Tom Petty Said the Traveling Wilburys Were Afraid to 'Spook' Bob Dylan Into Quitting

Tuesday, June 7, 2022

The Traveling Wilburys were a musical supergroup of George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Tom Petty. All were highly esteemed musicians, but Petty said they were particularly reverent of Dylan. While they treated him like they would anyone else, they looked up to him. Petty said that they worried that they might scare him into quitting the group.

Dylan invited Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to join him on a tour of Australia in 1986. They’d worked together before, so it was an easy decision for Petty.

“We’d all been huge Dylan fans, and we were very intrigued by the idea of playing with Bob,” Petty said, per American Songwriter. “So off we went. And that went on for two years. We’d do part of it and then more would get added on, and then more would get added on. We really did the world with Bob Dylan.”

Source: cheatsheet.com