Friday, January 7, 2022

The Traveling Wilburys - Volume 2 - Non-Album Tracks (1989-1990)

The Traveling Wilburys were a great but short-lived "supergroup," consisting of George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne. Unfortunately, they only made two studio albums, and never did any live performances. The unexpected death of Orbison due to a heart attack effectively killed the group, even though they did their second album without them.

Due to the limited amount of material the band made together, people naturally want more. And since their albums were called "Volume 1" and "Volume 3" (as a joke), it's just as natural that when people put together stray tracks to make another album, they call it "Volume 1." Many others have put together various versions of "Volume 2," but here is my attempt.

In terms of actual songs recorded by all of the Traveling Wilburys, it's slim pickings. I count four songs, all of which eventually came out as bonus tracks as part of the archival album "The Traveling Wilburys Collection." So I started with those four. 

Luckily, and the reason this album is possible, is that different members of this band helped out with various solo albums. Plus, member Jeff Lynne typically did the production, and he had a distinctive sound that he put on everything he produced during this time period. So, if it wasn't an actual Traveling Wilburys song, I limited myself to song where at least two of the band members collaborated, and it had their typical production sound. To help make things clear, I've included who was on each track in the song list. And while I didn't list the songwriters, many of these were collaborations. For instance, the big Roy Orbison hit "You Got It" that starts this album was co-written by Orbison, Petty, and Lynne.

I could have included more songs, but I tried to avoid songs that were on very famous albums, such as George Harrison's "Cloud Nine," Tom Petty's "Full Moon Fever," and Bob Dylan's "Oh Mercy" and "Under the Red Sky." For the sources of the other songs, check the mp3 tags. But I'll note I did use some songs from Lynne and Orbison solo albums from around that time. Maybe it's just me with my personal record collection, but those don't seem as overplayed as the songs from the other albums mentioned above. (Certainly, the song from Petty's album are played on the radio a zillion times a day.)

I think there's a good mix of songs sung by all the band members, except for Dylan. He's heard some here and there, but not as much as the others. That's not too surprising, since he's tended to do his own thing for his long music career. I've added an early, unreleased version of his song "Everything Is Broken" as a bonus track, just in case you want to up the amount of Dylan on the album. But it's only a bonus track because it doesn't have any of the other Wilburys on it. I considered using the Dylan song "Under the Red Sky" because it has a Harrison guitar solo on it, but I ultimately decided against it because it didn't have that Jeff Lynne-esque sound all the other songs have.

The last song is somewhat unusual because it comes from a solo album by Jim Horn, a saxophone player who is a long-time session musician. I've included it because, although it's mostly an instrumental, it has vocals by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne only (Horn doesn't sing at all). Those vocals have that exact Traveling Wilburys sound, and the production is by Lynne, also making it fit sonically with the rest. Using the audio editing program X-Minus, I boosted the vocals some (so that's why there's "[Edit]" in the song title).

This album is 51 minutes long, not including the bonus track.

01 You Got It (Roy Orbison with Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne)
02 Cheer Down (George Harrison with Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne)
03 Runaway (Traveling Wilburys)
04 A Love So Beautiful (Roy Orbison with Jeff Lynne & George Harrison)
05 Poor Little Girl (George Harrison with Jeff Lynne)
06 Lift Me Up (Jeff Lynne with George Harrison)
07 Nobody's Child (Traveling Wilburys)
08 California Blue (Roy Orbison with Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne)
09 Cockamamie Business (George Harrison with Jeff Lynne)
10 Don't Treat Me like a Stranger (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers with Jeff Lynne)
11 Like a Ship (Traveling Wilburys)
12 Blown Away (Jeff Lynne with Tom Petty)
13 Maxine (Traveling Wilburys)
14 Work It Out [Edit] (Jim Horn with Tom Petty & Jeff Lynne)

Everything Is Broken [Early Version] (Bob Dylan)

https://www.imagenetz.de/aEhDQ

For the cover art, I found a promotional photo of the band taken around the time of the release of their first album. There's a famous logo of the band name, but looking at the band's official website, I noticed a different band name logo. So I used that one, then added "Volume Two" with a similar font to some of it.

9 comments:

  1. Good work. I wonder if you thought about adding anything from Del Shannon's last album as he was being positioned to join the Wilburys - sadly he committed suicide. Try this to see how it would have fitted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6anfGc5HZ50

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    1. Yeah, I"m aware of the Del Shannon stuff. I know that song was written by Petty and Lynne, and it has the Lynne sound, but I didn't include it because the vocals are by Del Shannon. In retrospect, it might get bonus track status for being partially there.

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  2. Wow, you never run out of gems! Many thanks for sharing.

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  3. Just an FYI: The two Traveling Wilburys releases were designated as Volume 1 and Volume 3 -- that was the joke: there was no Volume 2.

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  4. Thats a thumbs up from me. great

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  5. Cool! I put together Vols. 2 and 4 awhile back:
    https://albumsbackfromthedead.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-traveling-wilburys-volume-2-and.html

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