The
Traveling Wilburys – Volume 2
(a soniclovenoize
re-imagining)
Side A:
1. You Got It
2. I Won’t Back Down
3. Lift Me Up
4. Cheer Down
5. Runnin’ Down A Dream
Side B:
6. Every Little Thing
7. Poor Little Girl
8. California Blue
9. Zombie Zoo
10. Blown Away
In remembrance
of Tom Petty after his recent passing earlier this month, this is a re-imagining
of the unrecorded Traveling Wilburys album Volume 2, which would have logically
appeared in-between 1988’s Volume 1 and
1990’s Volume 2. Culling material from 1989
that featured shared-contributions from four of the five band members Tom
Petty, Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne, this re-imagination
attempts to fill the gap and present a cohesive album. Best sources have all
been used and all tracks volume adjusted for continuity.
Just five
friends, sitting around a campfire, strumming acoustic guitars and makin’ up
songs. Sound familiar? We all might have done it at some point. But in this case those five friends were Bob
Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, and the songs
they just simply made-up became Top 10 Hits.
The back-story is well known: George Harrison needed a b-side for his “This
Is Love” single and over dinner with friends Roy Orbison and producer Jeff Lynne,
asked them for help. Bob Dylan provided
the studio and Tom Petty brought the guitars.
Soon enough, the quartet quickly wrote and recorded a song in April 1988,
each contributing one-off lines of lyric.
The result was “Handle With Care”, a song Warner Bros thought was too
great for a mere b-side. The band—now called
the Traveling Wilburys—adopted personas Nelson (Harrison), Lefty (Orbison),
Otis (Lynne), Lucky (Dylan) and Charlie T (Petty) and recorded a full-length
album. Released in October 1988, Volume
1 became a hit and The Traveling Wilburys were the premier super-group at the
end of the 1980s. But then what? When the fun was over, the five friends went
back to their own individual projects, although the various members often continued to
contribute with each other.
Roy Orbison
had already been working on his comeback album throughout 1988, partially
produced by Jeff Lynne. “You Got It” and
“California Blue” were co-written by Tom Petty and Lynne, and “A Love So Beautiful”
co-written with Lynne; both Petty and Lynne also performed on the album, with
other tracks produced by one of Petty’s Heartbreakers’ Mike Campbell. Tragically,
Orbison passed away in December 1988 and the album Mystery Girl was released
the following January, making the album a posthumous hit and a fitting epitaph
to the legendary rocker who helped shape Rock n' Roll.
Tom Petty
himself was also working on a new album throughout 1988. This time abandoning his backing band The
Heartbreakers in order to be free of any musical expectations (although
ironically still featuring most of The Heartbreakers anyways), the album too
was co-written and produced by Jeff Lynne, who played many instruments on the
album. Recorded in Heartbreakers guitarist
Mike Campbell’s garage, the trio worked on the album throughout 1988, compiling
a very concise and strong body of work featuring fellow Wilburys George Harrison on “I Won’t Back Down” and Roy Orbison on “Zombie Zoo”. Unfortunately, MCA records were originally unsure
of the marketability of the album and hesitated to release it that year. But after the success of The Traveling Wilbury’s
(and the addition of the newly-recorded “I’ll Feel A Lot Better” to commercialize the album a bit) MCA
welcomed Lynne’s slick sound and Full Moon Fever was released in April 1989 to
critical and commercial acclaim, many considering it Petty’s masterwork.
In contrast
to Petty, George Harrison was just beginning to let his career go into
hibernation. Content with the success of
1987’s Lynne-produced Cloud Nine and being the figurehead of The Traveling Wilburys,
Harrison only completed an unfinished track from the Cloud Nine sessions, “Cheer
Down”, in March 1989. Co-written by Tom
Petty and once again produced by Jeff Lynne, the song was released on the
Lethal Weapon 2 soundtrack in August. George
also recorded two more tracks in his home studio Friar Park in July, meant for an
October release on his upcoming Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989 compilation: the
solid “Poor Little Girl” and meager “Cockamamie Business”. Although the production credit was assigned
to Harrison, Jeff Lynne again contributed instrumentation and the songs more-than
coincidentally sounded like Lynne’s idiosyncratic production.
Jeff Lynne
himself was busy in the studio recording a solo album, his first since Electric
Light Orchestra’s Balance of Power in 1986.
Throughout 1989 and 1990, Lynne whittled away at Posh Studios in England,
often with his familiar Wilbury bandmates: Tom Petty co-wrote “Blown Away” and Harrison
was featured on “Every Little Thing”, “Lift Me Up”, “September Song” and “Stormy
Weather”. The album Armchair Theatre was
released as a moderate success in June 1990.
What about
that pesky fifth Wilbury, Lucky? Bob
Dylan was mostly apart from his four bandmates throughout 1989, just starting
his Neverending Tour and recording with producer Daniel Lanois in New Orleans
from February to April 1989. The
resulting album Oh Mercy released in September (a month before Volume 1), while
hailed as Dylan’s masterpiece of the 1980s, was the complete opposite of a Jeff
Lynne-produced album: it was dark, atmospheric and organic. After more touring, Dylan made a complete about-face
and recorded the follow-up with producer Don Was in Los Angeles from April to
May in 1990. Although the resulting
album Under The Red Sky did feature a guitar solo by George Harrison on the
title song, the album was an over-polished shamble of absurdly simple songs—very
uncharacteristic for Dylan--and was seen almost immediately as a career embarrassment. It would take him another seven years to
regain his creative footing.
After
Orbison’s death, the remaining four Wilburys reconvened with a follow-up album tracked
while Dylan was recording Under The Red Sky in Los Angeles. Released in October and entitled Volume 3 as
a joke at Harrison’s suggestion, the four members also donned new aliases: Spike,
Muddy, Clayton and Boo. Although a
quaint sophomore release with moderate charting singles “She’s My Baby” and
“Inside Out”, the album lacked the magic of Volume 1. Upon Harrison’s death in 2001, The Traveling
Wilbury’s were put to rest indefinitely without their founding brother.
But is there a way to make these volumes a trilogy and uncover the “missing”
Wilbury’s album?
Many have
tried reconstructing a third Traveling Wilburys album, so my take on a Volume 2
will heed to a few rules. Much like my CSNY Human Highway reconstruction, I will compile the solo material that each member
recorded or released approximately in between both Volume 1 and 3 (generally in 1989). I will also be selecting
the songs that featured the most amount of Wilburys, with a minimum requirement
of two contributing Wilburys for a song.
This will unfortunately exclude Dylan’s Oh Mercy album, as it had little
to do with the other members. Likewise, Under
The Red Sky will also be disqualified since it was recorded simultaneously with
Volume 3. This is reasonable, since
neither album really fits with Jeff Lynne’s production, in which the remaining
tracks are steeping. Sorry Bob… The second rule is to follow the pattern of
the other two Wilburys albums and only use original compositions. This would exclude miscellaneous cover songs
actually recorded by the Traveling Wilburys, such as “Nobody’s Child” and “Runaway”,
as well as Jeff Lynne’s “Stormy Weather” and “September Song”. I will also shy away from tracks that were
later overdubbed by Dhani Harrison in 2007, “Maxine” and “Like a Ship”.None of these are needed anyways, as there is more than enough material spread across Armchair Theatre, Full Moon Fever, Mystery Girl and Best of Dark Horse.
Side A of my
Volume 2 begins with Orbison’s “You Got It” from Mystery Girl (featuring Otis
and Charlie T). Following is Petty’s “I
Won’t Back Down” from Full Moon Fever (featuring Otis and Nelson) and Lynne’s “Lift
Me Up” from Armchair Theatre (featuring Nelson). Harrison’s “Cheer Down” taken from Best of
Dark Horse follows (featuring Otis and Charlie T), with the side closing with
Petty’s “Runnin’ Down A Dream” from Full Moon Fever (featuring Otis). Side B begins with Lynne’s “Every Little
Thing” from Armchair Theatre (featuring Nelson) followed by Harrison’s “Poor Little Girl” from Best of Dark Horse (featuring Otis).
Orbison’s “California Blue” from Mystery Girl (featuring Otis and
Charlie T) and Petty’s “Zombie Zoo” from Full Moon Fever (featuring Lefty and
Otis) is next, and the album concludes with Lynne’s “Blown Away” from Armchair
Theatre (featuring Charlie T).
Of the ten
songs assembled, including co-songwriting, performance and production: Tom
Petty contributed to seven songs; George Harrison contributed to five songs; Roy
Orbison contributed to three songs; Jeff Lynne contributed to all ten; Bob
Dylan contributed to exactly none. Although
you might be miffed that Lucky was not so lucky this time around, it is reasonable
that if Volume 3 did not feature Orbison, Volume 2 wouldn’t have to feature
Dylan. If you disagree, feel free to
swap “Runnin’ Down A Dream” with “Under The Red Sky” and even the playing field
a bit. Otherwise, may your Halloween be
a full moon fever.
Sources used:
George
Harrison – Best of Dark Horse 1976-1989 (1989 Dark Horse Records, original pressing)
Jeff Lynne –
Armchair Theatre (1990 Reprise Records, original pressing)
Roy Orbison –
Mystery Girl (1989 Virgin Records, 2007 remaster)
Tom Petty –
Full Moon Fever (1989 Warner Brothers Records, 2009 SHN remaster)
flac
--> wav --> editing in Goldwave --> flac encoding via TLH lv8
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included
*md5, artwork and tracknotes included
