The Traveling Wilburys Revisited – enjoyable hype (which didn’t work)

The Traveling Wilburys Revisited, broadcast by BBC Radio 2 on Saturday, was a promo for the about-to-be reissued box set. Before hearing it, I was wavering about buying the new product as I’ve had the two albums from 1988 and 1990 on vinyl/tape/CDR for ages.

An hour of historical footage from a George Harrison interview, old and new selling by Jeff Lynne and the voices of Tom Petty and Jim Keltner convinced me not to bother: “this is mainstream show biz hype”, I thought and I duly recoiled.

I’d rather listen to Dylan (and Orbison and Petty) on solo recordings; neither of the two Brits floats my boat. And the new bonus stuff has minimal Dylan interest: the programme played three of the four new bonus audio tracks, and Dylan was hardly to be heard in the mix.

If I didn’t already own vols 1 and 3, I’d probably buy the new box for the Dylan contributions, notably Congratulations, Dirty World and Tweeter, but the release has insufficent Bob appeal.

While the programme was a fine outline of the Wilbury story, presenter Bob Harris’s droning led to me lose interest in the product. And when he described the Wilbury material as “wonderful music” (it most certainly ain’t), I knew I was being subjected to hype and decided to keep my plastic in my wallet.



Gerry Smith