supergroup for most, the temptation of working with Harrison was too tantalising, as Lynne knew first-hand, and The Traveling Wilburys became a reality. Yet, if it weren’t for the speculative phone call from Harrison to Lynne in 1986 to coax him out of retirement, none of it would have been possible.
