Traveling Wilburys - Biography

The Traveling Wilburys were a supergroup created by George Harrison and Jeff Lynne. Initially an informal grouping with Roy Orbison and Tom Petty, they got together to quickly record an additional track as a B-side for Harrison's "When We Was Fab" single at Bob Dylan's Santa Monica, California studio. The song they came up with was "Handle With Care" - which the record company immediately realised was too good to be released as a single "filler".

They enjoyed working together so much that they decided to create an album together. Written by all its members, the song-writing and recording was accomplished by this group of musical geniuses over a ten day period (as Dylan was due to go out on tour). Released in October 1988, under various pseudonyms as half-brothers, supposed sons of Charles Truscott Wilbury, Senior, the album was immediately dubbed as one of the top 100 albums of all time by Rolling Stone. It was unfortunate that the untimely death of band member Roy Orbison interfered with what might have been to come.

"Wilburys" was a slang term coined by Harrison and Lynne during the recording of Cloud Nine, the Harrison album that featured "When We Was Fab", as a reference to "gremlins" in the recording equipment and process. The term was used again when the entire group was together. Harrison suggested "The Trembling Wilburys" as the group's name, but they decided to use "Traveling" instead.

A charity single, "Nobody's Child" followed, and then a second album (titled Volume 3 to account for the missing chapter that was Roy Orbison's contribution) in October 1990. However, without Orbison's voice, songwriting and "elder statesman" influences, the album met with more limited success.

As of January 2005, rumours refuse to die that there may be a third album in the works, jokingly titled "Vol. 5" because of George Harrison's passing in late 2001.