The Band / Timeline

The Traveling Wilburys Timeline

The Traveling Wilburys existed, in any active sense, for about three years, which makes the amount of trivia they generated slightly absurd. Here's the whole story in order, from the production job that planted the idea to the reissue that finally gave the band its due decades later.

1987: The Setup

• Early 1987: George Harrison begins recording Cloud Nine at Friar Park with producer Jeff Lynne. A few months into the sessions, Harrison floats the idea of the two of them starting a band together.
• November 1987: Cloud Nine is released, restoring Harrison to the charts on the strength of "Got My Mind Set on You" and reintroducing him to the experience of making music with a genuine creative partner rather than working alone.

1988: The Whole Thing Happens

• February 1988: On the radio show Rockline, Harrison publicly mentions, almost offhand, that his next project might be "an album with me and some of my mates... it's called the Traveling Wilburys."
• Early April 1988: Harrison, needing a B-side for the European single of "This Is Love," gathers Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison at Bob Dylan's Malibu home. Tom Petty is invited that same day, after Harrison stops by his house to retrieve a guitar. The five write and record "Handle With Care" in a single session, with Dylan manning the barbecue and supplying lyrics.
• Days later: Warner Bros. executives Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker hear the track and insist it's too good to waste as a B-side. Harrison, Lynne, and Petty drive to Anaheim's Celebrity Theatre that same night to formally recruit Roy Orbison into the newly forming band.
• May 1988: The full album is written and tracked in roughly ten days at Dave Stewart's home studio in the Encino Hills, largely around a single microphone in Stewart's kitchen.
• Summer 1988: Vocals and overdubs are completed at Harrison's Friar Park studio in England. The band adopts its Wilbury pseudonyms (Nelson, Otis, Lucky, Lefty, and Charlie T. Jr.) and poses as half-brothers for the album's liner notes and artwork.
• October 18, 1988: Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 is released in the US (October 24 in the UK), credited to five brothers and one fictional father.
• December 6, 1988: Roy Orbison dies of a heart attack at his mother's home in Hendersonville, Tennessee, less than two months after the album's release. He was 52.

1989: Grief, Then a Grammy

• January 23, 1989: "End of the Line" is released as a single, its music video shot the previous month aboard a moving train, Orbison's absence marked by his guitar resting in an empty rocking chair beside his photo.
• January 1989: Orbison's posthumous solo album Mystery Girl, co-produced by Jeff Lynne, is released, eventually becoming the best-selling record of his career.
• 1990 Grammy Awards: Vol. 1 wins Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal and is nominated for Album of the Year, losing to Bonnie Raitt's Nick of Time.

1990: Volume 3, Minus a Voice

• March-May 1990: Harrison, Lynne, Petty, and Dylan reconvene as a foursome at a rented house at the top of Coldwater Canyon in Bel Air, nicknamed "Camp Wilbury," to write and record their second album. New pseudonyms are adopted: Spike, Clayton, Muddy, and Boo.
• June 1990: The band records a cover of "Nobody's Child" as a non-album charity single for Olivia Harrison's Romanian Angel Appeal.
• July 1990: Final sessions wrap at Harrison's Friar Park studio in England.
• October 29, 1990 (UK) / October 30, 1990 (US): Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 is released, deliberately misnumbered, according to Jeff Lynne, because Harrison wanted to "confuse the buggers." The album is dedicated to "Lefty Wilbury."

1991: One Last Video, Then Quiet

• February 28, 1991: The "Wilbury Twist" video is filmed in Los Angeles, featuring Eric Idle and John Candy attempting to demonstrate the song's fictional dance craze. It's the last piece of new Wilburys material the band ever produces.
• December 1991: Harrison undertakes a short tour of Japan with Eric Clapton (not a Wilburys reunion, but close enough in spirit that fans hoped it might lead to one). It doesn't. The Wilburys quietly go dormant, without ever formally announcing a breakup.

1995-2001: Silence, Then Loss

• 1995: Harrison's distribution deal with Warner Bros. lapses, and ownership of both Wilburys albums reverts to him. Neither is reissued. Both drift out of print.
• 1995-1996: Jeff Lynne co-produces "Free as a Bird" and "Real Love" for the Beatles' Anthology project, reuniting the three surviving Beatles in the studio at Harrison's specific request.
• November 29, 2001: George Harrison dies of cancer at age 58.

2007: The Comeback Nobody Expected

• June 11-12, 2007: The Traveling Wilburys Collection is released by Rhino, overseen by Harrison's estate, both albums remastered, expanded with bonus tracks, and packaged with the documentary The True History of the Traveling Wilburys. It debuts at number one in the UK and number nine on the US Billboard 200.

2017 Onward: Two Wilburys Left

• October 2, 2017: Tom Petty dies following cardiac arrest, at age 66.
• 2023: Jeff Lynne is inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
• 2025: Lynne produces a new remix of "Free as a Bird" for the Anthology's 30th-anniversary reissue, extending his Beatles connection nearly three decades after the Wilburys first brought him into that orbit.

Today, Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne remain the only surviving Traveling Wilburys. Between them, they've spent more time answering questions about this band than they ever spent making it.

For the full story behind any of these dates, start with the complete band history, or jump to a specific member's page from the Members section.