RIP Tom Petty

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

Good manager?

...and good taste. She's also on the Billy Joe Shaver and Bobbie Gentry/Delta Sweete tributes.

Wow didn’t know petty wrote “ways to be wicked”. Did he put it out before the lone justice version?

At least Phoebe Bridgers is not on this. Surprised Isbell isn't.

There's some Luke Combs song my daughter plays that is just the dumbest, stupidest song ever, like he didn't have the courage of his convictions to go full "Honky Tonk Badonkadonk."

Johnny Cash did a great "Southern Accents," and of course Petty and crew are all over those albums.

Lou Barlow covered Hope You Never on his podcast last week, it sounds exactly like one of his own songs from around 20 years ago

Silkworm did a cool version of “Insider” on a 90s Petty tribute 90s. It’s worth checking out.

Johnny Cash did a great "Southern Accents," and of course Petty and crew are all over those albums.

Cash told Petty that he felt that "Southern Accents" was a better anthem than "Dixie," and Petty replied that he couldn't really believe that, but then Cash told him that it was true because "Dixie" was a terrible song.

lol

Damn never knew that about Jamey Johnson

Wow didn’t know petty wrote “ways to be wicked”. Did he put it out before the lone justice version?

The Petty version didn't come out until his box set in the mid-'90s.

adding my name to the list of those who didn't know that about jamey johnson. damn damn damn.

I assume Jimmy Iovine was the connection with Lone Justice. Campbell actually plays on the Lone Justice track, and Benmont Tench is on two other songs on the album.

Tench and Maria McKee dated for a spell too.

Silkworm did a cool version of “Insider” on a 90s Petty tribute 90s. It’s worth checking out.

Dolly is so great on this.

It's a really good version, much better than what I've heard from her "rock" album. As a resident of the South, albeit one without a Southern accent, I have mixed feelings about the "I'm not ashamed" coda. I know how Dolly means it, or how I think she means, as an anti-elitist statement. I'm just not sure that "Southern pride" more broadly is what the world needs now.