Studio slang from George Harrison and Jeff Lynne led to the naming of their Bob Dylan-featuring supergroup

Studio slang from the recording collaborations of George Harrison and Jeff Lynne led to the naming of their Bob Dylan-featuring supergroup.

The Beatles’ Harrison and Electric Light Orchestra frontman Jeff Lynne gave The Traveling Wilbury’s their name after coining a term for burying mistakes in the mix. The History section of the supergroup’s website confirms the origins, with a unanimous decision between Dylan, Lynne, Harrison, as well as Tom Petty of The Heartbreakers and Roy Orbison, leading to the group’s final name. The band’s origins were described as a “happy accident” which spawned two albums from the supergroup, with tracks like End of the Line and Handle With Care standout songs from the five-piece.

The Traveling Wilbury’s website reads: “Once the idea of a full, collaborative album was in front of us, George took over. The five frontmen (Harrison, Lynne, Petty, Dylan, and Orbison) decided not to use their own names.

“George and Jeff had been calling studio equipment (limiters, equalizers) ‘wilburys.’ So first they named their fivesome The Trembling Wilburys. Jeff suggested “Traveling” instead. Everyone agreed.”

The term “wilbury” came from a shorthand expression used by Lynne and Harrison, which meant “will bury in the mix” for limiters and euqalisers. A post to the r/TodayILearned subreddit saw one user share: “The Traveling Wilburys are named after a slang term that George Harrison and Jeff Lynne gave to studio equipment.

“They referred to equalizers and limiters as ‘wilburys’, as in ‘we’ll bury that mistake in the mix’.” Fans were delighted by the fact, and found the origins of track Handle With Care even more interesting than the name origins.

One fan wrote: “Handle With Care was meant to be a B-side to a single released from Harrison’s Cloud Nine. The label reps heard the song and said, ‘No way this is a B-side. Can we get an album of this stuff?’ They only had about 8 or 10 days to write and record the record (ultimately called Volume I) because Dylan was scheduled to start touring.

I love the fact that their second album was titled Volume III. Some say that Volume II was Petty’s Full Moon Fever, which Jeff Lynne produced and the others made appearances on. Others say that it was just George being George. And what would this have been without Buster “Jim Keltner” Sidebury?

Mo Ostin of Warner Bros. Records, added: “The birth of the Traveling Wilburys was a happy accident. Warner Bros. Records’ International Department had asked that George Harrison come up with a B-side for This Is Love, a single from his Cloud Nine album. At the time, it was customary to couple an A-side with a never-before-heard track, giving the single extra sales value.

“This was mid-1988. Cloud Nine was just out. George, along with cowriter Jeff Lynne and their friends Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, and Roy Orbison, had been hanging out in Dylan’s studio. I suppose George figured that as long as his pals were on hand, why not use them to knock off this flipside?

“A couple of days late,r George came by my office to play the new B-side. We went next door to A&R head Lenny Waronker’s office so he could hear it too. George played us Handle With Care. Our reaction was immediate. This was a song we knew could not be wasted on some B-side.

“Roy Orbison’s vocal was tremendous. I really loved the beautiful guitar figure that George played. The guys had really nailed it. Lenny and I stumbled over each others’ words, asking, ‘Can’t we somehow turn this into an album?” (I also had a suspicion that perhaps George had been hungering for another band experience.)

“I’m glad that a song that had once been destined for semiobscurity as a B-side became the catalyst for something so lasting and joyful. Rolling Stone magazine named Traveling Wilburys, Volume 1 one of the 100 Best Albums of All Time.”