Who sang lead vocals on the Traveling Wilburys songs?
When The Traveling Wilburys first came together back in 1988, they were certainly not the first supergroup ever to hit the airwaves. However, it is difficult to think of any other supergroup, before or after 1988, to have the same songwriting power within its ranks. A former Beatle, a folk hero, and even a rockabilly pioneer, the Wilburys definitely weren’t short of talent. However, with so many legendary performers, it must have been a struggle to figure out who would sing what.
For the uninitiated few among you, The Travelling Wilburys consisted of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty, and Jeff Lynne, supported by a variety of notable session musicians and touring performers. Originally, the unparalleled supergroup formed after Harrison worked with ELO’s Jeff Lynne during the production of his 1987 album Cloud Nine. Of course, both musicians had a wealth of industry connections and musical friendships, so the pair began recruiting some of their more notable friends to form a new band, The Traveling Wilburys.
Initially, the band only intended to record the song ‘Handle with Care’, as a bonus track for Harrison’s album. However, this single track soon morphed into a full album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. With the expansion of the project, however, came the issue of who gets centre-stage within the band. Each individual member was used to being a front person, so it would be difficult to allocate positions to each member without upsetting another.
Reportedly, though, it was Harrison who got the final say on which member sang each song – after all, who is going to argue with a Beatle? On that first album, in particular, duties are divided fairly equally by the respective musicians, although Dylan managed to sing lead on four tracks – despite, arguably, being the least skilled vocalist within the band – and the final track ‘End of the Line’, although lead by Petty, also features vocals from Harrison, Lynne and Orbison, too.
In contrast to the debut, the band’s sophomore album, confusingly titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3, the vast majority of songs feature either Bob Dylan or Tom Petty as lead singers. In fact, neither Lynne nor Harrison get to sing lead on any of the album’s songs, although they do feature prominently in ‘Where Were You Last Night?’ and ‘New Blue Moon’.
If the Traveling Wilburys was purely a numbers game, Tom Petty would come out victorious. Over the course of the band’s two studio albums, he sang lead on a total of nine tracks out of 21. These songs include ‘She’s My Baby’, ‘End of the Line’, and other tracks which feature multiple Wilburys on vocals, but with Petty as the predominant performer. In second place is Bob Dylan, who sang lead on eight Wilburys tracks in total. Interestingly, the band’s founders, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne, only sang lead on four and three songs, respectively.
Understandably, Roy Orbison was the rarest lead singer within the supergroup, only performing lead on ‘Not Alone Anymore’, though he did duet with Petty on ‘Last Night’ and with Harrison on ‘Handle With Care’. Tragically, Orbison passed away in 1988, only two months following the release of Vol.1, as the result of a heart attack. Following his death, the rest of the band continued onto Vol.3 without him, though the album was dedicated to Left Wilbury, the pseudonym used by Orbison for the first album.
So why did The Traveling Wilburys split up?
For a supergroup saturated with so much talent and songwriting prowess, it seems strange that the Traveling Wilburys only lasted for two albums. After creating promotional material for Vol.3, the band quietly dissolved in 1991. Reportedly, the decision not to carry on with the group came down to George Harrison, who seemed to be the only member who was hesitant to continue on with the Wilburys.
The idea of a Traveling Wiburys live tour was even floated at one point after Harrison returned to live performance in 1991 with a tour of Japan. At the time, the former Beatle pondered, “We could have a great band up there, and the four of us could play acoustic if we wanted to. We could all sing ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’, and Bob could sing ‘Something’. Or we could just sing our individual songs and make them Wilbury tunes as if we’d recorded them that way. Whatever it was, we could do it.” However, these plans never came to fruition, and Harrison’s death in 2001 prevented the Wilburys from ever returning.
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