Charlie T. Wilbury, Jr., Otis Wilbury and Nelson Wilbury (a.k.a. Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne and George Harrison) at the WEA post-Grammy Awards party held at Chasen’s on February 22, 1989; photo by Tony Fornaro.
“A part of [George] wanted to do that [tour with the Wilburys]. That would come up, usually when we were a bit happy [smiles]. Then the next day, it was gone. He couldn’t come to terms with it. At one point, he said, ‘We should get a ship, just sail around. We could pull into a cove and play to guys in outrigger canoes. And we’ll call it the Sponsor Ship. We’ll paint a different corporate logo on it every day. That’ll pay for the trip.’ He was so funny. His biggest problem was the machinery of managers and booking agents. He said to me once, ‘I can’t face waking up in Philadelphia and having to go to the soundcheck.’” - Tom Petty, Rolling Stone (2009) “George had this idea, they would get on a ship and they would go somewhere — and it’d be called a ‘sponsor ship’ — and they’d go around and pull up in ports in the South Pacific and play concerts. It was fantasy, kind of a fantasy thing.” - Olivia Harrison, WNYC (2011) “I wish we [The Traveling Wilburys] had [toured]. When we did ‘The Concert for George,’ and Jeff came out with us and we did ‘Handle with Care,’ I remember thinking at that moment that George would have loved this so much.” - Tom Petty, MassLive Archives (June 2007) “Live, I don’t know… Tom Petty says, ‘Well, I’m waitin’, soon as I see the big W in the sky, I’ll be there!’” - George Harrison, VOX (September 1992) “It’s kind of stupid what we didn’t do more. I used to say, ‘Just flash the big W in the sky like the bat signal, and we’ll all come.’ We just thought we had all the time in the world.” - Tom Petty, Men’s Journal (August 2014)
