1 is the debut studio album by the English-American supergroup Traveling Wilburys, comprising George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty.

Harrison was in Los Angeles and in need of a B-side for a single from his album Cloud Nine, which resulted in the participants collaborating informally on the song "Handle with Care" at Dylan's home.

In early April 1988, George Harrison was in Los Angeles and needed to record a B-side for a European 12-inch single.

[5] "Handle with Care" was considered too good to be used as a B-side, so Harrison decided to form a band and record another nine songs for an album.

The group got together again for nine days in May, recording the basic tracks and vocals at Dave Stewart’s home studio in Los Angeles.

Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and with his plethora of pseudonyms as a session musician, including L'Angelo Misterioso, George O'Hara and Hari Georgeson.

[6] With the Traveling Wilburys, this concept was taken a step further, since the participants' real names do not appear anywhere on the album, liner notes, or the songwriting credits.

According to statements by Harrison in the documentary The True History of the Traveling Wilburys (filmed in 1988 about the making of the album and re-released on the bonus DVD included in The Traveling Wilburys Collection), the whole band gave various contributions to all songs, although each song was mainly written by a single member; the joint songwriting credit came from the fact that giving individualised credits looked egotistical.

We'd finish around midnight and just sit for a bit while Roy would tell us fabulous stories about Sun Records or hanging out with Elvis.

[10] Released on October 18, 1988, in the US, Volume One became a surprise commercial success, reaching number 3 in the US and selling 2 million copies there within six months.

While Harrison and Petty had recent successes, Dylan, Orbison (who died of a sudden heart attack on December 6, 1988) and Lynne had not seen an album climb that high in several years.

In his book The Encyclopedia of Popular Music, Colin Larkin describes the Traveling Wilburys as "the last of the great supergroups" and writes of the band's accidental origins: "This wonderful potpourri of stars reintroduced 'having a good time' to their vocabulary and the result was not a Harrison solo album but the superb debut of the Traveling Wilburys.