(Credits: Far Out / The Traveling Wilburys)
Sat 3 January 2026 20:30, UK
The experience of being in the Traveling Wilburys must have felt like going on to rock and roll heaven for Tom Petty.
He was a fan of everybody he was working with long before he got the call to jam on ‘Handle With Care’, and even if he was a bit young by everyone’s standards, he didn’t need to pay his dues compared to everyone else. He was every bit the rock and roll star that everyone else was, but after years working among his famous friends, there were certain people who were bound to stick with him for life.
Then again, every single one of the band members felt like a personal friend to Petty after a while. Although he only got to know Roy Orbison for a short amount of time, the heartland rocker admitted that there was no one in the world who seemed nicer than him whenever he got behind the microphone. Both albums they made were a joy to work with, and all the talk that people say about not meeting one’s heroes didn’t apply here.
Petty had a front row seat to watch all of the best writers in the world write their songs, and it’s not like he didn’t take some of that magic for himself. It’s not necessarily an accident that he and Jeff Lynne eventually got to work on Full Moon Fever together in the next few months after the first Wilburys album, but how does one even manage to strike up a friendship with Bob Dylan and George Harrison?
Both of them had single-handedly shaped rock and roll during their time in the spotlight, but Petty seemed like a fish in water when talking to Dylan. Despite being the kind of artist who seems to work alone on pretty much everything he does, the Heartbreakers felt completely natural whenever he started kicking into some of his classics. All of them knew where to go, but the reason why Petty became a Wilbury had everything to do with Harrison.
After all, Harrison was the one who first had the idea for the band back in the day, and when listening to him describe putting the band together, Petty managed to be there purely by happenstance. The former Beatle had already left his guitar at Petty’s house before going into the studio with the rest of the guys, and after casually asking Petty if he wanted to drop in on the session, his musical little brother started to become a fully fleshed-out member in no time.
While the band never had the opportunity to get together for a third album, Petty said that he would never forget the way that Harrison made him feel all throughout his life, saying, “He was the funniest guy I ever met. Such a keen sense of humor. A lot of fun. A wise person. He really wanted to know the meaning of it all. But at the same time, he was really light-hearted and tremendous fun. [Laughs] Just tremendous fun. And we got along so well. There’s really not a day that I don’t think about him.”
A lot of that may have come down to Harrison’s dry humour, but his outlook on life was half the reason why people related to him so much. Not everyone wanted to feel like they were being preached at whenever Harrison wrote tunes like ‘My Sweet Lord’, but it was never about trying to tell people how to live their lives. He had simply found peace in praising his higher power, and you could feel that sense of euphoria every time he made one of his records.
But more than anything, what Petty saw in Harrison was someone that seemed to get the most out of life whenever they woke up in the morning. Being a member of one of the most popular bands of all time certainly didn’t hurt, but of all the former Beatles, Harrison seemed to feel the most human by the time he passed away.
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