Years after his impressive post-Beatles output, George Harrison found success one more time with the Traveling Wilburys. Featuring a cast that included Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, the supergroup made a splash in 1988 with their debut single, “Handle With Care.”
But as Harrison has revealed, the band took flight spontaneously and out of necessity.
In 1987, the former Beatle was putting the touches on his eleventh studio album, Cloud Nine, his first record since 1982's Gone Troppo. Following that record, the guitarist had taken a step back from the music industry, swapping songs for comedy, as he invested in the comedy troupe Monty Python, a band of creatives who he felt shared parallels with the Beatles.
Given Harrison’s years out of the spotlight, Cloud Nine was a greatly anticipated record from a musician who seemed to thrive outside of the Beatles. But he had one more commitment to fulfill.
“In Europe, they make 12-inch singles, and they usually like them to have an extra song,” Harrison explained to Countdown in 1990. “So they asked me for an extra song, but I didn't have one already recorded.
“The easiest thing to do was go into the studio the next day, write a song quickly, record it, mix it and give it to them.”
His plan quickly became more interesting once he presented it to Lynne.
“That night, I had dinner with Jeff Lynne, who was having dinner with Roy Orbison,” Harrison explains in the video. “And I said, ‘Well, tomorrow I'm going to find a studio and go in someplace, make a tune, and make this record.’ So I said to Jeff, ‘Do you want to come and help?’”
Lynne, who made his name with Electric Light Orchestra’s rock-meets-classical fusion in the mid to late ’70s, was more than happy to get involved.
“So Roy Orbison said, ‘Oh, well, if you do something, call me. I'd like to come along and watch,’” Harrison continued.
All that remained was to find a vacant studio and an engineer.
“Then I thought, Well, Bob Dylan has a little studio in his garage,” Harrison recalled. ”So I called him and said, ‘Do you mind if we come along tomorrow?’”
Like Lynne, Dylan was more than happy to participate. To round things off, the group-to-be’s final member was recruited before the day was done.
“I had to go to Tom Petty’s house to pick up my guitar, which was around his house,” Harrison says. “He said, ‘Oh, good. I'll come. I was wondering what I was going to do tomorrow.”
“The next morning, I started to write a song, and I thought, ‘If Roy Orbison is going to come, it's silly to have him sitting there,. He's a better singer than everybody,’” Harrison adds. “So I wrote a part for Roy to sing, and Jeff thought that was a bit cheeky!”
If we did that one song in one day, all we need is nine days to make an album.”
— George Harrison
The half-finished song was completed in the studio, with Lynne taking the lead to make it complete.
As for the title — “Handle With Care” — it came from the words written on a box in Dylan’s garage
It was only when the song was turned over to Harrison’s label, Dark Horse, that it was deemed too good to be a mere B-side. The label had an idea for the hastily assembled group to make an entire album, figuring with so many great songwriters on hand, they could churn something out quickly.
“If we did that one song in one day, all we need is nine days to make an album,” Harrison explains.
As the band grew into the Traveling Wilburys, it also expanded its personnel. Yet, when Petty’s right-hand guitarist Mike Campbell was drafted in to track an electric guitar solo for the song, he requested Harrison cut his own take instead.
Campbell’s solo has never seen the light of day, but thanks to Harrison’s slide guitar playing and the mastery of all involved, “Handle with Care” was an instant success — and the Wilburys went down in history as the luckiest supergroup of all time.
