The Traveling Wilburys didn’t really need any other people around them to create magic by themselves. Every one of them was a legend in their own right when they showed up to have a few jam sessions together, and looking at the way that George Harrison handpicked everybody, he was more interested in having a nice group of friends than working on whatever professional level that happened to be at when they met.
Then again, Harrison was never going to settle for people who were merely passable on their instruments.
Even if the band was the first of its kind to have five rhythm guitar players, the songwriting was what mattered half the time. Harrison liked people who could cut to the chase whenever they played, and whether that was the matter-of-fact delivery of Bob Dylan or hearing Tom Petty put some grit behind his songs like ‘Last Nite’, it was about trying to find that perfect line that perked up everyone’s ears while they wrote.
But not all of the magic could be created by five guys who all primarily play guitar. Jeff Lynne can play nearly anything he got his hands on and was a production genius in many respects, but he’s still only one man, and there’s no way that he should be expected to handle everything when they’re looking for a great horn line or if they needed someone to shred the same way that Eric Clapton did.
They needed some additional people, and while Jim Keltner was the one true honorary Wilbury by providing the backbeat on every song, some of the best artists in the group are the ones who fade into the background. The spectacle might be based around seeing these five people onstage and jamming together, but if you took the others out of the equation, things might have sounded a bit more hollow than usual.
So, who were the guest musicians with The Traveling Wilburys?
First off, Keltner was never going to hold down the percussion alone. Harrison had already used plenty of sidemen during his history, and Ray Cooper served as the perfect foil to Keltner whenever he played. His contributions may be limited to only a shaker here and a few more percussion layers, but when listening to the kind of rhythmic attack you get on songs like ‘Rattled’, it makes sense why he would be needed more often than not.
Everyone might start production by getting the drums right first, but there are always some lines that not even Harrison’s slide guitar could sell. And while they never needed to bring in an orchestra, the idea of getting Jim Horn to play the saxophone on both their records was a no-brainer. I mean, this is the equivalent of the classic rock Avengers coming together for a record, so why not get the same guy who worked magic all over Pet Sounds and rubbed elbows with everyone from Paul McCartney to Steely Dan to get the horn lines sounding perfect?
That worked like a charm, but there was bound to be an element missing once Roy Orbison passed away before Vol. III came out. There was no way anyone could have replaced him, but listening back to their next record as a whole, it benefits from sounding a little bit more like garage rock, especially with a blistering guitar solo from Gary Moore on ‘She’s My Baby’. Harrison could certainly play the blues like no one else, but having Moore bring a little bit of fire to the track was the kind of move that not even Clapton could have pulled off.
Although the band was fairly tight-knit outside of a handful of friends coming to the party, each of them may as well have been musical sidekicks half the time. They weren’t always there to be in the spotlight, but they shone as brightly as the musical legends beside them when they took centre stage.