Electric Light Orchestra mastermind Jeff Lynne was in the midst of producing George Harrison’s 1987 comeback recording Cloud Nine when the former Beatles star made a left-field suggestion.
“As we were doing it, about three weeks in, George said to me, he said: ‘You know what? You and me should have a group.’ And I go [sarcastically]: ‘Wow, that’s a great idea! Who should we have in it?,'” Lynne tells VH-1. “And he says [matter of factly]: ‘Bob Dylan.’ And, of course, I’m thinking he’s going to say, like, Nigel Trilby, from up the road. But no, you know, Bob Dylan!”
A deeply incredulous Lynne then started riffing with Harrison, saying: “Bob Dylan?! Yeah, OK. Well, can we have Roy Orbison, then?” Harrison’s reply? “He said: ‘Yeah, of course we can. I know Roy; he’s great. Tom Petty? Let’s have Tom Petty in it, because he’s great.'”
A supergroup, as unlikely as it was offhanded, was in the making. “Everybody wanted to be in it,” Lynne says. “Nobody had a second thought; they just said “yes,’ and we made those 10 songs on the first album in 10 days. … It was a wonderful experience.”
Lynne also confirms work on a new songs with Bryan Adams, and confirms his plans to record a new Electric Light Orchestra album and then mount his first tour in decades. “Maybe, hopefully, early in the spring,” he says of the upcoming ELO studio project.
Jeff Lynne may have been producing George’s LP, but perhaps he hadn’t realised how big the man was, both as a person and a musician. Something that iconic Dylan and other major artists never did, obviously. The 3 Fabs had loads of connections!
3 Fabs? You mean Harrison, McCartney, and Starr (Lennon was diseased at the time)? I don’t think of Dylan as Fab. The term Fab has always been connected to The Beatles.
I often wondered why Bob Dylan? Yet, reading here, after Harrison asked Jeff Lynne, Dylan was Harrison’s next choice to be a part of the band, and then Tom Petty. I love Lynne’s choice of having Roy Orbison. Orbison to me was a special addition and is up there along with Harrison in my heart. His vocals are iconic and warm with a lot of heart. Dylan’s vocals are itchy and irritable as well as looking at photos of him, I never cared for Dylan. It was The Birds that made his song Tambourine Man a hit. I guess I never got the significance of Bob Dylan. What if someone really cool were in Dylan’s place? This is how I always felt about Traveling Wilburys. What is the attraction of Bob Dylan as I surely don’t see it, and I heard he wasn’t a cool, nice person, and was difficult (“had to walk on eggshells around him.”).