Music / The True History Documentary
The True History of the Traveling Wilburys
If the Traveling Wilburys never played a live show, this documentary is the closest thing that exists to actually being in the room with them. The True History of the Traveling Wilburys runs about 24 minutes, and it is built almost entirely from footage shot during the making of Vol. 1 in the spring of 1988, meaning that unlike most band documentaries assembled decades after the fact from talking-head interviews, a large chunk of this one is genuine, unposed footage of five of the most famous musicians alive writing songs together in real time.
Where It Actually Came From
The footage's origin is a nice piece of trivia in itself: Harrison, ever the film producer at heart through his company HandMade, had cameras rolling throughout the Vol. 1 sessions and originally edited some of it into a short promotional reel for internal Warner Bros. staff, titled Whatever Wilbury Wilbury, complete with its own set of joke Wilbury credits for the (fictional) crew. That raw material sat largely unseen for nearly two decades before being reworked, expanded, and formally released as The True History of the Traveling Wilburys on the bonus DVD included with The Traveling Wilburys Collection in 2007. The documentary was directed by Willy Smax, produced alongside Olivia Harrison.
What's Actually in It
The documentary is structured loosely around the making of individual songs, moving through:
- Los Angeles, spring 1988: the band's formation and the earliest sessions
- "Last Night"
- "Tweeter and the Monkey Man"
- "Rattled"
- "Dirty World"
- "Not Alone Any More"
- "Congratulations"
- "End of the Line"
Alongside the 1988 material, the finished cut incorporates retrospective interviews recorded around 2007 with Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, plus Olivia Harrison, Barbara Orbison, and drummer Jim Keltner, filling in context and reflection that the original footage, shot in the moment, couldn't have captured on its own.
Why It's Worth Watching, Even if You Know the Story
Reviewing the documentary's inclusion on the 2007 reissue, PopMatters critic Michael Franco specifically praised its ability to turn familiar trivia into something closer to an emotional experience, pointing to how it captures the genuinely spontaneous inspiration behind tracks like "Last Night" and "Dirty World," reframing songs that most fans already know by heart as things that were once, quite recently, just an idea somebody floated over coffee in Dave Stewart's kitchen. It's one thing to read secondhand that Jeff Lynne remembers the band arriving each day around noon and finishing by midnight; it's another to actually watch it happening.
Where to Watch It
The True History of the Traveling Wilburys is included on the DVD packaged with every physical edition of The Traveling Wilburys Collection: standard, deluxe, and vinyl alike. It has not, as of this writing, received a standalone streaming release separate from the box set.
For everything else on the 2007 reissue, see our full Collection guide, or watch the band's five actual music videos, also included on the same DVD, here.