Nearly twenty years after the creation of the group and over a decade since the music was last available to fans, the music of The Traveling Wilburys is reissued at last - and in remastered sound!

'Traveling Wilburys Volume One' and 'Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3' feature some of music's greatest singer-songwriters - Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty - as the iconic band The Traveling Wilburys. Both albums are combined into 'The Traveling Wilburys Collection' which was released initially on 11 June and again with additional collectors editions on 3 December 2007. Each beautiful CD package features rare and previously unreleased tracks along with a bonus DVD that includes a 24-minute documentary of unseen Wilbury footage originally filmed by George Harrison's Handmade Films plus five promotional videos. The vinyl edition includes both classic LP's plus a bonus 12-inch disc with rare and exclusive material.

The History Of The Traveling Wilburys

The birth of The Traveling Wilburys was a happy accident. Warner Bros. Records' International Department had asked that George Harrison come up with a B-side for “This Is Love,” a single from his Cloud Nine album. At the time, it was customary to couple an A-side with a never-before-heard track, giving the single extra sales value.

This was mid-1988. Cloud Nine was just out. George, along with co-writer Jeff Lynne and their friends Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison, had been hanging out in Dylan's studio. I suppose George figured that as long as his pals were hand, why not use them to knock off this flip side.

A couple of days later, George came by my office to play the new “B-side.” We went next door to A&R head Lenny Waronker's office so he could hear it, too. George played us “Handle with Care.” Our reaction was immediate. This was a song we knew could not be wasted on some B-side. Roy Orbison's vocal was tremendous. I really loved the beautiful guitar figure that George played. The guys had really nailed it. Lenny and I stumbled over each others' words, asking “Can't we somehow turn this into an album?” (I also had a suspicion that, perhaps, George had been hungering for another band experience.)

We urged him on. George felt the spontaneity of it, felt its driving force. He always had great instincts. Being as smart as he was, he had a remarkable ability to pull people together. Think about The Concert for Bangladesh - only George Harrison could have made that happen.

Once the idea of a full, collaborative album was in front of us, George took over. The five front men (Harrison, Lynne, Petty, Dylan, and Orbison) decided not to use their own names. George and Jeff had been calling studio equipment (limiters, equalizers) “wilburys.” So first, they named their fivesome The Trembling Wilburys Jeff suggested “Traveling” instead. Everyone agreed.

The group was born: five guys who had star stature in their own rights, but it was George who created this Wilbury environment where five stars could get into an ego-free collaboration. Everybody sang, everybody wrote, everybody produced - and had great fun doing so.

You can hear George's humility and good nature reflected in the Wilburys and their music. To my thinking, this was a perfect collaboration. All give were good friends who admired and respected one another. Roy Orbison was somebody they all idolized. Of course, they revered Bob Dylan, too. But Bob was closer to being their contemporary, so it was Roy who gave the project that special glow from rock and roll's early formative years.

Reflecting on all this, I recall a few years before, when my wife Evelyn and I had been in London. George had invited us to his house, Friar Park, to celebrate Evelyn's birthday. Roy was a house guest there at the time, so perhaps this could have been an early hint leading to the Wilburys. So, too, might it have been the time Tom, George, and Jeff came to dinner at our house a year or so before “Handle with Care.” For us, Tom had played a new song, as yet unrecorded, called “Free Fallin,'” backed by his two future Wilbury mates. Lenny and I loved the song so much we asked Tom and the guys to do it at least three times than evening.

Perhaps even then, they all were Wilburys, just didn't know their last name yet.

With the huge international success - over five million copies sold - of The Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1, a follow-up was inevitable. George being George, titled the second album The Traveling Wilburys, Volume 3. Sadly, by this time, Roy had died, but there was still great excitement when we visited the Wilburys, recording in the Wallace Neff-designed house at the top of Coldwater Canyon. Being with those guys, in that setting - truly memorable.

I'm glad that a song that early on had been destined for semi-obscurity as a B-side became the catalyst for something so lasting and joyful. Rolling Stone magazine named The Traveling Wilburys one of the 100 Best Albums of All Time.

Mo Ostin
Chairman Emeritus
Warner Bros. Records 2007

EXTRACT FROM TRAVELING WILBURYS COLLECTION LINER NOTES (DELUXE EDITION) BY ANTHONY DeCURTIS

A particularly giddy version of cabin fever often sets in when musicians log long hours in the studio - even when the musicians are such masters of their craft as the legendary George Harrison and former (sic) ELO guitarist, singer, and songwriter Jeff Lynne. The two men were working on Harrison's triumphant 1987 album, 'Cloud Nine', at George's studio in England. Musicians are a superstitious lot, and when things start inexplicably going wrong in the studio - parts mysteriously erased or gone missing, equipment that won't work for no discernable reason - they often come up with a name for the unseen forces that are plunging their best efforts into chaos. Harrison and Lynne called them "wilburys".

Harrison, who had not released an album since 'Gone Troppo' in 1982, was delighted with his new collaborative relationship with Lynne, and excited to be recording again. All that positive energy brought to mind the possibility of what it might be like to be in a band again.

As he and Lynne, who were both familiar with the pressures of being in a band, shaped 'Cloud Nine', they would spin fantasies about forming the perfect group - everyone equal, no ego battles, no demands from corporations or the public, all creativity, complete fun. Out of such flights of whimsy and imagination - "I'll show you 'Cloud Nine' indeed - were the Traveling Wilburys conceived.

Anthony DeCurtis

THE TRAVELING WILBURYS BACKGROUND
TAKEN FROM WILBURY RECORD CO. / RHINO RECORDS PRESS RELEASE 20 MARCH 2007

The Traveling Wilburys was not a carefully planned band, not formed from deep premeditation. Rather, the band was created in a casual blending of genuine friends one ordinary afternoon, which turned out to be anything but ordinary.

George Harrison needed a B-side song to accompany a European single release from his widely regarded Cloud Nine album. While in Los Angeles, George approached Jeff Lynne for help with the B-side, since he had co-produced the album. It happened that Jeff was working with Roy Orbison on the upcoming Mystery Girl album.

Roy readily agreed to lend a hand in the musical effort. As fate would luckily dictate, George's guitar was at Tom Petty's house, and he too offered to join in and make some music. When the group showed up to record, Dylan also lent a hand to help complete the half-finished song George had written.

George has often been quoted as saying, "And so everybody was there and I thought, I'm not gonna just sing it myself, I've got Roy Orbison standing there. I'm gonna write a bit for Roy to sing. And then, as it progressed, then I started doing the vocals and I just thought I might as well push it a bit and get Tom and Bob to sing the bridge." The final result was a song called "Handle With Care." George later said, "I liked the song and the way that it turned out with all these people on it so much that 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 of was do another nine. Make an album." The album they created was called the Traveling Wilburys Volume 1-a playful nod to the reality that subsequent volumes were unlikely. Volume 1 was released in October 1988 preceded by the single "Handle With Care." The album achieved wide critical acclaim, and most critics agreed that the music was so extraordinary because of the modest ambitions of the band, which translated to a fresh and relaxing sound. Rolling Stone Magazine instantly called it one of the Top 100 Albums of all time. The album also saw commercial success; it reached #3 on the Album charts, garnered double-platinum status and earned the group a Grammy® for Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group. In 1990, following the unexpected death of Roy Orbison in December 1988, the remaining members reconvened to record Traveling Wilburys Volume 3, dedicating the album to Lefty (Roy) Wilbury. With Harrison and Lynne producing again, both "She's My Baby" and "Wilbury Twist" became radio hits as the album reached #11 in the U.S. and achieved Platinum success.