Traveling Wilburys

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The Traveling Wilburys were a supergroup consisting of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Bob Dylan. During the short time The Traveling Wilburys were together they recorded two albums, the first of which was nominated for a Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Initially starting at a meal between Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne, they got together at Bob Dylan's studio (Santa Monica, California) to record an additional track as a B-side for the single release of Harrison's "This Is Love". Tom Petty's involvement was by chance as Harrison had left his guitar at Petty's house. The song The Traveling Wilburys came up with was "Handle with Care". However, the record company immediately realized it was too good to be released as a single "filler".

The Traveling Wilburys enjoyed working together so much that The Traveling Wilburys decided to create an album together. Written by all its members, the album was recorded over a ten-day period because Dylan was due to go on tour. Released in October 1988 (under various pseudonyms as half-brothers, supposed sons of Charles Truscott Wilbury, Sr.), the album Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 was in 1989 ranked #70 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. It was later nominated for a Grammy under the category Album of the Year. The death of band member Roy Orbison (on December 6, 1988) prevented further full collaborations; however, The Traveling Wilburys  continued without him. The Traveling Wilburys even finished the video for "End of the Line". In the scene where the verse is sung by Orbison, the viewer is shown Orbison's guitar in a rocking chair followed by a photo of the late artist.

"Wilburys" was a slang term coined by Harrison and Lynne during the recording of Cloud Nine as a reference to recorded "flubs" that could be eliminated during the mixing stage (i.e. "'We'll bury' them in the mix"). The term was used again when the entire group was together. Harrison suggested "The Trembling Wilburys" as the group's name, but they decided to use "Traveling" instead.

After Orbison's death, there was undocumented speculation in the news media that Del Shannon might join The Traveling Wilburys, but his 1990 suicide precluded any possible involvement. Petty later claimed that the band never considered replacing Orbison.

A charity single entitled "Nobody's Child", aimed at drawing attention to the orphaned children of Romania, followed in early 1990, also with an album with others. A second album titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 was released in October 1990. However, the album met with less success. Some possible reasons for the skip from Vol. 1 to Vol. 3 include the fact that some consider Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever as Vol. 2 (Jeff Lynne, George Harrison, and Roy Orbison perform on the album), a nod to the many bootlegs titled "Volume 2" containing early studio mixes/alternative takes, to honor the death of Roy Orbison by not releasing the project started with Orbison, or as a simple joke. Harrison once claimed in an MTV interview that the band had written material for a Vol. 2, but the material was stolen before completion. In the book in The Traveling Wilburys CD/DVD, the name is credited to 'George being George'.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, the two Traveling Wilburys albums had limited availability and were out of print in most territories. Harrison, as primary holder of the rights, did not reissue them prior to his death. In June 2007, the two albums were reissued as a two CD and one DVD set, originally announced by Tom Petty on his XM radio show and in the February 2007 edition of Q Magazine in an interview with Jeff Lynne.

The Traveling Wilburys reissue resulted in two editions of the The Traveling Wilburys Collection release. Firstly, a standard edition (in a double Digipak packaging) which features both CD albums and a DVD with a documentary and music videos, along with a 16-page booklet, and secondly a deluxe boxed edition with the same CDs and DVD, plus extensive 40-page booklet and artist postcards and photographs. On the iTunes Store, a digital version of The Traveling Wilburys- The Collection contains both albums with bonus tracks, the twenty four minute documentary, and five music videos.

The release surprised everyone when it debuted straight at number one in the UK Album Charts. The collection entered the charts at 9 in the U.S.(Billboard Magazine, for the week ending June 30, 2007). The Traveling Wilburys also hit number one on the Australian album charts, Amazon's pre-order and sales list, and Apple's iTunes. The Traveling Wilburys Collection also debuted at #1 in the United World Chart. The album has sold 500,000 copies worldwide during the first 3 weeks and remained in the UK top 5 for seven weeks after it's release.

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