Music / Vol. 3 (1990)

Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 (1990)

Released: October 29, 1990 (UK) / October 30, 1990 (US) Label: Wilbury Records, distributed by Warner Bros. Producers: Spike Wilbury (George Harrison) and Clayton Wilbury (Jeff Lynne) Certification: Platinum (RIAA, US) Chart peak: #11 (US), #14 (UK)

Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 is the band's second and final studio album, deliberately and mischievously misnumbered by George Harrison, who according to Jeff Lynne wanted to "confuse the buggers." (We've dedicated a full explainer to that particular mystery.) Recorded as a foursome following Roy Orbison's death in December 1988, it's a rowdier, more polished record than its predecessor, and it carries his absence in every quiet corner of the credits.

Personnel

• Spike Wilbury (George Harrison): acoustic, electric, and slide guitars, mandolin, sitar, lead and backing vocals
• Clayton Wilbury (Jeff Lynne): acoustic and electric guitars, bass, keyboards, lead and backing vocals
• Boo Wilbury (Bob Dylan): acoustic guitar, harmonica, lead and backing vocals
• Muddy Wilbury (Tom Petty): acoustic guitar, lead and backing vocals
• Ken Wilbury (Gary Moore): lead guitar on "She's My Baby"
• Jim Keltner: drums and percussion; Ray Cooper: percussion; Jim Horn: saxophones

Recording

Sessions began in March 1990 at a rented house at the top of Coldwater Canyon in Bel Air, which the band nicknamed "Camp Wilbury," before wrapping in July at Harrison's Friar Park studio in England. "Inside Out" was reportedly the first song the group tackled, with Harrison later recalling that he, Petty, Lynne, and Dylan had the music finished "within an hour" of sitting down, a moment that convinced him the band could still function without Orbison. The song's environmental theme emerged from the group's usual collaborative lyric-writing method, batting lines back and forth in real time, one member floating an image, another topping it, until a verse existed.

Tracklist

1. She's My Baby: the lead single, featuring a guest guitar solo from Gary Moore (credited as "Ken Wilbury"). Reached number 2 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock chart.
2. Inside Out: the first song written for the album, tackling environmental themes with the band's usual light touch.
3. If You Belonged to Me
4. The Devil's Been Busy
5. 7 Deadly Sins: doo-wop styled, built around a shared-vocal arrangement.
6. Poor House: a country stomp, written primarily by Lynne.
7. Where Were You Last Night?
8. Cool Dry Place
9. New Blue Moon
10. You Took My Breath Away
11. Wilbury Twist: the band's closing statement: a deliberately ridiculous novelty dance number, and the last new Wilburys recording ever released. Read more about the song and its video here.

A related non-album single, a cover of "Nobody's Child," was recorded during the same sessions and released in June 1990 as a charity single for Olivia Harrison's Romanian Angel Appeal.

Reception

Vol. 3 was received warmly but without the disbelieving delight that greeted Vol. 1: reviewers generally agreed the record was enjoyable without quite recapturing the fluke energy of ten days in a rented kitchen, an unavoidable consequence of both Orbison's absence and the higher expectations a sequel inevitably carries. Writing in Rolling Stone in 2002, Greg Kot pointed to the album's "ingratiating goofiness" as one of its more endearing qualities, and both "She's My Baby" and "Inside Out" became genuine rock radio hits in their own right. The album was dedicated, in its liner notes, to "Lefty," Roy Orbison's Vol. 1 alias.

Read the story of the band's first, Orbison-featuring album on the Vol. 1 page, or see how both records were brought back into print on the 2007 Collection reissue page.