RIP Tom Petty

A genuinely great lyricist, and leader of a killer band.

From Twitter, a full New Year's Eve 1978 show:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnS8577gBNc

Not that I am hopeful, but has that been officially confirmed by anyone but TMZ yet?

sadly TMZ pretty much always gets these things right. damn.

oh man

Oh FFS, a shitty day just got worse.

'taken off life support' i'm seeing. I suppose not because he's doing better.

Surprised I found some words but I guess I did.

http://nedraggett.tumblr.com/post/165979442637/not-an-active-fan-never-saw-him-or-had-any-of

RIP. He always felt like the last Classic Rock guy to me, the end of a generation/way of playing + writing.

It's flippant to say it but I kinda figured by default he'd be the last Wilbury to go. Not the middle one.

Rest In Power, Tom.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-petty-on-past-confederate-flag-use-it-was-downright-stupid-20150714

Again, people just need to think about how it looks to a black person. It's just awful. It's like how a swastika looks to a Jewish person. It just shouldn't be on flagpoles.

Beyond the flag issue, we're living in a time that I never thought we'd see. The way we're losing black men and citizens in general is horrific. What's going on in society is unforgivable. As a country, we should be more concerned with why the police are getting away with targeting black men and killing them for no reason. That's a bigger issue than the flag. Years from now, people will look back on today and say, "You mean we privatized the prisons so there's no profit unless the prison is full?" You'd think someone in kindergarten could figure out how stupid that is. We're creating so many of our own problems.

rip big man, heaven needed another 20% of the traveling wilburys

RIP. Although he wasn't really my cup of tea, he clearly had the respect of a hell of a lot of notable musicians and, in spite of him mostly being an American phenomenon, he definitely made his mark.

This is the first "celebrity death" since Prince that's brought me to tears.

</3

=(

One hell of a songwriter.

It has been confirmed.

JUST IN: Rocker Tom Petty is dead at 66, Los Angeles Police Department confirms to CBS News pic.twitter.com/XJp3mc69Rl

— CBS News (@CBSNews) October 2, 2017

don't think anyone made the flying V look cooler

He certainly put on one of the few arena shows I've enjoyed, w/ Dylan @MSG, July '86.

Unlike Prince or Bowie (to name two recent examples), I don't feel compelled to listen to Tom Petty today. Those guys were foundational alchemists, a guy like Tom Petty was ... comfort. In the best possible way. It's a strange irony that that makes him harder to listen to right now.

I saw Amy Ray from the Indigo Girls do a killer cover of "Refugee" once that completely re-contexualized the song for me. Also helped me recognize how hard it is to write a universal anthem, let alone a few.

Fuck. A huge loss.

his last show was at the Hollywood Bowl just nine days ago. played there three nights in a row.

damn ): rip

Love tom petty. Have always loved tom petty. He could do that eternal byrds thing with better hooks than anybody.

Wahhh

um what

whatever their lives were actually like, all these guys...Bowie, Prince, Leonard Cohen, Tom Petty...they seemed like decent guys, good souls, and they tried to bring that to their music and personas. Tom Petty, he was a real performer. He almost reminded me of a silent movie actor, he was such a great, funny, warm presence onstage and in his videos.

Jon Not Jon and nomar otm, he was important to me ever since I started listening to music and was always there, like a familiar friend from high school who you don;t see very much but it's always cool when you do, the kind of classic rock that makes you happy when you hear it on the radio

The last two songs from what turned out to be his final show. If you're going to barnburn, do it like this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WNHB8vROg4

His might be my favorite still-active backing band. I could listen to Campbell or Tench play for days.

His last album was a robust little thing.

he was fucking great on King of the Hill too.

Aww, damn.

A great, consistent songwriter whom I've found it all too easy to take for granted over the years. Like, he's never someone I think of as a favourite of mine, but then "The Waiting" or "American Girl" or something else will come on the radio when I'm driving and for three or so minutes I'll think I'm hearing the most brilliant pop song ever written.

my first favorite musician, and I think my daughter's first favorite musician. as dadrock as you can get, I know. i thought about taking her to see him last summer for her first show but she's still pretty young. regretting that now.

TMZ's latest update indicates that things are still tangled but that ultimately the end is near:

Sources tell us at 10:30 Monday morning a chaplain was called to Tom's hospital room. We're told the family has a do not resuscitate order on Tom. The singer is not expected to live throughout the day, but he's still clinging to life. A report that the LAPD confirmed the singer's death is inaccurate -- the L.A. County Sheriff's Dept. handled the emergency.

RIP. one of the greats.

There's that great 4 hour documentary about Tom Petty, Runnin' Down a Dream. Watching it, the thing that strikes you is how little struggle he had, career-wise. Everybody loved him from the beginning. In Florida, he was instantly the top guy in his local music scene. Moves to LA, gets signed right away. His band Mudcrutch is dropped, but he gets a solo deal. First album has Breakdown and American Girl.

No years of toil, honing his craft. It was immediate success. It's a testament to how great he was (damn it sucks to type was

I thought his appearance on The Larry Sanders Show was v good. From memory he was squaring up to Clint Black and calling him "fucking Roy Rogers, here" or something similar.

Meanwhile Dylan lives.

Aw dammit. Dammit dammit dammit. I love Tom Petty, probably more than he deserves, but he's one of my all-time favorites. I love his singing more than anything else, he worked wonders with that whine.

Meanwhile Dylan lives.

DON'T FUCKING JINX IT

A shock. But worse for my poor mum. I may have to call her.

RIP. He was a good songwriter with a unique voice. Also RIP to one of the few current musical concerns that kept my mom buying records. She loved him!

Related to that, they're playing The Traveling Wilburys in my office right now. And it's like a party photo of someone gone, vs. a picture of them alone. It's good to hear.

(tom petty is not dead btw)

Didn't trust TMZ, but it's looking about as bad as possible. DNRs don't usually lead to happy outcomes.

xpost I think Petty worked really hard for his success, actually, an ambitious redneck playing everywhere from backyard parties and frat houses on up (like Van Halen did). If he got lucky at all it was by having his rise coincide right with MTV's, and also having Mike Campbell as a cohort. And also writing a dozen or so songs for the ages. That takes some luck, too.

What the fuck?

and I was listening to Into the Great Wide Open on Saturday.

i had been revisiting some of his latter day stuff last week and was struck by how great this one was:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqJS2nB4D4s

^^^ holy fuck, tylerw, "You and Me" is a jam. If Fleetwood Mac had released it, no one would've blinked.

totally. i remember staying away from the last DJ at first because of its cranky title track, but about half of it is fantastic.

Enjoying this bit of Garry Shandling and Petty hanging out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIvNe569Q9g

ah this year :-(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUiG7E1RYQA

My favorite of his ballads:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AQsqMndoM9E

same, may be his prettiest track

News and social media in 2017 is so fucked up it can't even get the death of Tom Petty right. There are headlines reporting he has died, and in the body of the same pieces those claims are being reported as unsubstantiated.

Casual fan myself, but bigger fans will appreciate that the classic rock station here (which has been gruesomely schizophrenic the past couple of years as they make the transition to Simple Minds) is treating his death with a much more personal touch than not just Walter Becker's, but also Bowie's; they've done what such stations should always do when a core staple of their playlist dies (Bowie and Steely Dan were also), which is to drop everything else and play that person's music non-stop. That's what radio does best.

He always felt like the last Classic Rock guy to me, the end of a generation/way of playing + writing.

Agree. When they played "Runnin' Down a Dream," I was thinking that that's the last time anyone would ever have a hit record that name-checked Del Shannon.

otm clemenza

Credit to her, I'd say.

Tom Petty's daughter is not here to play pic.twitter.com/ol65RU0yzT

— Gabe Meline (@gmeline) October 2, 2017

Fuck yeah

Is that real?

Tom Petty satellite radio station is playing it very carefully, hosts Bill Flanagan and David Fricke acknowledging repeatedly that things don't look good but there has yet to be official confirmation. Taking lots of sad phone calls. Lots of good stories.

xpost -- Gabe's a sharp reporter (and he lost friends in the Ghost Ship fire, so I trust him to be both cautious and OTM when it comes to anything regarding death reports).

I'll say this much. This is not an obituary any publication had lying around in wait.

I'm hearing still technically alive but life support pulled at family's request, unconscious, not expected to make it to tomorrow

may be his prettiest track

My pick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFFlTsYFxak

I'll say this much. This is not an obituary any publication had lying around in wait.

Eh, I'm sure those in the field know more but I'd disagree -- I've long understood that people of note definitely have obits prepped by media just in case, especially the older they get.

xp that linked track cuts off in the middle.
try this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_umeMtV4QU

At what age is it too early to ready someone's obituary?

A fave quieter moment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5o582N3wOQ

A fave ditty (with Buckingham on yelps):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfS6Nl962Qg

This song (and, say, a lot of the Wilburys stuff) shows how important a good melody really is. I grew up playing drums and never really thought about it much. Many years later I started playing guitar, and it struck me how useless so many guitar parts are without the vocal melody, from the Beatles on down. Quite remarkable, and really helped me respect Tom Petty, for the tastefulness of the playing and arrangements but mostly for the melodies.

Ned correct -- the bigger the notable, the younger they write em

At what age is it too early to ready someone's obituary?

Back when both Britney Spiers and Lindsay Logan were have their much-publicized problems, AP let it be known they'd drafted obits for quick turnarounds. So, age or noted issues are factors into what's prepared in advance.

Dumb phone.

But Petty had no (at least for years) real known issues, right? Unless being a rock star alone is enough.

doesn't matter, over 60

i'm sure all the major outlets have had a Bruce obit on file for 30 years

IIRC, the guy who wrote the NYT Castro obit died a few years before his subject.

Last job is to remove tributes from those that predeceased the subject.

That sounds like the premise of a Curb Your Enthusiasm or Veep subplot, where some insecure famous person is wondering if their obituaries have been prewritten or not, as a sort of status symbol.

My friends at the Miami Herald showed me their '01 A-matter of the Castro obit.

That sounds like the premise of a Curb Your Enthusiasm or Veep subplot, where some insecure famous person is wondering if their obituaries have been prewritten or not, as a sort of status symbol.

― Josh in Chicago, Monday, October 2, 2017 7:44 PM (fifteen minutes ago)

there was a great 30 rock episode about this!

The whole process of obituary writing was dealt with in detail in Obit last year, an excellent documentary about the New York Times obit department (including one time they were really caught short--I think it was Michael Jackson).

how tf did they not have one ready for him?

The list of big rock figures who might need obituaries is pretty long. I actually have a running tally of potentially shitty classic rock deaths (let's not even get into R&B):
Paul
Ringo
Plant
Page
Mick
Keith
Rod
Clapton
Bruce
Neil
Angus

And then Petty, who was always the one where I thought "this is going to feel a lot worse than anyone expects."

(Steven Tyler and Joe Perry are also up there, although that could be Allston bias showing. Stevie Nicks and Joan Jett too, with Chrissie Hynde probably as Petty's female analogue.)

(I know that's morbid. I write a lot of death related content.)

I forgot about Daltrey and Townsend and Dylan. See?

i know he is not dead but this is pretty sad news on top of really sad news today.

It really is.

RIP Tom Petty. this was such a crazy heavy day it is sad to see him go. i remember learning his music as a kid when it was on the radio. he had a very classic sound, he was the closest thing to a 60s artist operating 20 years later in real time. he had so many hits that sort of felt like maybe they could be different bands or something. i dunno, it was very Beatlesy, to later be like "Oh he did _this_ song?" to a whole bunch of classic tracks. i strongly remember hearing "Running Down a Dream" as a kid in the car and yeah "American Girl" and "Don't Come Around Here Nomore" and "Refugee". there are the classic videos they used to show on VH-1. i remember being a teenager and seeing "Last Dance With Mary Jane" and he was trying to do this 90s alt rock thing and pulling it the fuck off that video and song was so cool holy shit. anyways very sad to see him go. i look forward to exploring his music, i have only ever heard his singles and "Full Moon Fever", and will definitely pick up anything i find of his. RIP

...wait a fucking minute is he not dead? wtf?

Everyone assumes he's a singles artist until you've heard even one of his albums.

...wait a fucking minute is he not dead? wtf?

it's been a confusing day

i love the Traveling Wilbury's so much

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/business/media/tom-petty-cardiac-arrest.html

When CBS reported Mr. Petty’s death on Twitter, preceded by a capitalized banner “JUST IN,” the network attributed the news to the Los Angeles Police Department. In an article published online, there was no mention of the L.A.P.D., merely the phrase “CBS News has confirmed.” (CBS later deleted the tweet.)

Numerous other news outfits, including Entertainment Weekly, Slate and HuffPost, soon posted articles about Mr. Petty’s death, all attributing the news to CBS. Rolling Stone even got a statement from Bob Dylan, who said: “I thought the world of Tom. He was great performer, full of the light, a friend, and I’ll never forget him.”

But about an hour after the CBS report went online, the Los Angeles Police Department said it could not confirm his death, setting off mass confusion on social media over Mr. Petty’s actual condition. Mr. Petty, 66, had been taken to a hospital after going into cardiac arrest at his home in California, TMZ reported. But while TMZ had also reported that the singer was unresponsive and had been taken off life support, it never reported that he was dead.

Yeah, been saying that on Twitter -- TMZ, for all of what it is, consistently avoiding saying he had actually passed.

AvoidED, I should say.

"Unresponsive and taken off life support" seems a pretty standard euphemism for "dead," which makes it extra confusing.

Re: Petty the album artist, he's in a weird purgatory for me. Clearly he is a great singles artists, and there are a lot of great album tracks that weren't singles, but weirdly not many (imo) of his albums are great, as such. I think that's one reason "Wildflowers" is held in such high esteem, because it seems closest to a traditional "great album," the whole package.

I'm astounded that both "Change of Heart" and "Straight into Darkness" were singles, the former top 40, but they've almost been relegated to deep cut status for all the play they get (that is, seemingly none)

Meanwhile, the lack of confirmation of Petty's status stems from, well, just that. It's weird that the family has yet to even put out a statement. Obviously they are entitled to their privacy, but lack of word seems ominous.

And then Petty, who was always the one where I thought "this is going to feel a lot worse than anyone expects."

maura otm

I think that's one reason "Wildflowers" is held in such high esteem, because it seems closest to a traditional "great album," the whole package.

Also DTT and even Hard Promises in recent years

Now here's a tale.

From my 2011 Set List w/ Dave Stewart, here's his very funny story about how he came to work w/ Tom Petty on Don't Come Around Here No More. pic.twitter.com/UfY0aNUl7y

— Will Harris (@NonStopPop) October 3, 2017

maura just seeing keef’s name in that list gives me a panic ... feels like i’ve been bracing myself for it my whole life i dunno what’s gonna happen when that news finally hits

meantime i heard his cover of “feel a whole lot better” in the car on the way home and bawled my eyes out for the confusion & for the inevitable confirmation ;_;

xp Ned that's great, thanks

Even better:

On The Howard Stern Show, Stewart explained that the title's phrase was actually uttered by Nicks. She had broken up with Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh the night before,[2] and invited Stewart to her place for a party after an early Eurythmics show in Los Angeles. Stewart did not know who she was at the time, but went anyway. When the partygoers all disappeared to a bathroom for a couple of hours to snort cocaine, he decided to go upstairs to bed. He woke up at 5am to find Nicks in his room trying on Victorian clothing and described the entire scenario as very much reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. Later that morning, she told Walsh, "Don't come around here no more."

For the record, Petty says "Don't Come Around Here..." was a nightmare to record and the band hated it.

Hilariously, it remains my favorite song by them.

I can never remember most of side two of damn the torpedoes.

I listened to it an hour ago and forgot how poignant "Louisiana Rain" is.

Yeah we had that on tonight too. "I may never be the same when I reach Baton Rouge." 2nd side of DTR is good -- "Don't Do Me Like That" is top 10 Petty for me, and "Louisiana Rain" is great. "You Tell Me" is totally fine, and "What Are You Doin' in My Life" is the most unfairly overlooked song on the record.

DTT I mean

The list of big rock figures who might need obituaries is pretty long. I actually have a running tally of potentially shitty classic rock deaths (let's not even get into R&B):
Paul
Ringo
Plant
Page
Mick
Keith
Rod
Clapton
Bruce
Neil
Angus

Elton and Brian W. maybe not as classic rock as some of these but would be just as devastating.

Re Damn the Torpedoes, if any album could keep up the momentum of those first three tracks alone it would truly be one for the ages. Hell, despite housing plenty of good songs, I suspect a huge hunk of that album's reputation stems from Refugee alone. Perhaps rightly so.

my job requires me to keep a list of potential shitty deaths too, and my current rock list also includes my beloved billy joel, joni mitchell and the brothers davies.

"Refugee" is a fucking powerhouse but "Don't Do Me Like That" is my favorite from DTT

his SNL performance from 83 is up on youtube for the moment and man...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI95tu8BMwU

Brian Wilson will be gross because it will be a loop of "teenage symphonies to god" followed by "God only knows"

wow @ that SNL performance

And whichever beatle is next will be gross bc when George died someone did a shop of his and John's face blacked out.

Sorry. Dark times.

Blacked out on meet the Beatles. Sorry still dark times.

Like a year or so before our Petty poll, I started picking up his early albums in order from CD bargain bins. Hearing them in that context helps underscore the leap forward DTT was--the first two LPs are nice, quick "barband made good" albums, and had they broken up then they would have been just a footnote; a couple cool hits, but NBD. But here comes My Girl album #3--by all accounts a make or break moment for the group--and everything falls into place: songs; singing; playing; production..., the whole fucking shebang. It's one of the greatest 'Flip The Switch' moments in Rock'n'Roll.

i'd forgotten that the world was tilted 45° in 1983

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJj6GwfCWu8

Behind The Music ep from when Echo was released.

As predicted, sadly.

Breaking: Tom Petty has died, his longtime manager has confirmed. Story to come. pic.twitter.com/08FEa3u3ON

— Los Angeles Times (@latimes) October 3, 2017

fuck 2016

RIP

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-tom-petty-20171002-story.html

The family's spokeswoman, publicist Carla Sacks, released this statement Monday night: “On behalf of the Tom Petty family, we are devastated to announce the untimely death of of our father, husband, brother, leader and friend Tom Petty. He suffered cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu in the early hours of this morning and was taken to UCLA Medical Center but could not be revived. He died peacefully at 8:40 p.m. PT surrounded by family, his bandmates and friends.— Tony Dimitriades, longtime manager of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers on behalf of the family.”

I never got to listen to the Dylan-hosted satellite radio channel, but I loved the heck out of the Tom Petty Buried Treasures show. He played all sorts of great stuff, with very affable fan-like introductions.

In August, a case of laryngitis forced him to postpone some performances on the 40th anniversary tour.

“It was scary,” he told The Times last week, in one of his final interviews. “It was very scary.”

But after several days of vocal rest, he was able to complete those shows, albeit a week late, then make a headline performance on Sept. 17 at the KaaBoo Music Festival in Del Mar en route to the homecoming shows at the Bowl on Sept. 21, 22 and 25.

Two days after the final performance, he rejected reports that the 40th anniversary string of shows would be the group’s swan song.

“Why would we quit?” he said. “The band is playing better than ever.”

Damn.

A favorite deep cut of mine from later in his career:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kA_fIkLPoVc

Decided TP as straight guy is stealth amazing: https://youtu.be/6SFNW5F8K9Y

at my request, after i got my citizenship, mr veg made “american girl” his ring tone for me

i dont even know when i first fell in love with Tom but it’s been a long time. my eternal rock n roll boyfriend, i never didn’t have a crush on his voice especially when he sang about my girl’s, she’s, or her’s. i even liked his grouchy later years.
he was a cool handsome grouchy funny talented dude

fare thee well...

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/63/1c/2c/631c2cd71e6bae0039e3194f7ff4015f--rock-bands-tom-petty-tattoo.jpg

<3

http://www.newsweek.com/tom-petty-lucky-king-hill-676150

RIP. great 'uplifting' songs. I bet he had helped a LOT of people through his music.

I got nothing yet... don't know if I will...

There's a great story in Trouble Boys about Tommy Stinson giving Petty shit for playing the Allentown Fair on the Full Moon Fever Tour. Basically joking that this sort of gig was beneath them. Petty reveals how much he was getting paid (it was A LOT) and leaves Stinson in stunned silence.

Someone earlier mentioned PEtty not having any classic albums, but I think it's overlooked just how consistently good his output has been over the years. His low points were probably Southern Accents and Let Me Up, but even those records have moments. His last three or four albums which no one really talks about are worth checking out too. RIP.

ha – Let Me Up is easily one of my top fives of his. I agree with Southern Accents, ruined by too many cooks and drugs.

can I just

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7bjXWzms5I

What is this Petty doesn't have classic albums b.s.?

And how is Damn the Torpedoes reputation based on Refugee when that's not even the best song on the album?

Listening to Full Moon Fever right now and god this is such a perfectly crafted piece of music

Re: Damn the Torpedoes, you can easily make the case it's not your favorite, but there's no denying Refugee.

Anyway, I gravitate toward that album mostly because I've lived my entire life hearing that it's his masterpiece, or a masterpiece, but I, personally, have never got that from it. Breakout hit, sure, but classic album? I dunno. He wrote a bunch of great singles and a bunch of great non-single songs, more than most human beings. Every one of his albums is worthwhile, no outright turds in the bunch. And yet I stand by what I said, that he's somehow still not a great album artist. It's not a criticism, imo, I just find his output very much in the classic vinyl mold: maybe 40 minutes of music, some absolutely classic hits, some great album songs, and then some filler. Back when people were counting down his best stuff here I re-listened to all those albums. Loved lots of them, but I haven't changed my mind.

I love Wildflowers best.

wildflowers suffers from cd-era bloat and yet it still just breezes by. it’s my fave too

part of that is down to the “you don’t know how it feels” video being my first encounter with petty

Wildflowers is my favorite too. I suspected the double disc version of Wildflowers that was promised a year or two ago will finally see a release now.

Also totally disagree with Josh. He has three classics IMO. DTT, FMF, and Wildflowers.

I just find his output very much in the classic vinyl mold: maybe 40 minutes of music, some absolutely classic hits, some great album songs, and then some filler

I agree with this. I just wrote something for Stereogum (it's not up yet) where I placed him in the lineage of Chuck Berry and Lemmy more than Dylan, and said that his albums are like Motörhead, AC/DC, or ZZ Top albums - four or five great songs, and then a bunch of others that are just better than whatever else is out there.

Not to pick on Josh, but, really, what else do we expect from good albums besides "40 minutes of music, some absolutely classic hits, some great album songs, and then some filler?" That's how it goes, that's how it should go. I don't listen for flawless albums - I assume they're flawed and make peace with them or explain how the flaws make the good stuff sound better.

Plenty of filler on Back in Black, Tres Hombres, and Full Moon Fever? You're out of your damn mind.

who cares if there is? They're good albums.

Plus, you said "plenty of" filler. I didn't. I wrote "some filler."

OK you're slightly less wrong.

oddly enough, i listened to SO MUCH tom petty last week. feel bad that i never went and saw him live. but i think he was always playing casinos around here and tickets were probably 200 bucks.

what was that more recent thread revive where we had a lot of good petty talk? i remember raving on there for days. reading that oral history/interview book made me go on the most epic petty binge. love that guy.

I liked "scare easy" from the Mudcrutch album…anyone listen to the two records, or see 'em? did they play any Heartbreakers shit?

reading that oral history/interview book made me go on the most epic petty binge. love that guy.

― scott seward, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 10:05 AM (nine minutes ago)

For real. Reading that interview book prompted a deep dive into his catalog a decade ago.

I will also add that there's a lot of "if you grew up in the USA, then TP soundtracked your life" going around. This is doubtful vis-a-vis the african american community, latino, ad infinitum… if you're a white kid, you bet, but saying that his appeal was universal is a consequence of having to pull pseudo-profundity out yr ass real fast with next-to-no editorial oversight…

This is doubtful vis-a-vis the african american community, latino, ad infinitum…

I would be willing to bet that Petty's appeal is broader than you think. He came up in the 70s and 80s, when things were (somewhat) more monocultural.

Weird reading the other mostly negative Petty thread in parallel with this one... esp. when you realize a lot of the negativity is on that thread is expressed by the same people getting all misty-eyed and nostalgiac on this one.

You might say death brings along a little...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McOu5lvMlrs

I know a lot of history has been forgotten/rewritten but I'm old enough to remember that Petty/Heartbreakers were tour-packaged along with The Ramones (their first UK/Europe tours) and even Petty/Ramones/Blondie in some late 70s LA shows (first west coast swings?).

He used to play a lot of soul and r&b on his radio show, but that is one thing I never really got from his music. For that matter, he sang a bit like Dylan, but I never really got any Dylan from his music, either. He's an interesting amalgam of generally not terribly interesting ingredients, which I think accounts for some of his appeal, or at least why and how he worked so well with everyone from Beatles to Dylan to Roger McGuinn to Johnny Cash.

The Zanes bio is great. You would think after the oral history and epic doc that would pretty much get the job done, but all three have a lot to offer, individually and collectively.

who cares if there is? They're good albums.

Well, it's not a matter of *caring." My person experience has been that if your album is 35-40 minutes long, and 2 or 3 songs are forgettable or filler, that doesn't leave much to grab onto, let alone bolster the act's reputation as more than just (one of the best ever!) singles acts. Still enjoyable discs, and I pretty much like them all, not *least* because they are generally pretty short. Like I said, there's a lot to love on all of his records, even when they eventually stretch out to an hour and prove harder to sift through. But his two-disc anthology imo more than does the guy justice.

xpost I've heard/read lots of stories of labels struggling to promote acts like Petty and Dire Straits when they first came up. It's astounding to think of those acts as left of center, or somehow too rough around the edges to market to the mainstream, but they had to work for their acceptance. Shows how conservative radio was back then, which my older friends will affirm, scarred by numerous cross country trips stuck listening to the Eagles on AM radio.

https://68.media.tumblr.com/0dc708019d780e5209eb145467c5c2c6/tumblr_o6ckwpD4pl1qzy30io1_1280.png

weirdly, i think the she's the one soundtrack is one of his best later albums (and most solid!) and i don't think a lot of people have ever heard it. but maybe i'm wrong.

I love this one, scott:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFIeeb5D9_k

I love She's the One. It has some of my favorite songs of his, and a couple of great covers.

She's The One really is great — it's amazing that it's chained to such a garbage movie.

otm

great beck cover

Walls was the single from that record. Not sure if it's true, but it feels like his last semi-big radio hit. I really dig the Last DJ which Jon Brion did some work on.

and Lucinda Williams!

post

"Walls (Circus)" was the last time I heard him on pop radio, but AOR radio played "Swingin'" and "Room at the Top" plenty.

Was "Walls" also the last time he made a video that got play?

does seem like he was the last of his ilk to get any MTV play — which is strange since he was such a fixture for about a decade.
i heard "saving grace" quite a bit on the radio out here when it came out, but i guess it was probably far from a "hit"

Echo was the last album that really pushed Petty as more than a nostalgia act, but they did score their first #1 record with Hypnotic Eye.

guy's music videos were usually pretty great

i love the "swingin'" video but that's prob bc it prominently stars a cat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4vJM4L2D2U

good early radio broadcast here: http://bigozine2.com/roio/?p=2865
and more live action here: http://www.ousterhout.net/mp3/tp.html
Heartbreakers really were an amazing band, so effortlessly tight, no showboating, but so many hooks.

i love watching the mudcrutch studio videos. very soothing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlYeq5f9lqM

if anyone can find that thread where a bunch of us went on and on about petty a few years back lemme know. i can't find it. it's not the redeemable qualities thread. sheesh, maybe it was five years ago. i can't remember now. maybe its on some non-petty thread.

really dig that he played bass in mudcrutch….

this one scott? YOU RANK ME BABY, YEAH YOU RATE ME 1-2 - ILM Artist Poll #71 - Tom Petty (results)

just came across this ad, must've been confusing for CBGB regulars
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OWj8uqAVMNs/TjBY6FGUSFI/AAAAAAAANSY/PHryzUvre1M/s1600/122076cb3.jpg

I know what you mean, scott. I'll try looking.

Meanwhile, from the 2015 poll thread

i keep tripping on how much Tom Petty and Elvis Costello's careers parallel. obviously both started out around the same time and their commercial fortunes rose and fell in roughly the same years, but also, like, they both started hanging out with a Beatle in the late '80s, they both permanently fell out with a longtime sideman in the mid-'90s.

― Shkreli, Martin & Wu (some dude), Wednesday, December 16, 2015 4:22 PM (

I wanna say the petty talk was on a dylan thread or something...

so many poll threads i never saw since i hid polls for so many years. i'll check those out too. i like reading about petty.

i just remember being high on that interview book and petty was it for me when that thread happened. maybe that live set had come out too. live through the years thing. double or triple disc. that was awesome. wish i still had a copy of that.

i keep tripping on how much Tom Petty and Elvis Costello's careers parallel. obviously both started out around the same time and their commercial fortunes rose and fell in roughly the same years, but also, like, they both started hanging out with a Beatle in the late '80s, they both permanently fell out with a longtime sideman in the mid-'90s.

― Shkreli, Martin & Wu (some dude), Wednesday, December 16, 2015 4:22 PM (

Dunno how many times they shared a bill, but this was likely one of the first:

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php/Chicago_Tribune,_December_5,_1977

fun version of nick lowe's crackin up from early on
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOxdkY0i-GE

I didn't really "love" Tom Petty but I liked a lot of his songs and I admired his work. I can't really think of another artist who did a better job of combining the singer-songwriter aesthetic and ethos of the 60s and 70s with just non-stop earworm hitmaking. Generally I found something about his songs a little bit less personal and his characters a bit more archetypal than those of some of his songwriter cousins, but maybe that's the tradeoff for the ability to have such a ridiculous number of hits.

One of the songs he insanely left off Southern Accents:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IM9kljsR358

it's kind of weird but i can't say i really know much about petty, despite classic rock being a huge chunk of what i've always listened to. i know a few of the hits obv but what are some of his classic albums? what's a good place to start?

xxp i dunno, i found him more relatable than Springsteen more often than not. Petty could be funny and weird in a way that Bruce never really could.

agree about "trailer." what a chorus! the version on the last mudcrutch album is fantastic too.

it's kind of weird but i can't say i really know much about petty, despite classic rock being a huge chunk of what i've always listened to. i know a few of the hits obv but what are some of his classic albums? what's a good place to start?

― marcos, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 1

Damn the Torpedoes
Wildflowers
Hard Promises

and Full Moon Fever imo

i think the playback set does a great job of showing of the depth of his catalog (at least through the early 90s)

cool thank you all!

Side A of Hard Promises is especially strong. I'm pretty sure 4 of the 5 songs placed in the TP poll.

I listened to HP this morning, and, damn, "The Waiting," "A Woman in Love," "The Nightwatchman," and "Something Big" boom boom boom on the first si de.

xxp i dunno, i found him more relatable than Springsteen more often than not. Petty could be funny and weird in a way that Bruce never really could.

Sure. I mean honestly neither of them are in my wheelhouse, but different strengths. What I was referring to is that Petty couldn't have written something like Thunder Road, for example, which (although I actually enjoy it less musically than most Petty songs) really puts me in a specific setting watching two specific characters interact. Into the Great Wide Open, by contrast, is very sketch-like and cursory, although that's part of the song's concept I think, that Eddie is just one of thousands of similarly un-self-aware dudes coming to LA to make it. It's a bit of a sneering song, but it has some empathy too.

Good tweet thread:

Further Petty thought: Although his songs were often big, "transcendent"--cf. "Free Fallin'"--he was bombast-averse. Songs are tidy/compact.

— Jody Rosen (@jodyrosen) October 3, 2017

I owned the "Don't Come Around Here No More" 45 (with "Trailer" as the B-side) as a kid (I liked the video so I bought the single), but never flipped it over, so I never heard "Trailer" until Playback.

Sometimes I think if he'd stopped at Damn the Torpedoes he'd still be pretty fucking classic.

Glad he didn't, but still.

My Stereogum piece.

The closest Petty came to any sort of Springsteen-y big picture ambition was Southern Accents, and of course that was a mixed bag. But beyond that, Petty was not a big picture sort of guy. Springsteen really took Dylan's protest stuff to heart; Petty was more a "Rainy Day Woman" kind of guy. Springsteen was about the mythic side of pop; to him, seeing the Beatles (or, actually, Elvis) was a means to an end, a path to escape. Petty saw the Beatles and thought, huh, this is pretty cool! He recognized that pop, in and of itself, was a worthy enough goal. And he was partly right, which is why he has so many great singles and Springsteen, as much as I prefer him, really does not. Songs, yes, but pop singles? It took forever for Springsteen to crack that nut, but Petty had it down from the start. That's what he wanted.

That said, I could imagine an alternate world with either of them humping it out their entire lives playing regional clubs, but being pretty happy about it.

re: Springsteen & Petty, I'm reminded of Petty talking about playing the No Nukes benefit. Before he went onstage, someone told him, "Now, if it sounds like people are booing, don't worry, they're saying 'Bruuuuce!'" Petty said, "Well...what's the difference?"

Springsteen's gotta be doing some Petty covers on Broadway over the next couple months. trying to imagine the best one, I can imagine a furious Bruce cover of "Refugee."

i think i speak on the behalf of more than myself (could be wrong but i doubt it) when i say that tom petty was also a style icon, lanky and fair like bowie but scuzzier/more gnarly <3 <3 <3
obvs his music was great and so was his look, pre-beard
post beard he looked like tom petty in a beard which has its own charm but isn't a look i identify with

i feel like i hung out with tom petty during some of my most alienated moments and unlike a lot of his peers, listening to his music never made me feel worse than i already did. usually better. love him.

or "Listen to Your Heart"'!

xpost

is Steve Ferrone an official paid Heartbreaker or is he like Darryl Jones kept on retainer?

Steve is considered part of the band, but not sure what his salary looks like compared to Mike or Benmont.

Ferrone is a full-fledged Heartbreaker.

Springsteen would do a great Listen to Your Heart. He'd also have the balls to do Free Fallin'. I want to say the only Petty song I've ever read him complement was "Straight Into Darkness," but if Bruce could do "Take it Easy" the day Frey died, he could do "Free Fallin'." Or pretty much any Petty song. Won't Back Down, etc.

Mike is a frequent co-writer, so I imagine he gets more than just a salary. He is a partner, to the extent that Petty has first dibs on his songs.

hope some of the tribute pieces mention the importance of mike campbell as far as the songs go. a lot of the music was his. he wrote the bulk of "refugee", no?

not to take anything away from petty. but a lot of the songs were the work of two people.

i think that was the eagles thread, scott. with the petty discussion.

Quit defending the Eagles! They’re simply terrible

Mike Campbell would be set for life if all he'd co-written was "Boys of Summer."

Quality zings in that thread:

I saw some of your joke posts on the other thread, and that's the version of those two guys I was expecting. But again, I found them to be surprisingly thoughtful.

― clemenza, Thursday, December 26, 2013 9:07 AM (three years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

They're especially good at thinking about themselves.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, December 26, 2013 9:10 AM

Don't know if anyone else has ever noticed this, but Tom seemed like he was really struggling to play guitar recently? Maybe from his injury when he punched the studio wall back in the 80s? I always wondered if the Mojo album was just an opportunity to let Mike Campbell go nuts with Tom just adding lyrics and melody.

"i think that was the eagles thread, scott. with the petty discussion."

i think that's the one! no wonder i couldn't find it. was i the one who turned it into a petty thread? sounds like something i might do.

when did Petty clean up? Was that before or after Mojo?

Damn the Torpedoes came out while I was in high school in the south. It was like we had our own classic rock god rather than some old gods borrowed from another era. For a while, TP pushed aside Zeppelin, the Stones, Skynard, Pink Floyd, etc. As I said on some other thread, back then I couldn't fathom why all the girls were hot for TP. Must have been the star power. RIP.

I'll go you two albums prior, since I'm lolold. I was working at a radio station when the debut album came out. It was so underproduced, like a demo almost, compared to Boston or Fleetwood Mac records huge in 1976. That record, and the two Modern Lovers albums that came out that year, gave me the inkling something in music was changing, predating my discovery of Graham Parker, the release of My Aim Is True, etc.

I was just having a quick look at Tom Petty's UK chart history both solo and with The Heartbreakers and was surprised to find he had no Top 20 hits. Only four singles made the Top 40, the highest of which was 'I Won't Back Down' which peaked at #28.

when did Petty clean up? Was that before or after Mojo?

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 3 October 2017 17:10 (forty-five minutes ago)

Way before then. Sometime in '99 after Echo and meeting his new wife.

Even with Traveling Wilburys he didn't crack the UK Top 20 - their biggest hit 'Handle With Care' peaking at #21.

listening to the first album this morning, god i love it so much

re Springsteen parallels, Wild One Forever & the live E Street boxset version of 4th of July Asbury Park sound like they could slot nicely next to each other in a mix, feel like they come from the same kind of nostalgic longing

Wild One Forever
https://youtu.be/US-pEqevjvc

4th of July Asbury Park
https://youtu.be/WdX_I4Qn73Q

So this wasn't a heroin / opioid death? I had assumed it was, but I don't think the word heroin has been mentioned in this thread yet.

massive coronary, read the news maybe?

Generally I found something about his songs a little bit less personal and his characters a bit more archetypal than those of some of his songwriter cousins, but maybe that's the tradeoff for the ability to have such a ridiculous number of hits.

― the last famous person you were surprised to discover was actually (man alive), Tuesday, October 3, 2017

yeah so about this... are we implying there's a hierarchy of virtue here? bc there's a longer discussion here but imho petty's abstracts find a way to express a few very specific emotional states (longing, nostalgia) in a way that springsteen's portraits never will. precisely bc they're unresolved. there's no pulling out of here to win (ironized tho it may be), just a cold breeze on the balcony overlooking the interstate.

Petty could never write an Atlantic City, but Springsteen could never write an Insider. I'm good with both.

Re.: H., It has been mentioned here and there that heroin is rilly rilly bad for your heart, so it seems possible that he may be reaping consequences of shit done years ago. No suggestion that he had needle in arm or whatever recently.

Twenty-year-old heroin habit aside, he never quit smoking.

or touring. this is definitely the right place for speculation on the challenges of the rock'n'roll life. let's definitely do that now.

yeah, I was going to say. Smoking kills.

oof, this always makes me wince a little bit from that old thread...

i know i'm crazy and we've been on here for a WEEK talking about the eagles but if someone started a thread where we all listened to the eagles discography track by track and then talked about the songs i would participate. i think that's enough punishment for all of us. we all probably deserve it. one track a day. or we could just forget that i said anything...probably for the best.

― scott seward, Monday, 19 August 2013 20:17 (four years ago) Permalink

best idea you ever had scott
#chugallnight

Twenty-year-old heroin habit aside, he never quit smoking.

― grawlix (unperson), Tuesday, October 3, 2017 1:09 PM (twenty-one minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

he was also born in Gainesville in 1950 so he probably started smoking at like 10 or something

Springsteen's gotta be doing some Petty covers on Broadway over the next couple months. trying to imagine the best one, I can imagine a furious Bruce cover of "Refugee."

God, I hope not. Springsteen farting all over "Refugee" would be the worst kind of tribute.

A question I have always wanted to ask and might as well: what accent is he affecting on You Got Lucky Babe? Italian? Puerto Rican?

la lechera otm esp re non-beardo Tom
beardo Tom was more like the guy who rents out fishing boats by the lake

and he always made me feel better too!!

weird woman in a bar (La Lechera)
Posted: October 3, 2017 at 9:25:30 AM
i think i speak on the behalf of more than myself (could be wrong but i doubt it) when i say that tom petty was also a style icon, lanky and fair like bowie but scuzzier/more gnarly <3 <3 <3
obvs his music was great and so was his look, pre-beard
post beard he looked like tom petty in a beard which has its own charm but isn't a look i identify with

i feel like i hung out with tom petty during some of my most alienated moments and unlike a lot of his peers, listening to his music never made me feel worse than i already did. usually better. love him.

As posted last night on the tom petty redeeming qualities thread (sounds good so far, now he and McG. are doing "Here She Comes Again")
just came across this post of the new Petty-produced Hillman album, with some other Byrds, Heartbreakers among participants---haven't had time to listen yet, but might be redeeming: http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/rock/7968856/chris-hillman-bidin-my-time-album

― dow, Monday, October 2, 2017
Now it's Everlys' "Walk Right Back"--says Petty talked him into doing it, good choice!

what accent is he affecting on You Got Lucky Babe?

Badass.

saw chris hillman at the opry while i was in nashville, played "turn turn turn" and a righteous bros. cover from the new record, both sounded wonderful, looking forward to checking it out

― ToddBonzalez (BradNelson), Tuesday, October 3, 2017 Yeah, Billboard (via that link) says he started touring Sept. 21, with his usual colleague, Herb Pederson, and Endless Tour survivor John Jorgenson (both are on this album).

I went looking on Spotify, to see if the Del Shannon album Petty produced in the 80s was there. It's not.

what accent is he affecting on You Got Lucky Babe? Italian? Puerto Rican?

It does kind of remind me of Garland Jeffreys. American soul singer filtered through Van Morrison and Jagger.

I mean it's Hillman, not Gram Parsons, Gene Clark, but Petty presents him as well as possible, ditto other friends and colleagues of yore (now it's "My Love Don't Care About Time"!)

Some good tracks on the recent Jeffreys, like "Waiting For The Man".

So this wasn't a heroin / opioid death? I had assumed it was, but I don't think the word heroin has been mentioned in this thread yet.

So this wasn't a heroin / opioid death? I had assumed it was, but I don't think the word heroin has been mentioned in this thread yet.

Fuck off

xpost Springsteen is not going to be covering Tom Petty on Broadway, I don't think. It's a very specific show, with a setlist and script and everything.

thank you for acknowledging the otmness of my post VG :)
look at this guy
http://img.wennermedia.com/social/rs-tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers-2bbad677-1d62-4b31-af27-e1f081f19e2b.jpg

Benmont Tench talks:

How did you feel about Tom's decision to make Full Moon Fever as a solo album?
I was pissed off and hurt. I was also worried he'd split up the band because there was conflict within the group at that time. There wouldn't be anybody coming to blows, but Tom and Stan [Lynch] would have disagreements, and Stan would leave the band, or get fired, and then come back less than a week later. Stan was always worried that Tom would go [solo], or just grab Mike and pack up. So when he did that, that's how it felt. I was also pissed by the way I found out about it. We were supposed to make a Heartbreakers record. I called the main guy on our crew about a week before we were supposed to start to ask what time we were coming in. He just said, "Uh. . . ummmm." He hemmed and hawed and finally told me they were making a solo record. Nobody told me.

Wow.
So that’s one side of the story. The other side of the story is that I was out of my mind on cocaine and alcohol. I was a very high man and deeply troubled with drugs and alcohol, so I thank Jeff Lynne. I had nothing to do with Full Moon Fever, so I got to go to rehab, and it saved my life. Also, hell, I'd been doing session work for years by that time. Why the fuck shouldn't Tom go play with someone else and have fun too?

Stan Lynch had a different take on the situation.
That may be. My take on that record is that I like bands that count to four and play loud. Jeff [Lynne] is a constructionist from the Brian Wilson school. It's a gorgeous school, but it's very different. I prefer the way we play the Full Moon Fever songs live to the way they sound on the record, but the 7 million people that bought Full Moon Fever might disagree.

xpost grade A boyfriend material

lol @ “i was a very high man”
i cant not hear it in a Forest Gump voice

la lechera & vg very much otm re: petty's earlier style

tbh never really thought of that since im used to superbowl bearded late petty but younger petty <3

total hottie

That photo's angle disguises how crazy tall Ron Blair is.

kinda blows my mind that "Don't Do Me Like That" reached #10 and "Refugee" only got to #15 in the US.

both songs are great, obv.

"Don't Do Me Like That" actually dates back to Mudcrutch. Iovine heard it on an old tape and demanded Petty re-record it.

cool, thanks, did not know that but it makes sense

down the wiki rabbit hole and found this great quote from Kim Basinger about the "Mary Jane's Last Dance" video, where she played a dead woman:

Now that was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done in my life. It was classic, wasn’t it? He was a doll, and he was so sweet and asked me to do it, and both of us are extremely shy so we just said three words to each other the whole time. I’ll never forget how heavy that dress was! And I had to be dead the whole time. You know, it’s really one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, because I had to be completely weightless to be in his arms the way I was. It won all those awards, and the kids love it—even today!
— Kim Basinger[14]

Petty only scored two top tens solo and as Heartbreakers *: "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Free Fallin." Heavy MTV play created the impression that "Don't Come Around Here No More," "You Got Lucky," "Jammin' Me," and especially "Into the Great Wide Open" rode the Billboard top ten for months.

* "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" with Stevie Nicks is his highest charting hit (#3, fall '81).

Stan Lynch had a different take on the situation.
That may be. My take on that record is that I like bands that count to four and play loud. Jeff [Lynne] is a constructionist from the Brian Wilson school. It's a gorgeous school, but it's very different. I prefer the way we play the Full Moon Fever songs live to the way they sound on the record, but the 7 million people that bought Full Moon Fever might disagree.

iirc, in the Bogdonavich doc, Stan talks about how difficult recording with Lynne was. And it makes sense: you spend x years playing together, developing and honing and perfecting this unique band dynamic, and then the producer comes in and asks everyone to record separately.

"oh and also add 10 acoustic guitar overdubs"

what does Petty say in the doc about ITGWO? Something like "A noble experiment, but a difficult one," po-faced.

of course Tom I would LOVE to come over & listen to records with you <3 <3

https://sonicmoremusic.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/musiciansvinyl6.jpg

http://tompetty.rocks/images/George/tumblr_n9sghuEDqU1qalx0to1_500.png

this is the only one of these dumb “words on a fence paling” crafty things that i have seen that i would ever buy and that may just be grief talking

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/52/17/89/521789ca58b09cb6d2e37e9804b4ef0e--tom-petty-lyrics-tom-petty-quotes.jpg

man: hearing "it's good to be king" for the first time since the mid 90s on the Flanagan/Fricke/Griffin wake. This is where the Lynne approach really works like a muhfuh… piano weaving into the string arrangement on the outro is sooo nice…

what's the most atypical but well known TP tune?

probably "don't come around here no more" —he never really pursued that sound afterwards, right?

iirc, in the Bogdonavich doc, Stan talks about how difficult recording with Lynne was

I gotta say, in the Zanes book, Lynch comes off like someone for whom everything was difficult—and if it wasn't, he'd make it that way. He ends up seeming like such an asshole, you can't believe he lasted as long in the band as he did. It goes beyond musical differences to won't-someone-punch-this-guy-in-the-throat-already?

Naturally, Lynch found a partisan in Don Henley.

aturally, Lynch found a partisan copy editor in Don Henley.

I still end up liking Lynch a little in the doc. He's forthright. Re the FMF songs: "I thought they sucked. I didn't wanna play on'em."

re placing Petty in a Dylan / Byrds 60s tradition or a hardworking hardrocking ZZ Top / AC/DC lineage, I'm no expert but isn't a big part of his appeal that he does awesome power pop anthems?

I guess power pop is not the clearest defined genre but all the same feels like Petty was king of it

Re: Damn the Torpedoes, you can easily make the case it's not your favorite, but there's no denying Refugee.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 7:57 AM (seven hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can and will make the case "Even the Losers" is better than "Refugee" which is why it's my favorite on account of my excellent and refined taste in rock music.

Anyway, my obit.

Even the Losers is awesome, and you won't get any argument from me if you think it is better than Refugee. My point is that Refugee is such a clear stand out in anybody's catalog that I won't begrudge anybody pointing to it as their own favorite. Now, if you said Jammin Me was better than Refugee we might have argument.

I feel like we have gone over this a lot elsewhere, but in the Zanes book Stan comes across a total dick, sort of like a more erratic Stewart Copeland, and Tom gives him second chance after chance after chance after chance. Scans that it caused Tom lots of stress. Keep in mind, this all began as early as the Damn the Torpedoes sessions, with Tom having to come to Stan's rescue, and he kept Stan around all the way up to the greatest hits sessions.

I think Stan is the kind of drummer who never does the same take twice, but Tom was drawn to session guys who could do the same thing over and over again. Though in Stan's defense, there is not a single Steve drum part as memorable as many of Stan's best.

Alfred - you're combining two album titles there, Echo and The Last DJ.

Walked by Potbelly Sandwich Shop in the Skyway at lunch and the guitar player/singer was playing "Free Fallin'"

Ican and will make the case "Even the Losers" is better than "Refugee" which is why it's my favorite on account of my excellent and refined taste in rock music.

Well yeah. "Even the Losers" is the pettiest petty that petty ever pettied. That and "Insider" were 1-2 on my ballot and would be today and will be in 20 years if I'm still around and we do it again.

i read the poll thread & idk why i didnt vote, lame me!! weird seeing so much later-petty ranked so high

Alfred - you're combining two album titles there, Echo and The Last DJ.

― grawlix (unperson),

good catch -- thanks

The Last Echo sounds like a missing Neil Young album.

Refugee, Stop Draggin', and Don't Come Around Here are each megaclassics in their own way.

I played "American Girl" for student-entry music today. My first choice would have been "Listen to Her Heart," but there's that line about cocaine, and we've got a new principal. Sorry, Tom Petty, just wasn't ready to put that to the test.

Intro to American Girl is just so incredibly exciting to me

^^^ whole song exciting to me: intro, verses, chorus, outro. Only thing I'm not 100% excited by is the little disco/funk breakdown, but it works. Amazing song.

It's a testament to Mike Campbell's skill that one of the definitely jangly 12-string songs doesn't even have an actual 12-string on it.

I liked that anecdote by Roger McGuinn about his manager playing him "American Girl" and asking "When did I record this?"

Big AOR hit in 1990:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr_LtVkCe18

^^Also makes clear how much of McGuinn's vocal style Petty adopted.

In an interview with Campbell I just saw he dismisses Byrds comparisons and actually almost abandoned the track because he thought it sounded too much like Skynyrd. Which is, you know, crazy.

I read somewhere that Petty said they were aiming for Bo Diddley (most identifiable in the beat).

other than petty's mcguinn-y vocal, "american girl" really doesn't sound like the byrds

well, lack of 12 string or not, anything that sounds like 12 strings makes people bring up the byrds.

RIP. Really wishing I hadn't sold my vinyl copy of Echo now.

^^Was just noticing on Amazon that the run from She's The One through The Last DJ is OOP on CD (with copies of the latter going for over $30!).

Though in Stan's defense, there is not a single Steve drum part as memorable as many of Stan's best.

Le bomb de truth

XP...and of course a couple weeks ago you could probably get copies of TLDJ stating at $1 or less.

Beautiful piece, Al, and this

the thin hard pungency of Petty’s own underrated rhythm guitar could do what it pleased – appreciate as he pushes against the beat in “Listen to Your Heart,” as relentless as a neurotic on the cocaine that has wooed the singer’s lover/girlfriend away from him.

is otmfm.

And I've long struggled to adequately convey what was unique about Stan's feel. As much as Bonham, he has an instantly identifiable overall sound on the kit, and one developed as an overall kit sound. And while I initially thought of his approach as top-heavy (snare far louder than bass drum), he's really using the bass drum as a felt presence. It's the straight man setting up the punchlines the snare delivers.

1978 old grey whistle test appearance - full episode here: https://youtu.be/xKl8tSQFlJg

Tom in prime hottness, do not adjust yr set

agh
i love the way he says "don't" in the 2nd line of "Breakdown"

Though in Stan's defense, there is not a single Steve drum part as memorable as many of Stan's best.

Le bomb de truth

― Monster fatberg (Phil D.), Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Listen to the intro of "Nightwatchman."

Beautiful piece, Al

thank you!

Stan's fill after the bridge in "Don't Do Me Like That" is better than a lot of drummers' entire careers.

Stan's big, dead drum sound was apparently pretty influential on other producers, though I think a lot of credit goes to Iovine and Yakus.

I've seen that Old Grey Whistle Test and I agree it is key.

yet Iovine hated Stan, apparently

his whole look in Old Grey Whistle test is SO right: aviators, white shirt, black suit & white cuban heels (i think: it’s hard to make out the footwear clearly, def a white heeled boot anyway) <3 <3 <3

i love that even this early on he knows exactly where the camera is and where to look & knows how to work it without ~seeming~ like he knows

even later in his videos he’s so good at playing at seeming chill & detached but he is in control of every nanosecond of how he appears

"Seeming chill & detached but in control" = needs to be a 300-level course in the Coolness Studies department.

love this Eddie Cochran cover

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYumfnVXiDU

xpost ah poor grasshopper such coolness can never be taught

I never got to listen to the Dylan-hosted satellite radio channel, but I loved the heck out of the Tom Petty Buried Treasures show. He played all sorts of great stuff, with very affable fan-like introductions.

― Josh in Chicago

I've been signing up for sirius xm online radio for a free month - then switching e-mail addresses whenever I want another month. His buried treasure channel (712) is still on (reruns and such). He liked playing stuff like muddy waters, chuck berry and the beatles. I find myself listening to this show a whole lot more than his music :/ but wow, he's DJed from 2005-2016... that's a hell of a lot of treasure to listen to. And yes, I liked hearing what he had to say in between sets.

and no one has mentioned his co-writing "You Got It."

starting to think She's the One might lowkey be my favorite TP record. nice one-two punch there with Wildflowers (which, while bloated, is my other fave, along with FMF & DTT).

i quit paying much attention after Echo but shit man i can't think of many artists who had a 20 year run of solid albums and relatively big top 40 radio hits.

xpost Well, that whole thing was pretty lucky, right? Lynne produces "Cloud Nine," he, George and Roy convene at Bob's house to record a b-side. Tom shows up to pick up a guitar, and they all end up writing "Handle With Care," which they clearly realize is too good for a b-side. Roy obviously clicked with Tom, though I wonder why he's not in Black and White Night. I always forget there's a song on Mystery Girl written and produced by Bono and the Edge, too. Might explain that unexpected (albeit schlocky) Eno-produced song that maybe came from the sessions.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPN0EHyy09Y

xpost Iovine absolutely hated Stan, because as a producer Iovine knew he could just call in a session dude to crank out the tracks in a couple of days; I mean, Jim Keltner popping in just to add shaker to "Refugee" is like salt in the wound. But also Stan didn't take criticism well, and with one of a producer's key jobs being to say "again," Stan apparently got quickly frustrated. I'm glad Tom kept him on board as long as he did, because Lynch is key. Did backing vox, too.

Stan was the key backup singer before Howie Epstein appeared.

I adore that Eno-produced Orbison song.

to scott's point about the Zollo book: I never get bored with what is by now the lore of Petty meeting Harrison after the freak '87 hurricane that hit England. This series of coincidences coalescing first with Cloud Nine and the Orbison project leading up to FMF.

Roy obviously clicked with Tom, though I wonder why he's not in Black and White Night

Way too early. George finally connected with Petty that Thanksgiving in L.A. at a French restaurant to which Petty spontaneously took his daughter for an expensive lunch; George was there with the Warner Bros people planning promo strategies for Cloud Nine.

The best thing about Black and White Night is when Tom Waits takes an organ solo that makes half the band whip their heads around in horror.

Yeah, that and Springsteen sensibly ceding the flashy guitar stuff to James Burton.

Amazing how much Roy managed in those last several months. Black and White Night, Wilburys, Mystery Girl, and then he was gone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la2H9OCOlrQ

Springsteen, knowing when it's best to keep it even simpler than usual.

But I digress. Tom Petty.

Someone on the ILM Orbison thread mentioned the degree to which the industry colluded to give him a final hit.

Plausible, though I wonder if he needed the help, given his success with the Wilburys and how much that Jeff Lynne production sound was en vogue. Just a couple of months before Full Moon Fever, right?

Yup -- at the same time as Volume 1 peaked.

The doc on the Wilburys' box is a treat--Tom talks about Harrison & Lynne showing up unannounced at his house with ukuleles and a case of beer and jamming all night in his living room.

Amanda Petrusich - https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/free-falling-with-tom-petty

other than petty's mcguinn-y vocal, "american girl" really doesn't sound like the byrds

― tylerw, Tuesday, October 3, 2017 3:34 PM (six hours ago)

Chorus of "Here Comes My Girl" does imo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kOID3Pv6-Q

xxpost that Petrusich piece is beautiful & so true, all those little between moments captured so perfectly

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grfI85j_KWM

And a terrific piece at Salon by Annie Zaleski: https://www.salon.com/2017/10/03/rebels-with-a-romantic-streak-lose-tom-petty-dead-at-66/

Wow yeah that Petrusich piece is the best thing I've read in awhile

was watching his 30th anniversary show on youtube last night and i kept thinking if you added some cowboy hats and a steel guitar and some fiddle you could have a great country show. so many of his songs would be easily countrified.

also reminded how good this is:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnS8577gBNc

you can even watch the concert the night before that one at winterland on youtube. 12/30/78. youtube is surely a blessing.

glad alfred rightly called out Petty's rhythm guitar playing — I think it definitely plays a big role. was also interesting to occasionally see him stretch out on lead (mostly on live versions of "Mary Jane's Last Dance"). Obviously with Campbell in the band he didn't need to do it much, but he could get a cool, raw Neil Young-y thing going.

Isn't the solo on the studio "Mary Jane" the rare Petty guitar solo? Playing Mike's famed ancient Tele.

In the oral history book Petty tells the interviewer how often he sees people getting his guitar parts wrong, but I don't quite get that. Not a lot of secrets to Tom Petty songs, afaict, beyond good taste and tasty licks. I did notice when I tried to figure out "Straight Into Darkness" once that the entire song is varispeeded into a different key, including even the piano.

Isn't the solo on the studio "Mary Jane" the rare Petty guitar solo? Playing Mike's famed ancient Tele.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 4, 2017 11:22 AM

Yep! He usually solos on a couple tracks per album.

i always liked when bruce soloed too.

People forget that until Darkness Bruce was the only guitarist in his band!

It took a while to figure out that Lofgren and Van Zandt handled rhythm.

Nils isn't even on a record until Tunnel of Love, and all he contributes is the (awesome) title track solo.

maura on tom: http://time.com/4968182/tom-petty-tribute/

maura & annie crushing the writeups <3

they sure are

In the oral history book Petty tells the interviewer how often he sees people getting his guitar parts wrong, but I don't quite get that. Not a lot of secrets to Tom Petty songs, afaict, beyond good taste and tasty licks.
― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, October 4, 2017

iirc he's talking about chord voicings. nothing a decent ear can't discern, but your average bar band with 200 songs on the list might not bother

As for guitar sounds no one gets better rock sounds/tones than Tom Petty and Mike Campbell. Those dudes knew their guitars, amps, etc.

Like, songs or preferences aside, I've always been struck by just how much better the Heartbreakers sound than the E Street Band.

xxp can totally see Petty using weird little chord tricks on what would otherwise be an open G or whatever

Campbell is a tone god, just listen to his sound on Breakdown, that tone....

Petty even wrote a song about his gear...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gD8mBMn5F5k

also <3 maura for giving props to “Christmas All Over Again”, it’s always been a favorite of mine

those tone comments are super otm

In the Zollo book, Petty said that what George Harrison most admired about Mike Campbell was the tone he got out of his guitar.

http://variety.com/2017/music/news/tom-petty-death-song-sales-spike-1202580878/

I was worried from the url that everyone was downloading "Spike."

better than everyone downloading "Free Fallin'," I guess.

free fallin rules

It does but I don't wanna hear it for a while. It's his "Yesterday."

Free Fallin is the song that takes me back to the back seat of my parents' van

otm

I have never gotten tired of Free Fallin, and I hope I never do - that opening verse is so perfect <3

i've been randomly singing Tom Petty songs for 48 hours now. Learning to Fly is my jam, love his vocals on that along w/the guitars. what a sound.

also can I say, between Anna Petrusich, Annie Z & Maura it fills my heart to see how loved Tom Petty is by women. And without the kinds of caveats or exceptions that sometimes have to be made for “rock dudes”

For me, he wrote about love in such honest & self-effacing ways that it left room for me to happily place myself in his thumbnail sketches and be completely comfortable, there was never any moments where it felt leering or diminishing or threatening

Love u TP

Me, I've been singing the Bangles harmonies on "Waiting for Tonight" all afternoon (NIGHT, MY LOVE/SLEEP TIGHT, MY LOOOOVE).

A report from the field:

At the @FillmoreSF tonight to see @bobpetesarah — I’ve noticed a new shrine in the venue for @tompetty; thought you’d all like it. pic.twitter.com/x9bBNFgWlF

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) October 5, 2017

[Bummer, I guess they played here tonight, but it totally slipped my mind]

Alfred those harmonies are stunning. I've been listening to a lot of later Petty today - that track, swingin', room at the top, dreamville, walls... he quit being relevant 20 years ago but never quit writing great songs.

Ned, that's lovely.

speaking of harmonies, what ABOUT Lindsey Buckingham on "Walls (Circus)"?

Re: the guitar tone talk above, that was my favorite thing about going to see Petty, once about 10 years ago and then this past June -- the number of guitars Petty, Campbell and Thurston broke out during their sets. Between those two shows I must have seen 30 different guitars, including Campbell's awesome Rickenbacker mandolin.

http://www.emando.com/images/players/Mike_Campbell.JPG

I used to hear the strat-like versions of that referred to as Mandocasters. Always wanted one.

With a tremelo! As his guitar tech said in some YouTube interview, that is a sort of guitar that only Mike Campbell would want and know how to use.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XZ5hu-ux4CY

IIRC, Alex Chilton used one of those Ric mandolins on "September Gurls", which--oddly enoguh--I heard last night on Pandora Deep Cuts after "Something Big" by TP.

I'm sad about Tom Petty's passing, but I'm equally sad the Heartbreakers lost their leader. I'd love to see them back somebody else for a tour, but I'm not sure anyone is worthy besides Bruce and he has the backing band thing covered.

they should work with Miley.

does seem kind of amazing that petty, tench and campbell worked together pretty much nonstop since the early 70s (Tench didn't play on Full Moon Fever but he toured behind it, I guess) — quite a run.

i’m only an hour into the Bogdanivich doco but it’s kind of amazing that Petty convinced both Campbell & Tench to quit college. And even met with Tench’s Dad to convince HIM as well!!

Tench is an...intense fellow. I can see how he became an alcoholic.

i've always wondered if there are recordings of the mid-70s Tench solo project that Petty hijacked into the Heartbreakers ... would be interesting to hear.

I'm sad about Tom Petty's passing, but I'm equally sad the Heartbreakers lost their leader. I'd love to see them back somebody else for a tour, but I'm not sure anyone is worthy besides Bruce and he has the backing band thing covered.

― DavidLeeRoth, Thursday, October 5, 2017 1:09 PM (twenty-two minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Stevie Nicks is available!

OTM. The doc has an embarrassing moment when we're supposed to laugh along with Tom when he reminds Nicks that she can't join the Heartbreakers because she's a girl.

boooo

was this in the 70s at least?
i would love to hear stevie nicks sing tom petty songs

Early '80s. She's written a few songs with Campbell and Tench.

Been spending some time reconsidering his work over the last few days and now I think Here Comes My Girl might actually be my favorite Petty song.

she said at the beginning of the doc that by 1978 if Tom had asked her to join the Heartbreakers she would have left Fleetwood Mac

XPS And she was an unofficial guest on the Highway Companion tour (there's a PBS Soundstage ep floating around).

Benmont plays piano on the Apartment Song so I think he has appeared on every Petty album except one, Highway Companion. Tom even played drums on that one so no Ferrone either!

I actually think the Heartbreakers wouldn't mind becoming Nicks' solo band. And she pays well!

I wonder if Maria McKee would entertain leading the Hearbreakers?

Petty and Campbell gave her this song (Iovine produced and Tench plays Hammond):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOCT5RDnJIY

Lone Justice opened for TP&tHB on their 86 tour iirc.

If the Revolution can tour on their own, the Heartbreakers can too

xp: The original (which was left off of Damn The Torpedoes!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHecyucnY9E

Could totally see Nicks picking up the band (she did a nice "I Need To Know" on that Soundstage), but it'd have to wait until after the upcoming Mac tour.

I can see see them doing something along the lines of the MC5 reunion and working with a rotating cast of ringers.

IIRC, McKee & Tench used to date, and it did not end well.

Tench wrote "You Little Thief" about McKee, covered by Feargal Sharkey, who scored his biggest hit with a McKee song.

I like you Little Thief" but all these years later I can't decide whether David Stewart's production is too much. Two drummers!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS4ALgm6Rsc

bet all involved can taste the coke in the back of their mouths

Forgot about this other song that Petty gave Maria (later covered by Roseanne Cash):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8a0kq30F7I

xp: that's right! also pretty funny knowing that Maria wrote "A Good Heart" for Feargal which was about getting into a relationship with Tench (great mime vid lol):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlh_JJihv4g

the Rosanne Cash version is one of my favorite songs

the only Petty-Tench collaboration ever released btw

the doc:

a.) dave stewart sez TP and the HBs was the only American band of the time that his friends in the UK liked. this statement needs some qualifiers, otherwise I'm calling booshit.

b.) Stan goes through a lot of looks throughout; mid late 70s, he looks a Johnny thunders poseur…

c.) it suffers for a four hour effort that does not answer questions: when Stan says "i was successful by 1994 and didn't need this shit": what is Stan talking about here, Peter B?

d.) don't know much about Peter B. but don't know him to be a big rock fan a la Scorsese, only know him to be a big cineaste. seems possible that he had his team do the whole thing, said "OK warner bros.,you can call this my work, cut me a fat ass check."

Been spending some time reconsidering his work over the last few days and now I think Here Comes My Girl might actually be my favorite Petty song.

― IF (Terrorist) Yes, Explain (man alive)

leaning towards this as well after my first trip through the big parts of the catalog and all of DTT & 1st album

(xp) i like the doc but i thought it weird that for a movie in which every single person says "the songs" "it's all about the songs" "he had the songs" "incredible songwriter" "songs songs songs," it's about two hours in before the writing of said songs is ever mentioned. they finally talk about it with "the waiting" and it's a fantastic little scene.

They could get Tom Leadon from Mudcrutch to sing for them.

Here's a good piece from Stereogum: https://www.stereogum.com/1965601/74-artists-on-their-favorite-tom-petty-song/franchises/list/

i was successful by 1994

Maybe he meant he had plenty of cowrites with the likes of Don Henley?

Biggest failure of the doc is cutting out all the stuff about Petty's drug abuse. Which itself doesn't change much, but it does raise the possibility that other huge but secret revelations were left out as well, which hurts its credibility as a comprehensive, definitive account, as good as it is.

that's exactly what he meant, but Peter B., or his lackeys, or Tony Dmitriades, or somebody should have clarified, being that a goodly portion of the people sitting through 4 hours of the thing may not know. similarly, no mention of the "boys of Summer" and any of Campbell's work with Donster.

Isn't it time for Don and the ghost of Glenn to well yeah Tom's passing?

Mike Campbell’s dreadlocks sure are...something

no mention of the "boys of Summer"

this was really glaring

fairly long section on it in the Petty bio iirc — at some point Tom apologizes to Campbell for rejecting it (or at least admits he should've taken the song, since it was clearly a hit). Always thought that "Runaway Trains" was Petty's "oh shit why didn't I use the 'boys of summer' track" moment.

another kinda sketchy thing re: campbell in the Zanes bio — Campbell recorded a solo album in the 2000s that Petty wouldn't let him release (because it sounded too close to the Heartbreakers style or something).

By every account Petty gave "Boys of Summer" a shot. It's not unlike Phil Collins and "In The Air Tonight" - Collins played his demo for the band and they passed. There's a chance Petty poo-pooing Campbell's solo album had something to do with saying no to "Boys of Summer" and not wanting to make the same mistake twice, but iirc his biggest concern was, yeah, how much it sounded like a Tom Petty album. Which, tbf, if you're the guitarist and co-writer of much of the Heartbreakers stuff, is pretty much going to happen.

Xpost

That and 'no girls' are the two things that have come up itt to make me mad at him

patterson hood

so good

fairly long section on it in the Petty bio iirc — at some point Tom apologizes to Campbell for rejecting it (or at least admits he should've taken the song, since it was clearly a hit). Always thought that "Runaway Trains" was Petty's "oh shit why didn't I use the 'boys of summer' track" moment.

― tylerw, Thursday, October 5, 2017 6:42 PM

Agree.

By the way, in the Zollo book, Petty says that rejecting "Boys of Summer" had as much to do with drugs as anything else; the Southern Accents period was the only time, he said, that they took more than a year off the road, camped in L.A., and fell prey to every vice.

lol

At one point, lead singer Paul Westerburg told the crowd, “Last night, Tom Petty said that if we fuck up again, we’re fired. Fuck you, Tom Petty. And fuck you, Nashville.”

Then, they played an instrumental version of Lou Reed’s “Walk On The Wild Side” for about 10 minutes before leaving the stage 20 minutes before their scheduled time.

The Heartbreakers came out 20 minutes early and told the crowd, “Since the opener didn’t bother to finish their set, we’ll play a little extra. Because we care!” Then, they pulled out a scathing version of The Clash’s “Should I Stay Or Should I Go.” My sister has been a Petty fan ever since.

A year or so after that, Petty wrote a satirical song about a musical screwup called “Into the Great Wide Open” which lifted a line — “rebel without a clue” — from a Replacements song (“I’ll Be You”) for the chorus. A case of supreme assholery, but done just right.

The accounts of that tour in Bob Mehr's Replacements bio are pretty fascinating. Westerberg was wondering why the 'mats couldn't break through, and watching sidestage as Petty and the crowd exchanged "yeah-eah!"s during "The Waiting," Paul realized, "Whatever that is, our music doesn't have it."

not falling facedown on stage or cancelling every other show kiiiiiinda helps too

Ha, true, and iirc the 'mats actually made an effort for the first couple of shows of that tour before deciding, fuck it, let's do that thing where we fuck everything up. But Paul was thinking more in terms of being able to write something with that rousing quality that would connect with a huge crowd.

(I don't know if it was this tour or another one where they were given a per diem of $150 and literally set fire to it on their bus. And they didn't have any other money.)

he did write things of that rousing quality though -- he just treated his audience with more contempt/disdain/whatever you wanna call it than tom petty did

at least from my perspective

yeah i think that's true
there's another part in the Mehr book where Tommy Stinson is mocking Petty's decision to play a county fair and Tom is like 'i'm getting paid a quarter million dollars to do this, dude'

I need to read that book thx for reminder

definitely one of the better rock books of recent years

I saw The Replacements on that tour opening for Tom Petty. They were sloppy and kinda drunk but still great. I remember Paul sitting in the seats while crooning Nightclub Jitters.

Thanks for the Patterson Hood link. As it happens, I saw the Truckers last night in Jersey City and they played The Waiting, and Southern Accents.

omg - i said to mr veg the other day i’d love to year the Truckers cover The Waiting

<3

https://www.stereogum.com/1966099/watch-drive-by-truckers-cover-tom-pettys-the-waiting/video/

gah so good!!

I'll ask this here, since the Conversations book is OOP (and might not have the answer anyway), but how did they land at the two covers on She's The One? I can see them being aware "Change The Locks" beforehand, but Beck?

Every time I cringe listening to someone attempt stay in tune or hit the right notes while covering "The Waiting" (E.Vedder, DBTs) it makes me realize how underrated Petty was as a vocalist.

...for someone who will probably go down in history as an unlikely-talented vocalist.

...esp. compared to Vedder who will probably go down as the voice/vocalist of the 90s.

singing The Waiting is the hardest part

beat me to it

it always amazed me how many variances in his vocal style Petty could get w/what to some might seem to be a pretty limited instrument.

like I said, four-octave range

It seems to be Tom Petty night on BBC 4, starting at 10pm after the Nile Rodgers documentary.

I'll ask this here, since the Conversations book is OOP (and might not have the answer anyway), but how did they land at the two covers on She's The One? I can see them being aware "Change The Locks" beforehand, but Beck?

Well, don't forget, Johnny Cash, backed by Petty et al., cover "Rowboat" on "Unchained" (which also features a cover of "Southern Accents"). Unchained was 1996, same year as "She's The One," which was also produced by Rick Rubin.

Petty was a fan, he admitted in the book.

Beck was huge, "Asshole" came out in '94 and he clearly had good publishing people pushing his shit to Rubin.

btw Conversations with is probably in your local library or cheap used.

Oh yeah, totally forgot how the Heartbreakers were all over those Cash albums.

Paperbacks of Conversations start at $49.99 rn on Amazon.

Death-inspired supply and demand.

Petty said the second Cash album is among the Heartbreakers' greatest recordings.

that petty/shandling video is a joy

i had never really given tom petty much time b/c he was just always around; heck wildflowers made a dent in my 11 y/o scene and it was like who is this guy who seems to have been around forever yet isn't fossilized?

i perked up a bit when i saw a number of appreciations from women my age for whom he was clearly an elemental artist--he connected with them in a way that other male rock dudes didn't and i found that interesting.

been listening for a few days now; it isn't a revelation but the economy of his writing is staggering--i've recently had the time and space to start playing a little guitar again and it is stunning to see how many of his biggest hits never change their chord progression. even the ones that do have carved every extraneous part. as someone who aspires to simple, clear communication i should have been treating this guy as a role model for years. oh also all the records sound great. he dodged every bad production trend for like a 15-year period.

i'm still figuring out how he worked as a lyricist but as many have noted he had a feel for the in-between spaces. he wasn't grandiose.

craft and function aren't appreciated as much as they should be. he was a master of both.

regarding him as a lyricist, I need to investigate further but I think a bunch of iconic DTT songs are (like the Buzzcocks' best work) genderless in their lyrics - "Refugee", "Even The Losers" - widening the appeal to pretty much everyone

i realized yesterday for the first time that "let's get to the point, let's roll another joint" is a joke. i was always confused by that one, like rolling a joint isn't getting to the point ???? lol.

let's head on down the road to somewhere i gotta go

^not actually a run-on. i mean the last time i heard 'wildflowers' i was still a teenager so i'll cut myself some slack but it's nice to realize he had this low-key humorist side to him i totally missed at the time. some of these songs are like ideal stoner music for this point in my life.

I like a lotta Tom Petty records... but srsly girls, Tom was never hot.

He's from FLORIDA

as someone who aspires to simple, clear communication i should have been treating this guy as a role model for years.
:)

also who cares if he is from florida? also it's not that he is hot. he is cool.

was :(

he was cool looking. i can see the hott appeal.

https://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/images/big/Tom%20Petty761.jpg

Tom was super hott.

I wrote a thing tonight about that very topic, after spending the last few days thinking about Tom & his hottness & the way he writes women

http://tourdefrump.blogspot.com/2017/10/i-showed-you-stars-you-never-could-see.html

oddly, one of the Replacements better bootlegs is from opening on that tour (Shit, Shower & Shave).
great set to near total apathy.

regarding him as a lyricist, I need to investigate further but I think a bunch of iconic DTT songs are (like the Buzzcocks' best work) genderless in their lyrics - "Refugee", "Even The Losers" - widening the appeal to pretty much everyone

― sleeve, Friday, October 6, 2017

i was marveling at this just yesterday.
he wrote "insider' for Stevie, kept it, and didn't change a thing.
same deal with "don't come around here no more"

@VG of all the remembrances I've read over the past few days, yours is The One. thank you for writing that.

omg thank u rog, that means so much!!!

He never meant much to me, as a musician/songwriter. But I always supposed him to be a decent sort, as a man. His passing certainly didn't hit me the way Bowie, Prince, and Grant Hart did. All of whom really took the wind outta my sails. Still, I think he was a true believer in the R-n-R dream, etc. And that kinda corny stuff means alot to me. More and more with each passing year, for me and the rest of the planet. RIP Tom Petty

Veg, thanks for that obit -- just the counter I need for men too woke to peek behind Petty's angels and honeys.

I liked that a lot, too.

I must admit I never much rated Petty as a lyricist - universal is also generic. But if I was going to err on any side today, I'd say he hit the bullseye so many times that it was more than just luck at work. And per CAD, I think I noted it earlier, but his songs are often so meat and potato simple, musically, but I've really grown to appreciate Petty's vocal phrasing and way with a melody, which are carrying far more weight that one first thinks when faced with so many major and mini instrumental hooks. Like, the "Refugee" hook is huge, but it's his singing (and universal/generic lyrics) I think that really sell the song.

That is a lovely and insightful remembrance, VG. Thanks for sharing it.

Wonderful and moving piece, VG.

thanks everybody!

the economy of his writing is staggering--i've recently had the time and space to start playing a little guitar again and it is stunning to see how many of his biggest hits never change their chord progression

otm. i love this kind of songwriting and he was a master at it.

omg VG beautiful

<3

yeah that was great, thanks

roger mcguinn said something in the Bogdanovich doc that i loved - he said that Petty wasnt afraid to reach up into the heavens for big ideas & abstractions but he was able to express them in real, everyday terms

i think Petty’s economy of language (and the fact that he liked shorter songs) gives the illusion that there isn’t a lot of there there.. but there’s so much subtlety & depth beneath the simplicity of his lyrics.

^^ OTM

If y'all want an example of what Petty could do with economy, check out "Time to Move On."

Listened to "The Waiting" a couple times yesterday and thought about Tom and Mike's dual Rick 12-strings and did some lite-googling to find this pretty good short article (for the gearheads):

https://reverb.com/news/tom-petty-describes-the-allure-of-the-12-string-in-previously-unpublished-interview

mr veg got the Live Anthology & we were listening to it all night last night. God what a beautiful treasure THAT is. Repeatedly gobsmacked by that one

so dean garcia played on don't come around here no more?!?

Curve's label, Anxious, was run/begun by Dave Stewart.

I think one of Toni Halliday's solo albums features Garcia, Mike Campbell, Eurythmics' drummer, *and* Dave Stewart.

Jason Aldean playing “I Won’t Back Down” right now on SNL.

Hometown salute:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1iG-t9rsss

(He's from FLORIDA)

So I ended up on local TV on Tuesday to talk about Tom Petty -- mostly because I'd written some things about him on Facebook, and when the station called a friend of mine to come on and she couldn't do it, she suggested me. Hard to do a lot of justice in 3 minutes in that format, but I was happy to try. Also, I love that since nothing about my day job qualified me to be there (and I guess "former part-time music writer" didn't carry much oomph), they just have me labeled as "Tom Petty Fan."

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/five-at-four/remembering-tom-petty/480566891

And VG, I'm late to yr blog post, but it's terrific. I've had conversations along those lines with women friends who are Petty fans -- there's a much greater sense of empathy there than with Bruce or most other guy rockers.

Yeah, VG's piece really was great.

I'd forgetten how amazing "Change of Heart" is

the way those guitars chug

har, you got a Garth smile like me Tipsy

Veg, thanks for that obit -- just the counter I need for men too woke to peek behind Petty's angels and honeys.

― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Saturday, October 7, 2017 7:11 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

barf (on said "woke" men, that is)

tipsy that was great. i really relate to the family aspect, certainly Tom Petty's music always was there when i was a kid spending time with my family on road trips and hanging out drawing and stuff at home. the good times, the idyllic childhood, which fits perfectly w songs like "American Girl" and "Free Falling". this was music i first heard before my parents got divorced, before i went through puberty, etc. feel like this is a common thing, and Tom Petty's music has been a big part of the lives of multiple generations of people.

it helps that his music is very open hearted and very real. it feels universal in some ways. very authentic but still playful/punk - poking fun at Springsteen at times w the "she's a good girl, crazy bout Elvis, loves Jesus" American dream crap, but selling that shit nonetheless. even if this stuff is tropey, these are the tropes we were raised on, this is the pop iconography, Petty illuminating the emotional symbolism of youth. imo there is really nobody else who could write and sing "Free Falling"?

Johnny Cash does a great "I Won't Back Down". what more can you say? the guy joined a supergroup with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Bob Dylan, and no one thought "why is this guy here"? it was just pretty much agreed yeah Tom Petty belongs alongside these other legends. it felt right because Tom Petty is a legend.

tbf Jeff Lynne was there, too. (much as I like ELO).

Yeah if you think about his arc, from being a huge Beatles/Dylan/Byrd's fan to eventually getting to not just meet but play and write with and produce his idols (including Del Shannon, for that matter), it's pretty cool. I'm sad he's gone but he def made the most of it.

(And I don't know what is a Garth smile, but the one I have is the one I got. I'm not a fan of seeing myself on TV, but I've done it enough that I manage to not think about it much.)

he just treated his audience with more contempt/disdain/whatever you wanna call it than tom petty did

a few words in defense of the replacements: i don't think they treated their audience with contempt/disdain/whatever. i do think they treated fame and the music biz with contempt/disdain/whatever. and i think there's a difference. they were a generous live band, sometimes sloppy, sometimes not, sometimes drunk, sometimes not, sometimes interested in their own songs, sometimes not. but i never got the feeling they were trying to put one over on their fans and i never got the feeling there wasn't genuine love extended in both directions. they never didn't rock. they never didn't put their feelings out there. they never weren't in love with the music they were performing, whether it was a westerberg song or a defranco family song. they shot themselves in the foot repeatedly, pathologically, but that was between themselves and their record company handlers and their other demons, not between them and me.

or, rather, they never didn't do any of that stuff until relatively late in their career when they pretty much gave up. for my money, they were better at every aspect of being a band when bob was with them. he had the goofy in-love-with-being-in-love-with-rock-and-roll spirit that defined the band for me. in the post-bob days, they made exactly one good album and spent too much time being an opening band, doing boring tour promo, writing shitty songs and all that other stuff they clearly had no interest in doing. i saw them open for petty, elvis costello and keith richards along the way, and i got the sense each time they'd rather be doing laundry. they may well have had contempt/disdain/whatever for each of those bands' fans, but that's a whole 'nother thing. could they have been a little more respectful of their fellow humans in general? well, yeah.

not trying to derail this amazing tom petty thread though. i had never heard the story of why petty cribbed "rebel without a clue." that's fantastic. i now like "into the great wide open" 10x more than i did before.

also i would like to pile on and say, hell yeah, VG's piece is fantastic.

Adding my claps to the applause for Veg's remembrance

so dean garcia played on don't come around here no more?!?

He was the bassist in Eurythmics at the time.

the guy joined a supergroup with George Harrison, Roy Orbison, and Bob Dylan, and no one thought "why is this guy here"? it was just pretty much agreed yeah Tom Petty belongs alongside these other legends.

I would disagree with this - Petty stuck out like a sore thumb in that line-up.

As it would, since Petty's profile in the UK was, like, a zillion times lower than everyone else in the band.

yet another problem with UK rock

Re. "other guy" status..unlike the rest, there was no 'angle' to Petty before, during, or after the Wilburys and,as probably noted before, in the UK that can go one way or the other. Straight ahead rootsier rock is never the guarantee of iconic status in the way that it is likelier in the US.

lol i misread that as “rooster rock”

Cock Rock with a Country accent.

that vg piece is really wonderful, i’ve been thinking about it a lot.

years ago in orlando i was driving down a long hot dreary road when i realised tom petty was the front seat passenger in the car behind me, looking very relaxed and cheerful. they were behind me for a few miles (quite slow miles because i was new to driving and a complete ilx-style duffer at it and i was petrified of making a mistake and harming tom petty.)
but anyway i liked getting to see him not performing, just chatting in a car, and how the person appeared to match the persona.
another time on that same road i saw a space shuttle going up which was a stupendous sight even from 50 miles away so to be fair it wasn’t really a dreary road at all.

omg estela that is super cool

thanks everyone for all the great feedback <3

Very good stuff vg