There was no set criteria for what the Traveling Wilburys were supposed to be when they first started. George Harrison always loved the idea of being in a band again, but the last thing he wanted to do was make a record that was all about the same kind of time and commitments he got tired of in The Beatles.
This version of a group needed to be different, and that meant dealing with some people who were cool to hang out with rather than the most talented musician in the world.
Then again, there was hardly any reason to think the band had a weak link throughout their career. Jeff Lynne was a production mastermind, Roy Orbison was one of the greatest singers on Earth, and with Tom Petty and Bob Dylan bringing that Americana spirit to everything, this felt like the kind of supergroup that people only dream about. But there were far more people responsible for getting all of them together.
Throughout history, ‘honorary Wilburys’ are about as common as ‘Fifth Beatles’ when talking about the band’s formation. They had already talked about the idea of having a group of rhythm guitarists getting together, but everyone from the members of Monty Python to Dave Stewart could have been in the band had the timing worked out a little bit differently, with Eric Idle even helping pen the liner notes for the band’s second album.
But even legends have to deal with the one thing that every musician dreads: settling on a name. As much as the band could have gone the easy route and thrown their last names together Crosby, Stills, and Nash-style, Lynne felt that the band needed to be a little bit more subtle when crafting their identities.
None of them needed the added attention of being in a supergroup, and the common consensus was that the name originated from the band saying the phrase ‘we’ll bury ‘em’ too often when they were mixing everyone’s tracks together. But if you ask Lynne, they never tried to think that hard about creating a mystique.
After all, the mix was as dry as possible when listening to the record, and Lynne even stated that the name was almost an afterthought rather than a sly in-joke, saying, “Somebody invented that just to make it sound good, but no, there was nothing subtle at all about The Wilburys. What you saw [was] what you got. That was it.” That’s not to say that Harrison didn’t have a little bit of help coming up with the name, but that would only happen after many late nights with Lynne working on his album Cloud Nine.
According to the former Beatle, the initial plan was to call the group ‘The Trembling Wilburys’ after a few glasses of wine with Lynne, saying, “We probably had too many drinks and this came, ‘The Trembling Wilburys’, and that it turned into ‘The Traveling Wilburys.’” But considering the kind of star power in the group at the time, the idea of them putting on different personas and playing music for the hell of it was the greatest gift they could have asked for.
Each of them could have easily thrust themselves back into the spotlight if they wanted to, but that wasn’t the point. What mattered was their ability to have a good time, and even if they didn’t have the kind of lavish tour that most people expected out of their favourite acts, it was a lot more fun for them to grab a bunch of acoustic guitars and strum away from the comfort of the studio.
