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The Beach Boys And Beatles 101 : The Bands The Music The History
George Harrison Wanted Lindsey Buckingham To Join The Traveling Wilburys:
When radio host John Fugelsang (who was the last person to have a television interview with George Harrison during his lifetime,) interviewed Roy Orbison’s son (Roy Orbison Jr) a few years ago, they broke some news that many people had not been aware of. For years the rumors had been that when Orbison suddenly died of a heart attack in 1988 that George Harrison wanted Del Shannon to replace him in the Traveling Wilburys. According to Roy’s kids however, (and Olivia Harrison has confirmed this,) that wasn’t the case. George actually wanted Lindsey Buckingham to replace Roy instead.
As Orbison’s children have stated, both Tom Petty, and George Harrison made the family aware that they planned to recruit Lindsey to become a part of the now legendary supergroup. Unfortunately, from that point onward nobody is really sure what happened except for Tom and George and since they have now both passed away we will never really know . Then again, I’m sure Jeff Lynne would’ve known about it too, but has never addressed it. (Bob Dylan probably didn’t care either way.)
Lindsey would’ve been recruited by George in early 1989, or early 1990 before sessions for the “Vol.3” album began. If Lindsey was asked, my gut feeling is he NEVER would’ve passed up an opportunity to be a part of such a legendary group of musicians. Then again, that was the time he had started to record what would become the “Out Of The Cradle” album, and may have declined for that reason. Since there was never gonna be a scenario where the Wilburys’ were gonna tour it would’ve been interesting to see how Lindsey may have gelled with the band in a studio setting.
Had Lindsey been part of The Traveling Wilburys it would’ve opened a number of opportunities for him, just like it did for Tom Petty and Roy Orbison. Granted Petty was a successful artist with the Heartbreakers long before he was in the Wilburys. But his commercial appeal had definitely began to wane on the album “Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)” the record he released right before he joined the Wilburys which didn’t even go platinum and was a huge commercial disappointment. In contrast to what his next album was after joining The Traveling Wilburys which became “Full Moon Fever” becoming a multi platinum juggernaut and one of the most successful albums of the late 1980s.
Same with Roy Orbison who was a musical legend but hardly had any commercial potential in the 1980s before the Wilburys. Then once he joined the band it introduced him to a whole new generation of music fans. Even had he not suddenly died of a heart attack his comeback solo album “Mystery Girl” still would have become a huge success. It’s nice to know that in the last days of Roy’s life he got to experience what it was like to be relevant and popular in the current music scene.
The same could’ve happened for Lindsey and may have been a tremendous boost to his solo career becoming a perfect set up to introduce his magnificent 1992 album “Out Of The Cradle” to the wide audience that album deserved.
A couple years ago Lindsey was asked if this story was true on a message board, and if George Harrison ever made an attempt to recruit him into the Wilburys. Lindsey responded by saying he never was recruited by George but was told the story of Harrison wanting him in the band was definitely true by Olivia Harrison herself.
It was Olivia who told Lindsey that George wanted him in the Wilburys, to which Lindsey responded not only to being surprised to hear the news, but also being humbled and honored to have even been considered as a possibility.
How would Lindsey have sounded as a member of The Wilburys?
Would he been content with being a team player?
Guess we will never know, but it’s nice to think what might have been…
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