vintage

Intro to the track of the week series

The track this week is by legendary supergroup the Traveling Wilburys: George Harrison, Tom Petty, Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan and Jeff Lynne. I can’t think of a supergroup more stacked than that, to be honest!

The band was only active for a period of a few years, releasing their first record in 1988 and the follow-up in 1990 (the re-release of both records with a companion DVD, titled The Wilbury Collection, hit shelves last year). Everybody shared in the songwriting and singing duties, and between the five of them most of the instrumentation was covered, although sideman Jim Keltner drummed for both albums.

I’ve always loved the Wilburys; Volume 1 was one of my first favourite albums, and I carried the cassette around in my backpack to and from school so I could listen to it. I used to say that I liked George Harrison’s voice “because it always sounds like he’s smiling when he’s singing”. The production on both the records is terrific, too — the guitars sound absolutely fabulous, probably due to the large amount of steel-string acoustics, and the drum sound is among my favourites ever. Whatever they did, they did it well.

The track today is from their second record, Volume 3, written and recorded after the death of Roy Orbison, and it’s the final track on the album. Tom Petty sounds as cool as he ever did, Jeff Lynne is clearly having a good time, and the guitars sound marvelous. The lyrics don’t hurt either:

Put your hand on your head, put your foot in the air
Then you hop around the room in your underwear
Ain’t never been nothing quite like this,
Come on baby it’s the Wilbury Twist

Lift your other foot up, fall on your ass
Get back up, put your teeth in a glass
Ain’t never been nothing quite like this,
It’s a magical thing called the Wilbury Twist

Hope you enjoy! (I expect videos of everybody trying to actually do the Wilbury Twist.)

Tunesday 3: Wilbury Twist