Of all the supergroups in history, it could easily be said that The Traveling Wilburys boasted perhaps the most iconic lineup of all. Featuring Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison, the band brought together some of the most beloved and critically-acclaimed musicians of their generation...who just happened to be huge fans of each other.
In his 2004 memoir Chronicles: Volume One, Dylan raved about the unique qualities of Orbison's legendary voice.
“I was always fishing for something on the radio,” he wrote. “Orbison, though, transcended all the genres — folk, country, rock and roll or just about anything. His stuff mixed all the styles and some that hadn’t even been invented yet. He could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto voice like Frankie Valli in the next."
“He sang like a professional criminal," Dylan continued. "Typically, he’d start out in some low, barely audible range, stay there a while and then astonishingly slip into histrionics. His voice could jar a corpse, always leave you muttering to yourself something like, 'Man, I don’t believe it.' His songs had songs within songs. They shifted from major to minor key without any logic.”
Dylan went on to call Orbison "deadly serious," noting that he was "no pollywog and no fledgling juvenile. There wasn’t anything else on the radio like him.”
How The Traveling Wilburys began
Formed in 1988, The Traveling Wilburys was born after a fateful conversation between Lynne and Harrison. As the former explained in an interview with Hot Press, he'd "been working with George for a couple of months, and he said, '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. "Of course, I'm half laughing, but then I realize 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.' We did the first album in 10 days, 10 songs in ten days, so that was pretty amazing —the rough tracks, not the finished product."
Lynne, who also worked with Orbison on his album Mystery Girl, went on to praise the late singer as having the "greatest voice ever."
"I think I produced three songs on Mystery Girl, and I co-wrote 'You Got It' with Roy and Tom, which was his first hit for like 20 years," Lynne recalled.
"Roy was thrilled out of his mind, and then there was a phone call early in the morning. 'Mr. Orbison is dead.' They hung up before I could get a chance to find out more, and I thought it was bulls—t, you know. It was like six in the morning that call came so I stayed awake listening to the radio, and sure enough they announced Roy Orbison had died in Tennessee. That was the saddest thing I can remember, but what a wonderful time we had when we recorded together. He was such a lovely guy."
Sadly, Orbison died of a heart attack in December 1988, the same year The Traveling Wilburys got together. He was 52 years old.
Related: Bob Dylan Wrote the Lyrics to This Classic Song on a Napkin and Didn't Want Any Credit
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