The Traveling Wilburys were a British-American supergroup formed in Los Angeles in 1988, consisting of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.

When this collaboration, "Handle with Care", was deemed too good for such a limited release, the group agreed to record a full album, titled Traveling Wilburys Vol.

Although Harrison envisioned a series of Wilburys albums and a film about the band, to be produced through his company HandMade, the group became dormant after 1991 and never officially reunited, though the individual members continued to collaborate on each other's solo projects at various times.

[2] George Harrison first mentioned the Traveling Wilburys publicly during a radio interview with Bob Coburn on the show Rockline in February 1988.

"[5][nb 1] According to Jeff Lynne, who co-produced Cloud Nine, Harrison introduced the idea of the two of them starting a band together around two months into the sessions for his album,[7] which began in early January 1987.

[19][20] According to Petty, Harrison's dream for the Wilburys was to handpick the participants and create "the perfect little band", but the criteria for inclusion were governed most by "who you could hang out with".

[22] Harrison, who had worked with the members of Monty Python on various productions by his company HandMade Films since the late 1970s, particularly appreciated Orbison's gift for impersonation and his ability to recite entire sketches by the troupe.

[26] At that time, Warner Bros. Records asked Harrison for a new song to serve as the B-side for the European release of his third single from Cloud Nine, "This Is Love".

[29] Working on a song that Harrison had recently started writing, the ensemble completed the track, which they titled "Handle with Care" after a label on a box in Dylan's garage.

[6] When Harrison presented the recording to Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker of Warner Bros., the executives insisted that the song was too good to be used as a B-side.

[32] That night, Harrison, Lynne and Petty drove to Anaheim to see Orbison perform at the Celebrity Theatre and recruited him for the group shortly before he went on stage.

[36][46] Petty later described Harrison as the Wilburys' "leader and manager",[47] and credited him with being a bandleader and producer that had a natural instinct for bringing out the best in people and keeping a recording session productive.

[51][52] The two producers then flew back to England; Lynne recalls that, throughout the flight, he and Harrison enthused about how to turn the sparse, acoustic-based tracks into completed recordings.

As was the case in 1971 when EMI prepared Harrison's multi-artist live album from the Concert for Bangladesh for release, Dylan's label, Columbia, presented the main stumbling block.

[59] As Harrison had intended, the album defied contemporary musical trends such as hip hop, acid house and synthesised pop; author Alan Clayson likens its release to "a Viking longship docking in a hovercraft terminal".

[35] Palin's essay was based on an idea by Derek Taylor,[57] who wrote an extensive fictional history of the Wilburys family that otherwise went unused.

[47] Harrison planned a feature film about the band, to be produced by HandMade and directed by David Leland, but contractual problems ended the project.

[63] In tribute to him, the music video for the band's second single, "End of the Line", shows a black-and-white framed photo of Orbison, and his guitar is shown, rocking in a chair, whenever his vocals are heard.

[67] By contrast, according to author Clinton Heylin, Dylan appeared to give the band little attention as he focused on re-establishing himself as a live performer before recording his 1989 album Oh Mercy.

[70] It was preceded by a non-album single, a cover of "Nobody's Child",[57] which the band recorded for Olivia Harrison's Romanian Angel Appeal charity project.

For the band's final single, "Wilbury Twist", they filmed a video in which Idle, John Candy and other comedic actors attempt to master the song's eponymous dance style.

The editors also recognise the band as "the antithesis of a supergroup", due to the musicians' adoption of fraternal alter egos and the humour inherent in the project.

[22] Discussing the Wilburys in Peter Bogdanovich's 2007 documentary Runnin' Down a Dream, Petty said that one of the strengths behind the concept was that it was free of any intervention from record company, management or marketing concerns, and instead developed naturally from a spirit of co-operation and mutual admiration among five established artists.

[87] Writing in New York magazine in late 1990, Elizabeth Wurtzel cited the Notting Hillbillies' album and the self-titled debut by Hindu Love Gods – a band consisting of Warren Zevon and members of R.E.M.

[89] In his book Lonnie Donegan and the Birth of British Rock & Roll, Patrick Humphries describes the Wilburys as "a makeshift quintet whose roots were firmly and joyously planted in low-key, low-tech skiffle music".

In November 2009, Genesis Publications, a company with which Harrison had been associated since the late 1970s,[97] announced the release of a limited edition fine-bound book titled The Traveling Wilburys.

[98] Compiled by Olivia Harrison,[99] the book includes rare photographs, recording notes, handwritten lyrics, sketches,[22][100] and first-hand commentary on the band's history, together with a foreword by Lynne.

[98] Petty, Lynne, Olivia Harrison, Barbara Orbison, Keltner and Idle were among those who attended the US launch at a Beverly Hills bookshop in March 2010.

[101] In an interview to publicise the book, Lynne expressed his sadness at the deaths of Harrison and Orbison, and reflected: "The Wilburys was such a wonderful band, such a marvellous thing to be part of.

"[99] Jim Keltner, the session drummer and percussionist, was not officially listed as a Wilbury on either album, but was given the nickname "Buster Sidebury".