This one’s for the Trump administration and the entire Republican Party, which is indeed facing the end of the line.
The Traveling Wilburys were rock history’s most peculiar supergroup — five middle-aged singer-songwriters, all but Tom Petty past their commercial peaks, combining their writing and singing talents just for the fun of it. The project grew out of conversations between George Harrison and Jeff Lynne, who was producing his “Cloud 9” album in 1988. They fantasized about forming a group, with each choosing his dream bandmate. Harrison chose Dylan, Lynne picked Orbison; both were at low points in their careers, so they weren’t that hard to sell on the idea. Petty was roped in because Lynne was also producing his “Full Moon Fever” LP. The name came from a phrase Harrison and Lynne used when they heard mistakes in the studio: “We’ll bury it in the mix.”
The group’s first album was based on jam sessions at the Los Angeles home of Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, usually with one member bringing a framework for a song, with the others contributing lyrics and parts. Rather amazingly, they all got along and spoke glowingly of their time hanging out together and recording the basic tracks. Fun fact: They were all Monty Python fans, and Orbison used to crack up the band by reciting entire sketches in a convincing English accent.
Because everyone had his own career, the overdubbing process was piecework, and the band couldn’t tour because Dylan and Orbison embarked on tours of their own before the album was released. That didn’t hamper sales — the LP went triple-platinum.
The supergroup didn’t last long — Orbison was dead of a December 1989 heart attack by the time the video for “End of the Line,” the band’s second single, was filmed (his guitar, in a rocking chair, and his framed photo are shown during the verse he sings). The second and last album, released in 1990, didn’t sell as well as the first, and Harrison, who acted as the band’s leader, let the project lapse.
