“I said, 'tomorrow I’m going to go into the studio, find some place, make up a tune and make this record'. So I said to Jeff ‘do you want to help?’": The story of the Travelling Wilburys, the star-studded supergroup that made it all look fun

George Harrison (1943 - 2001) and Bob Dylan in 1988.

The cliché is that supergroups are difficult. These coalitions of star names have a reputation of being combustive concoctions with a tendency to dissolve in clashing egos and acrimony. Think Cream, Audioslave. Crosby Stills Nash and Young…

But the corollary of that is the starriest, most super-group of all was by all accounts a breeze, with all five of its members getting what they wanted out of it. This was the Travelling Wilburys, the short-lived combo that contained one of the greatest voices of all time, one of the greatest lyricists, plus the guitarist in the most successful band. And Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty, who’d already enjoyed enormously successful careers themselves.