"Conversations with Tom Petty," the first book to focus solely on the life and work of the man responsible for some of the most memorable rock anthems of our generation, will be released on November 1 by Omnibus Press. Written by Paul Zollo, the book's release will precede the 30th anniversary of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' first album which was released in November 1976.
Zollo conducted a series of in-depth discussions with Petty over a six-month period. Below is an excerpt from "Conversations with Tom Petty" which tells the story of how the legendary Traveling Wilburys were formed:
(Paul Zollo): That middle section [of "Handle With Care"], "I'm so tired of being lonely" is so perfect for Roy [Orbison]'s voice. Did George [Harrison] and Jeff [Lynne] write it for Roy?
(Tom Petty): Yeah. They wrote it specifically for Roy. Because it just turned out that everybody was there that day. I think George always had the idea in his head of the Traveling Wilburys. Actually, we had all been hanging out for some time by then. We had all been hanging out socially. I think maybe we had already done part of "Full Moon Fever" by that point. Probably recorded part of it. Roy had just come on the scene, because Jeff was going to do a track with Roy. The first day I met Roy, Jeff and I and Roy wrote that song, "You Got It." "Anything you want, you got it..." We had written that song. So everybody knew each other. We had been hanging out. And George decided - cause he was just trying to do an extra track for a single - so he thought, if we're all here, let's design something for each of us to sing on. And when we got the record on, he felt it wasn't really a George Harrison record, it's more of a group. So what do you say we have a group? So that's how that ball got rolling. It was a great band. It was really fun being in that band.
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