How a Simple Jam Session Became Rock’s Greatest Supergroup

This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. Our next story is about a band that was dubbed the “Billion Dollar Quintet.” Here’s Greg Hengler with the story.

The Traveling Wilburys had a short history but a long past. The creation of the rock group was a fortunate accident. Nicknamed the “Billion Dollar Quintet,” the five musical legends, three of whom were in their forties, had gathered to assist a former Beatle in writing and recording what was intended as a throwaway B-side track. Tom Petty, at age thirty-eight, whose career was at its peak, was by far the youngest member of the group. She’s a good.

Loves zimb. Loves geez. Sis in America too.

Roy Orbison, at fifty-two, who was called the greatest singer in the world by Elvis, was the oldest. Here’s Roy singing “You Got It,” the hit he co-wrote with future fellow Wilburys Jeff Lynn and Tom Petty.

Anything new, you got it, anything you got it, anything.

You got it.

And then there was former Beatle George Harrison.

He comes a song, doo doo, he comes a nice it. It’s all right.

In 1963, a young Bob Dylan would ask future bandmate Roy Orbison to record the song he wrote, “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right.” Orbison would later regret his decision to reject this Dylan masterpiece.

I’m thinking and am wondering, walking down the road. I once loved a woman, a child, I am told. I give him my heart, but she wanted my soul. But don’t think twice, it’s all right.

Finally, there’s probably the least known member of the Traveling Wilburys, but no less talented: singer, songwriter, and record super producer Jeff Lynn. Lynn co-founded the Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO, a rock band inspired by the Beatles’ complex orchestral sound of the late ’60s. Between 1972 and 1986, Jeff Lynn’s ELO put more singles in the Top 40 charts than any other band in the world.

No, no, no, no.

No, Awn. George Harrison’s career was on fire in the late 1980s. His comeback album, Cloud Nine, was certified platinum in the U.S. thanks to the production work of Jeff Lynny. I Got My Mads. Then, in a pivotal moment in rock history, Warner Brothers told Harrison he needed to record a B-side track for his single “This Is Love.” On the evening before the recording session, Harrison dined at a French restaurant in Los Angeles with Jeff Lynn, who had brought along Roy Orbison. With the three legends sitting together at one table, Harrison asked Orbison and Lynn to help him record the B-side they had. For the sake of convenience, Lynn suggested they record the track at Bob Dylan’s garage studio. Harrison telephoned Dylan, who agreed to the idea. Needing a guitar that he had left with Tom Petty, Harrison called and was pleasantly surprised that Petty also wanted to attend.

Please.

The recording session took place on April 5, 1988. After dining on some barbecue chicken in Dylan’s backyard garden, the five musicians worked out the song’s lyrics. Thankfully for us, George Harrison understood that history was being made, and so he took out his personal video recorder and began shooting.

Does it say recording here?

George?

Was it supposed to record?

And if you find it, oh yeah, there it goes.

Here’s George Harrison.

Good thing about the Wilburys for me is if we’d have tried to plan that, or if anybody had tried to, you know, say, “Let’s form this band and get these people in it,” it would never happen. It’s impossible. My guitar was at Tom Jeff’s house, so Tom Jeff picked me up. We went over to Bob’s. When I got the first line, just said, “being beat up at around.”

Being beat up and battered around.

And then, wow, they just kept coming with all these lines, and there Bob was saying, “Wow, what’s it called? What’s it about?” When I finally saw behind it doll this big box with a sticker on the scene. “Handled with Curry,” said, “handled with Carr,” he said. “Oh yeah, good,” and me.

With I’m so.

Has to have so love? Why you saw me? Everybody is gas.

I liked the song and the way it had turned out with all these people on it so much, so I just carried it around in my pocket for ages, thinking, “Well, what can I do with this thing?” And the only thing to do I could think I was do another nine, make an album.

Here’s Tom Petty, and I said, “Yeah, that sounds like a real good idea,” because it had really been such magic doing the first track.

Petty recalled how the group’s lineup was finalized. We all jumped in a car to go see Roy play in Anaheim. All four of us ran into Roy’s dressing room and said, “We want you to be in our band.” Roy. He said that would be great. Harrison made the final proposal official by dropping to his knees and formally asking Orbison to join the band. The five men soon celebrated with a band meeting at Denny’s on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Dylan proposed they call the band “Roy and the Boys,” but they settled on the quirky name The Traveling Wilburys. All five men are rhythm guitarists, but there are no excessive soul, and the boys did a fantastic job at sharing the spotlight. Harrison did emerge as the chief Wilbury, and when the band returned to record the rest of their album, his video recorder was on again to capture the memories, starting with Tom Petty’s arrival on day one.

All in a day’s work for a will room, and we had like nine to ten days that we knew we could get Bob before, and everybody else was relatively free, so we just…

Said, “Well, let’s do it. We’ll just write us tu in a day and do it that way.” It was very exciting.

We were in Dave Stewart’s house, and it was a nice environment because you could kind of sit outside. It was warm and the doors were always open.

So we set up in his kitchen. It doesn’t sound proof to it or anything, and we just put like five chairs around the kitchen and then put the microphones up, and that’s it to all in guitar parts, you know, all them acoustic guitar. So, just in this kitchen.

Here’s Roy Orbison from Music.

That’s what it was all about. There wasn’t a lot of deciding what to do, not a lot of time spent planning out anything. So I just wrote the best songs that we could write and sing them as best we could.

There on a car. No, she was long in talk, all short and fat. She was dressed to kill. That’s good to give me its will.

Here’s Jeff Lynn, just sitting around in a circle like five us, just strumming acoustic guitars and coming up with a song in like a couple of hours that was almost ready to record.

It’s pretty sort of unbelievable stuff.

And you’ve been listening to the story of what has been called the “Billion Dollar Quintet.” We’re talking about the Traveling Wilburys: Tom Petty being the youngest member, Roy Orbison the oldest, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, and Jeff Lynn, the founder of ELO, the other members. And I can just picture the staff at that Denny’s looking at this ensemble of talent, hashing out what they would call this band. “Roy and the Boys,” by the way, was Dylan suggests—you telling you about the stature of Roy Orbison with the rest of this crew. When we come back, more of this remarkable story, the story of the Traveling Wilburys. Here on Our American Stories, and we continue with Our American Stories and the remarkable story of the Traveling Wilburys. Let’s pick up where we last left off. Here again is Tom Petty, followed by our own Greg Hengley.

Sometimes we’d same as Sam Soner, you know, just to see who sounded good or right. This Keith fit somebody, and that was a lot, the final, and George would kind of audition us, which could be really intimidating, you know, because, like, you know, Roy Orbison had sing the song, and then they send you out to sing it. You know, it’s like, “Well, damn, that’s really intimidating.”

Last night.

“Tweeter and the Monkey Man” was recorded in only two takes and was notable for its many references to Bruce Springsteen’s songs. Here’s Harrison discussing that Dylan recording, as we also hear Dylan getting feedback.

“Terse and the Monkey Man” was like, really, Tom Petty and Bob — well, Jeff and I were there too — but we just sit around in the kitchen, and he for some reason was talking about all this stuff which didn’t make much sense to me. You know, it was Americana kind of stuff. And we got a tape cassette and put it on and then transcribed everything they were saying.

Twea tuk.

To treat the stand in factory.

How was that?

Yeah?

Huh, good?

Yeah, I think it was good.

Okay, standing. That was it?

That was it?

Yeah, okay, okay.

George Harrison and Roy Orbison first met in May 1963, when the Beatles were scheduled as the opening act for Orbison. What Orbison did not know at the time was that the Fab Four’s second single, “Please Please Me,” had been written by John Lennon in an attempt to emulate Orbison. Ringo Starr would later admit Roy Orbison was the only act that the Beatles didn’t want to follow. Here’s Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn discussing Roy Orbison as Roy records the Traveling Wilburys tune “Not Alone Anymore.”

If you’re just sitting on the sofa working on a song and Roy’s singing, even when he’s sang soft, it’s such a tone, such a sound, you know, such a gift.

Really.

We used to always tell him her, “Oh, you must be the best singer in the world,” and he’d say, “Yeah.”

Jeff Lynn’s production skills always make a great track even better.

Everybody paid its an. You’re no, no, you’ll know an impol anymore, brilliant.

That was great.

That’s myself there.

The band hated the notion of the supergroup, which were popular in the 1970s.

I never meant to be so that.

They wanted to soften the notion that they fit into this category. After all, most so-called supergroups don’t exactly live up to the term. Michael Palin, one of the members of the comedy group Monty Python, was hired by Harrison to write the band’s fictional biography. Palin chronicled the short story of five half brothers who had one father but five different mothers. Consequently, out of sheer self-amusement, all five members of the group decided to use aliases. Their real names did not appear anywhere on the album or cover. Here’s Harrison and Lynn discussing the bittersweet track “Congratulations,” the only Wilbury song Dylan has performed in concert.

One of the most.

Amazing things ever about the Little Brides was this holes apart thing of Roy and Bob Dylan.

That’s why I thought it was wonderful.

The best singer and the best lyricist, and both in the same good.

“End of the Line” became the album’s second single. Orbison stated at the time, “I’ve been rediscovered by young kids who had never heard of me before the Wilburys’ ‘Pretty Woman walking down the street.’ ” But just four days before they shot the music video for “End of the Line.” In just three weeks after the album’s release, Roy Orbison suffered a fatal heart attack. Although he had complained of chest pains over the previous month, mentioning the discomfort to his close friend Johnny Cash, Orbison did not take the symptoms seriously. Here’s Tom Petty.

You all.

Back.

Roy went out on top, and I’m sure he knew that. The last conversation I had with him was a couple of days before he died on the phone, and he was just so thrilled that the Wilburys had gone platinum, and the names just ended great, “It’s great!” We all felt that Roy was a real special part of the group, and it was just our ace in the hall to have that voice come in. And he was so nice, you know, and it was so painful.

When he died.

The video for “End of the Line” was shot inside a vintage passenger car on a moving train.

Maybe somewhere down the road away you’ll think of me and wonder where I am these days.

During Orbison’s vocal solos, the camera focused on a framed portrait of the singer, which was perched near a weather rocking chair that hella resting upright guitar. Even Goose Coach should well. It’s Orbison became the first musician since Elvis in 1977 to land two posthumous albums in the Top Five, and the Traveling Wilburys album, “Handle with Care,” would also win accolades such as a Grammy, and were ranked number two by Rolling Stone in the category of “Best New American Band,” right behind Guns N’ Roses.

Unfortunately, the band never lived up to the traveling aspect of their name. They never toured, not one live appearance. Here’s Tom Petty, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison.

The whole experience was just some of the best days of my life. Really, she rode along lit. I think it probably was for us all.

I’m sure he’s.

The thing I guess would be hardest for people to understand is what good friends we were. It really had very little to do with combining a bunch of famous people. It was a bunch of friends that just happened to be really good at making music better.

And better around. Be singer yourself. You, the best sing problem.

And me with him.

None of this would have happened without him. It was George’s band. It was always George’s band, and it was a dream he’d had for a long time.

From my point of view, I just tried to preserve our relationship. I worked so hard to make sure that, you know, all the guys who were in that band, and consequently on record and film, friendship wasn’t abused. Just to preserve our friendship. That was the underlying contribution. I think what I was trying to do.

What remains of the Traveling Wilburys is a mystique of unfulfilled possibilities and what could have been, much like a rock band that does not come out for an encore, even as the fans remained standing on their feet and cheering at the top of their lungs.

And a terrific job on the production, editing, and storytelling by our own Greg Hengler. And my goodness, George Harrison first meets Roy Orbison while opening for him in 1963. As a member of the Beatles, Orbison was the only act we did not want to follow. Ringo Starr would say about Orbison, “My goodness, what you had in the end with this group was the best singer and the best lyricist.” And in the end, a heart attack would take Roy Orbison’s life way too early, at the age of only fifty-two. The Wilburys, we learn, well, they would never travel. The experience, Tom Petty said, was the best of his life. “We were such good friends,” he said. And then we hear about George. “It was George’s band,” by the way, Petty added. And what George kept at top of mind at all times was, quote, “preserving our friendships.” The story of the Traveling Wilburys, a classic American music story. Here on Our American Stories.