Who could have "replaced" Roy Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys?

Does a childhood friend count?

 

And here is rare photo of Roy without his sunglasses:

 

William Hung

 

Del Shannon was the first name that came to mind. Excellent point!!

 

Yeah but.... Not like George was really wanting to be in a band with Paul again.

 

Johnny Cash would of leveled up that second album for sure

 

why bring race into it?????

 

Morrissey

 

I think Tommy Scott from Space would have been a good choice.

 

Why did it have to be multicolored? It was a music group not some white supremacist club

 

Excellent point.
With Roy, you arguably had three generations of rockers in one band. Yeah, Roy was only a few years older than Dylan, but you get my drift. And yet he still had a connection to George Harrison from way back when The Beatles opened for him.

Someone mentioned Roger McGuinn, and it's funny because around the time of ( or just after) the first Travelling Wilbury's album, Elvis Costello was working with both Paul McCartney and Mc Guinn, so I daydreamed that that the three of them would get together as a side project/ super group and call themselves "Three Macs"---get it?

These are the kinds of thoughts I used to have when I didn't have anything else to worry about.

 

Bruce Springsteen
Eric Clapton

 

Springsteen would avoid something like this like the plague.

Clapton, yeah. I can see that.

 

Several of these suggestions are missing the part where the Traveling Wilburys was an excuse for a bunch of friends to hang out and have a good time. It wouldn't make sense to bring a virtual stranger in.

 

The rumor at the time was that Del Shannon was in line to replace Orbison.

 

That's a good point. But I think the "circle" that that these guys hang out with is much larger than we think, so there are a lot of connections with other musicians with these guys.

 

Yeah, but it wasn't just about connections. It was a specific group of personalities. Couldn't be anyone who would ruin the vibe.

Whenever George was asked about it he said at that point it would just make more sense to make a new group because The Traveling Wilburys was what it was. It happened naturally.

 

KD Lang no doubt. This is one mesmerising performance.

 

here's a way-silly-but fun idea. there was a singer still alive in the late 80's, still doing concerts, who was a huge fan of at least one of Harrison's songs, which he covered in many of his concerts at the time, (tho he used to talk about the song as a lennon/mccartney song at first)... and at his retirement concert benefit thing a few years later, dylan was an invited guest, singing a song that this singer could have sang (eerily it could have been written about this singer tho dylan wrote it about himself) and certainly, pre-dating Orbison, he was someone who was a 'big' musical figure to, presumably, all of them. His management would never have let him do it, i bet.. but wouldn't it have been amazing to have..... frank sinatra?

i know, silly idea, but fun to think about...

 

Luciano Pavarotti?

 

Steve Wynn would have fit in well. Great songwriter/singer/guitarist with an excellent knowledge of the kind of music Wilbury's played and a lot of experience collaborating.

 

Jack Bruce.

 

From the suggestions so far I like Glen Campbell and Del Shannon most.

Or maybe Homer Flynn, eh?

 

Carl Wilson?

 

Intro by LP and then full-on Mozzer