The Manuscript
The Traveling Wilburys
Told in Their Own Words
Unseen and often unfinished handwritten lyrics run throughout the book, alongside song arrangements, notes, sketches and recording logs. Many are tipped in or hand-pasted onto and between the pages as individual facsimile reproductions.
'It's a lot easier to make an album when there are people besides yourself to bounce things off, rather than sitting on your own trying to think of ideas.' – Tom Petty
From writing and recording an album in nine days – with the aid of a fridge – to receiving band-name advice from Johnny Carson and the Pope, The Traveling Wilburys tells a story of friendship, spontaneity and laughter.
'It's supposed to be a bunch of chaps having a bit of fun, you know? It's not supposed to be thought out to the last detail. It's basically a group in its raw form. We kept it very, very simple, because that's how we heard it.' – Jeff Lynne
It also follows the band through the untimely passing of Roy Orbison and the making of the ‘Nobody’s Child’ charity record for Romanian orphans, while retaining the Python-esque humour the Wilburys all enjoyed.
'Somebody was making these guitar picks and they said, 'What should we put on them?' Everybody has some smart little thing written on the pick. So, as we'd just been talking about these 'trembling wilburys', I had it misspelled as 'travelling wilburys' on this guitar pick. But at that point it was just a drunken thought at the back of my head.' – George Harrison