(Credits: Far Out / Ирина Лепнёва)

In the late 1980s, George Harrison formed possibly the most star-studded supergroup in history, The Traveling Wilburys. The former Beatle teamed up with his old friend Bob Dylan and the legendary country-pop crooner Roy Orbison and enlisted two of The Beatles’ biggest fans, Jeff Lynne and Tom Petty. Of course, by this point, Lynne and Patty were legends in their own rights, but if it had not been for the Fab Four, they likely wouldn’t have pursued music careers.

This weird and wonderful convergence of talent began during George Harrison’s late comeback. In 1987, Harrison began work on his 11th solo studio album, Cloud Nine, and brought ELO star Jeff Lynne to assist with production duties. Following the album’s success, especially with the lead single ‘Got My Mind Set on You’, the pair decided to create the ultimate supergroup.

When Lynne and Petty, who had idolised Harrison and Dylan since his early teens, had finished pinching themselves, the group set about recording their debut album. Most of the sessions took place at Harrison’s 16-track tape-based recording studio, FPSHOT, at his Victorian neo-Gothic mansion in Henley-on-Thames, Friar Park.

With their career peaks behind them, Traveling Wilburys wanted the project to be as stress-free as possible. As heard in the breezy, country-infused music, the recording sessions were protracted jams full of laughter and friendship. Harrison’s son, Dhani, once reflected on the period as surreal, given that he would return from a day at school to find Bob Dylan chilling in the living room.

Famously, Harrison and his son had an extremely close relationship, and the former Beatle would always introduce him to his famous friends. “I hung out with my parents. I was always trying to be with the big kids, and the big kids at my house were like Jeff Lynne,” Dhani said. “You’d come home, and it was like, ‘Bob Dylan’s here.’ It’s hard to get a bit of perspective on, like, ‘How did your school test go today?'”

Continuing, Dhani remembered FPSHOT as a sacred yet inviting part of the house. “I grew up in that studio,” he said. “As a kid, I remember sneaking in, seeing how far I could get in before anyone saw me. You’d smell cigarette smoke, and I’d be thinking: ‘I’m not supposed to be here.’ […] It was mind-bending. It offers you a different perspective on life to have these people around the house. It made going to school easier because you wouldn’t take yourself so seriously.”

Speaking to Paul Zollo in 2004, Petty concurred with Dhani’s depiction of a familial atmosphere at Friar Park. “It was like a community kind of thing. I had never done it that way,” he beamed. “Usually, somebody would find the thread. Like, okay, here’s what this is: Here’s the title, and here’s the idea. And we all had usually sketched out the track.”

The Heartbreakers frontman noted how songwriting sessions would “sometimes that would carry on through dinner,” during which Dylan would always come into his own. “I remember being at dinner and the writing pad going around the table and discussion about the lyrics,” Petty continued. “Of course, Bob was really good at that. It was a real eye-opener just how brilliant he is. It was great to see him do it. He just has a really good sense of the craft of writing a song.”

Petty recalled that the music would usually come first as a result of jam sessions. Once they were happy with the instrumental idea, they would begin to devise some lyrics. I remember George having that song, ‘End Of The Line’. We were all sitting in a room singing, ‘It’s all right….’ And George had the ending of the line, ‘We’re going to the end of the line…’ He had that much together on that song.”

Petty recalled the ‘End of the Line’ session as a core memory from his career and one that would be near-impossible to match, let alone top. “it was quite an experience,” he said. “We probably will never see anything again like that.” Once fleshed out, the song was released as the second single and closing track on the debut album. Alongside ‘Handle with Care’, the song became a huge success in charts on both sides of the Atlantic.