Tom Petty recalls: "T.W. was George Harrison's idea"
From the day his name first appeared on a record to the day he died, George Harrison was destined to forever be associated with one band and one only, The Beatles.
Harrison’s experiences during the last days of The Beatles put him off forming his own band, like McCartney’s Wings or John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band, after the Fab Four broke up in 1970. (excerpt from Faroutmagazine)
But by the late ’80s, Harrison began to envision a new group, one made up of friends who were easy to hang out with and featured full contributions from all involved. No power struggles, no tension – just good times and good music.
Harrison got the opportunity when he began working with Jeff Lynne on Harrison’s comeback LP Cloud Nine. Lynne represented the first piece of the puzzle, and each of them picked who they would want in the group. Harrison wanted Bob Dylan, while Lynne wanted Roy Orbison, with whom Lynne was recording Mystery Girl at the time. Harrison and Lynne also befriended Tom Petty, who backed up Dylan with the Heartbreakers during Dylan’s 1987 ‘Temples in Flames’ tour.
It all came together when Harrison was contractually obligated to record a B-side for the European single of Cloud Nine‘s ‘This is Love’. Harrison, Lynne, and Orbison decided to record the song impromptu, and asked Dylan if they could use his home studio. Realising he didn’t have a particular guitar he wanted, Harrison went to Petty’s house to retrieve it. While there, Harrison invited Petty along, and the Traveling Wilburys were born.
In the months following Harrison’s death in 2002, Petty gave an interview to Rolling Stone where he remembered his friend and talked of the special place the Wilburys had in his heart.
“George absolutely adored the Wilburys,” Petty said. “That was his baby from the beginning, and he went at it with such great enthusiasm. The rest of his life, he considered himself a Wilbury… His enthusiasm was very contagious in a recording session, in a writing session. He just had unbridled enthusiasm.”
“George’s idea of a band was that everybody hung,” Petty continued. “From what he told me, the Beatles were that way. They were very, very tight. He really wanted the Traveling Wilburys to be like that. Like, ‘If we’re going to the party, we’re all going.’ I’m so glad I got to be in a band with him. He taught me so much.”
Unfortunately Harrison never got the opportunity, and 15 years after Harrison’s death, Petty followed into the great wide open. But their legacies live on, not just with their killer solo tracks, but also with the great work put to tape during their time in the Traveling Wilburys.
Petty recalled how he was awoken by a call from his management informing him about Orbison’s death. Shortly after, Petty received a call from Harrison.
“The next call was George, and I don’t even know if I should say what he said to me, but I will anyway,” Petty laughed. “When I came to the phone, he said, ‘Aren’t you glad it’s not you?’ I said, ‘Yeah, yeah I am’, and he said, ‘It’ll be OK, it’ll be OK, he’s still around. Just listen. That was all he had to say about it.”
Harrison was no stranger to grief following the death of John Lennon, and his relaxed blasé response to the death of Orbison was his coping mechanism.
“Free Fallin'” amused Lynne. “Then he starts laughing,” Petty remembered. “Honestly, I thought I was just amusing Jeff but then I got to the chorus of the song and he leaned over to me and said the word, ‘freefalling.'”
During an interview with GQ, Petty described the impact “Free Fallin'” had on his life. “And there’s not a day that goes by that somebody doesn’t hum ‘Free Fallin” to me or I don’t hear it somewhere,” Petty revealed. “It’s become synonymous with me, I guess. But it was really only 30 minutes of my life.”
Even if “Free Fallin'” didn’t take very long to write, Petty loved it. He thought the chords of the song sounded great. In the same vein, Lynne called the finished song “incredible.”
“Free Fallin'” became a massive hit. According to Spin, the song peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100. It’s Petty’s highest-charting single that isn’t credited to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The song’s parent album, Full Moon Fever, became popular as well. The album peaked at No. 3 on the Billboard 200.
