UCR: Tom Petty albums, ranked worst to first

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty Albums, Ranked Worst to First
by Bryan Wawzenek

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Compiling our list of Tom Petty Albums, Ranked Worst to First, wasn’t easy. After all, his steady reliability over the last few decades has made him a rock ‘n’ roll rarity.
Whether you picked up a Tom Petty album in the midst of punk, the zenith of grunge or the apex of EDM, you knew you were going to get melodic, thoughtful songcraft built on the granite foundation of ’50s and ’60s rock. That said, staying locked in this glorious tradition may have prevented Petty and the Heartbreakers from exploring new creative avenues.
They’ve constructed fewer blinding works of genius than their heroes Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, but they also haven’t contributed nearly as many clunkers as those guys. So an exercise like this, in which we attempt to rank Petty’s studio albums in order of quality, can become a bit of a challenge. In many cases, one edged out another because of a slightly more tuneful highlight or moderately less-dated production. Even the lowest-ranked records offer some great music.
We should note that all of his studio albums (whether co-credited to the Heartbreakers or to Tom as a solo act) are included in our list of Tom Petty Albums, Ranked Worst to First. Now, damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead!

16
‘The Last DJ’ (2002)

For years, Petty has had his clashes with record companies, but it wasn’t until the 21st century that his anger boiled over into the songs. On ‘The Last DJ,’ the songwriter seems so focused on his anti-corporate outrage that he often forgets to pair his diatribes with decent tunes. The title track’s a spiffy little rocker and ‘Dreamville’ is a nostalgia creampuff, but many of these songs are unfortunately nondescript. One that doesn’t float past is ‘Joe,’ in which Petty takes on an acerbic, Roger Waters-like howl to perform role of a music industry CEO. It’s an ugly song, and probably not in the way Petty intended.



15
‘Long After Dark’ (1982)

‘You Got Lucky’ combines Benmont Tench’s throbbing synthesizers, Mike Campbell’s lonely street corner guitar licks and Petty’s menacing vocal into a midnight masterpiece. It easily ranks with the Heartbreakers’ best singles. The rest of the record isn’t so lucky. Although the playing is sharp and new member Howie Epstein’s harmony vocals add the perfect glisten, most of the songs lack the punch of the band’s first four records. Petty disliked the record, mostly because co-producer Jimmy Iovine prevented him from including ‘Keeping Me Alive’ on it. Petty was right. The rootsy tune is better than anything here, save ‘Lucky’ and ‘Straight Into Darkness.’



14
‘Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)’ (1987)

After having enough of the bone-crushing problems that occurred during ‘Southern Accents’ (found later on our list of Tom Petty Albums, Ranked Worst to First), the plan for this record was not to have a plan. Songs weren’t too carefully considered and the tracks were supposed to sound like they were recorded live. The raw aesthetic comes through on the highlights, including the Stonesy crunch of ‘Jammin’ Me’ and the acoustic, Far East-meets-Western stunner ‘It’ll All Work Out.’ Of course, "stripped down" had a different connotation in the ’80s, and there’s still way too much gloss wrapped around the ballads ‘Runaway Trains’ and ‘My Life/Your World.’ In any era, however, it comes down to songwriting. Figuring it out in the studio may be a good method for establishing a sound, but not for writing fantastic songs.



13
‘Southern Accents’ (1985)


This could have been amazing. Conceived as a concept album about the South (where Petty, Campbell and Tench come from), the record and its themes got derailed by the inclusion of three songs Tom wrote with Eurythmics mastermind Dave Stewart. One of those tunes was ‘Don’t Come Around Here No More’ – a huge hit and trippy idiosyncrasy in Petty’s heartland catalog which, nevertheless, had nothing to do with Petty’s vision of the Southern U.S. And so, ‘Southern Accents’ became an unhappy marriage of clever, compelling songs about the South (the blazing overture of ‘Rebels,’ the sly snarl of ‘Spike,’ the heartfelt title track) and startlingly new wavey collaborations with Stewart. In the process – actually while struggling to record ‘Rebels’ – Petty hit a wall so hard that he broke his left hand in multiple places. It was, and remains, a frustrating album.



12
‘Into the Great Wide Open’ (1991)

Following the blockbuster success of his solo debut, Petty brought together his band and ‘Full Moon Fever’ producer (and fellow Traveling Wilbury) Jeff Lynne. ‘Into the Great Wide Open’ finds Petty in supreme storytelling mode, most notably on the album’s two big hits, ‘Learning to Fly’ and the title song, but also on the less-heralded ‘Two Gunslingers.’ If there’s a problem with this enjoyable record, it’s that a band with such fiery a lead guitarist shouldn’t be so mired in mid-tempoville. (The perfunctory rockers ‘Out in the Cold’ and ‘Makin’ Some Noise’ are as close as they get to letting loose.) Lynne’s soft-focus production helped the roots rock of ‘Full Moon Fever’ conquer pop radio. But on ‘Into the Great Wide Open,’ it keeps listeners at arm’s length from a solid batch of songs.



11
‘Mojo’ (2010)

'Mojo' serves as both the most distinctive detour in the Heartbreakers' long career and a sort of creative rebirth. They wade waist deep into Mississippi mud to find the blues roots that were always buried in the sound of this Florida-by-way-of-California band. A late-career decision to play a bunch of blues jams sounds like an idea borne of creative bankruptcy, but the robust 'Mojo' is quite the opposite. For the first time in at least a decade, the Heartbreakers sounded like they were having fun on a studio album. 'Mojo' is playful but strong, both expansive in its sound and tightly crafted in its instrumentation. The Heartbreakers located the groove and, in keeping with the title, rediscovered their mojo.



10
‘You’re Gonna Get It’ (1978)

Petty and the Heartbreakers' second album hardly qualifies as a sophomore slump, yet it doesn't sparkle as brightly as the albums that bookended it (that exciting debut on one side and the ebullient 'Damn the Torpedoes' on the other). While the Heartbreakers remain a tightly focused outfit with a '60s jangle and a punky edge, the band seems a bit low on great songs this time out. Side One unfolds without a memorable melody, though thankfully the project's second half features the glistening 'Listen to Her Heart' and the blistering 'I Need to Know' (each sizable pop hits). In addition, 'Baby's a Rock 'n' Roller' is one of Petty's overlooked gems. The spacey closer, with its keening vocals, is built on a chunky boogie that would make Marc Bolan jealous.



9
‘Hypnotic Eye’ (2014)

Few bands so long in the tooth can sound as muscular as Petty and the Heartbreakers do on ‘Hypnotic Eye.' After rebooting with the blues jams, the band plants itself firmly in the garage -- streamlining the ‘Mojo’ meanderings into tightly focused rock songs featuring a rumble that would shake Link Wray. If nothing else, the album is a showcase for Campbell's skill, taste and tone. You want to call songs like ‘All You Can Carry’ and ‘U Get Me High’ “vintage Heartbreakers,” but even the group’s earliest recordings were never this raw and beefy. If the hooks aren’t quite as plentiful as in the past, the songs still tell smart stories. Kickoff track ‘American Dream Plan B’ is as good a song that’s been written about modern America: “My success is anybody’s guess / But like a fool, I’m bettin’ on happiness.” With a band that sounds like this, why not?



8
‘Songs and Music from 'She’s the One" (1996)

This kinda-sorta soundtrack to Ed Burns' largely forgotten film is routinely dismissed by Petty as a hodge-podge of leftovers from the 'Wildflowers' sessions. With outtakes this good, what's wrong with that? 'She's the One' finds the Heartbreakers at their most freewheeling, from the goofy rave-up 'Zero From Outer Space' to a snarling cover of Lucinda Williams' 'Change the Locks' to the jangle pop of 'California.' Short instrumentals display a side of the Heartbreakers rarely glimpsed on record, while repeated tracks ('Walls' and 'Angel Dream' each appear twice) show how a slightly different approach can completely change a song. Just compare the steady-rocking 'Walls (No. 3)' to the swaggering 'Walls (Circus)' with its merry-go-round keyboards, sweet strings and yelping backing vocals from Lindsey Buckingham. Petty's sour opinion surely can't hold out forever.



7
‘Highway Companion’ (2006)

Tom's third solo effort is a fantastic collection of songs and sounds – ones that pay tribute to some of Petty's greatest influences. The ominous 'Jack' would be at home on the Who's 'Tommy.' 'Flirting with Time' packs a jangly glee suitable for AM radio. 'Big Weekend' is a country-rock shuffle worthy of Bakersfield. Meanwhile, 'Square One' is one of Petty's best songs, as spare and weary as it is beautiful and life affirming. Considering that Rock 'n' roll so often deals in absolutes, it's jarring to hear a song that discusses equal measures of winning and losing in the same lyric. Thankfully co-producer Lynne (working alongside companions Petty and Campbell) doesn't slather the album in sonic frosting. 'Highway Companion' is crisp and clear, placing the emphasis on great music.



6
‘Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ (1976)

The songs on this album, particularly the irresistible chug of 'American Girl' and the moody cool of 'Breakdown,' have so ingrained themselves in the rock canon that it's difficult to realize how fresh the Heartbreakers debut was when released in 1976. The self-titled record remains an excellent introduction to this band, which never tried to recreate the sounds of British and American '60s rock as much as it attempted to harness the excitement of that music. There's a youthful exuberance that infects every song, from a tune about being stupid and in love with rock ('Anything That's Rock 'n' Roll') to a tune about being stupid and in love with the wrong girl ('The Wild One, Forever').



5
‘Hard Promises’ (1981)

Following the blockbuster success of 'Damn the Torpedoes,' this album proved that Petty still had a wealth of tunes in the tank – about tough luck and sad sacrifices, rough romance and hard promises. Sure, the hits are brilliant (with equal parts jangle and spitfire, 'The Waiting' is in the running for best Heartbreakers song ever). So are the album tracks: the chiming 'A Thing About You,' the slightly funky 'Nightwatchman,' the disillusioned country-folk tune 'Insider' (featuring Stevie Nicks). If it's not quite the galvanizing listen delivered by 'Torpedoes,' 'Hard Promises' gives us a more varied experience, with rootsier tinges that sat comfortably amidst gleaming power pop. And Petty fought to prevent his label from charging fans an extra buck for this album. What a bargain.



4
‘Echo’ (1999)

Petty has expressed disdain for ‘Echo,’ because of the unhappy circumstances under which it was made. He was going through a nasty divorce during the creative process, allowing the ugly feelings to infect his songwriting. As the Heartbreakers went into the studio, it became clear that Epstein was succumbing to his drug addiction. Whether it’s due to discomfort or dislike, the band rarely plays any tracks from ‘Echo’ in concert. That’s a shame, because this album contains some of the best and most personal songs Petty has ever written. The emotional rawness of the mournful title track, the raging sarcasm ‘Free Girl Now,’ the palpable desperation contained every moment are what makes this a fascinating listen. It’s his ‘Blood on the Tracks.’ He might be losing his wife, his life and his mind, yet Petty still pairs winning melodies with every track, delivered with razor-blade intensity by the Heartbreakers and overseen by master producer Rick Rubin.



3
‘Damn the Torpedoes’ (1979)

We can only imagine how much work went into making ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ sound so easy. This album is the epitome of record-crafting – from the snap of Stan Lynch’s drums to Benmont Tench’s perfectly calibrated keyboard flourishes to Petty making use of every character in his voice. The big, clean sound would bulldoze lesser bands (and often did), but the Heartbreakers’ restless intensity thrives on it, incorporating punky attitude, rockabilly heart and country soul into the AOR package. Of course, Petty’s best batch of songs (until, possibly, ‘Full Moon Fever’) only boosts the record to legendary status. ‘Refugee,’ ‘Even the Losers,’ ‘Don’t Do Me Like That’ and ‘Here Comes My Girl’ are rightfully established as classics, but ‘Shadow of a Doubt (Complex Kid),’ ‘Century City’ and ‘Louisiana Rain’ are equally deserving. Petty sings about the highs and lows of love on a record that has no lows.



2
‘Full Moon Fever’ (1989)

From one blockbuster to another. Ten years after ‘Damn the Torpedoes’ legitimized the Heartbreakers as rock stars, ‘Full Moon Fever’ made Petty a pop phenomenon. In the pursuit of a slightly different vision for his music, Petty cut the Heartbreakers loose for the first time (although Campbell remained his partner in crime, and Tench and Epstein each contributed to the album). Jeff Lynne became Tom’s go-to guy here, co-writing many of the songs, playing a lot of bass and co-producing the album. In fact, Lynne’s glossy keyboards and Beatle-esque harmonies (some from actual Beatle George Harrison) have something to do with the album’s popularity, although it was the top-notch songwriting that won over listeners. ‘Full Moon Fever’ is an embarrassment of melodies: ‘Yer So Bad,’ ‘I Won’t Back Down,’ ‘The Apartment Song,’ ‘Love is a Long Road.’ Campbell’s finest recorded moment may be the diesel-burning riff and hair-raising solo on ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream.’ Speaking of dreams, Petty finds a new lyrical gear in surrealism; ‘Free Fallin’’ is all the more enchanting for its dreamlike nostalgia. With success like this, it’s no wonder Tom went “solo” again.



1
‘Wildflowers’ (1994)

A Heartbreakers record in everything but name, ‘Wildflowers’ was approached by Petty, Campbell and co-producer Rick Rubin as a solo record to allow them the creative freedom to do anything they wanted. It turned out that Petty wanted to make his most ambitious album with the help of his bandmates (save drummer Lynch, who’d soon be replaced by Steve Ferrone, anyway). ‘Wildflowers’ is the singer’s most stripped-down and rootsy affair and also his most ornate outing, featuring orchestral backing on certain tracks and horn sections on others. Give Rubin credit for quality control and helping all of this make sense in the context of one record. Give Campbell credit for being able to play anything with strings, including acoustic, electric and slide guitars as well, as a sitar. Give Petty credit for delivering songs that range from thunderous garage rock (‘Honey Bee’) to wistful folk-rock (‘Time to Move On’) to barroom sing-alongs (‘You Don’t Know How it Feels’) to highway-blazing demons (‘You Wreck Me’). During the 63-minute journey, Petty drops little crumbs of wisdom, like “Most things I worry about never happen anyway” on ‘Crawling Back to You,’ self-loathing at its most gorgeous. Soulful, exciting, thoughtful, beautiful, mysterious, intriguing – most records are lucky to be one of those things. ‘Wildflowers’ is all of it. The top entry in our list of Tom Petty Albums, Ranked Worst to First, sounds as good as the day it was released, two decades ago.


Read More: Tom Petty Albums, Ranked Worst to First | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-albums-ranked/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

I saw there are a lot of Petty fans in here because of his collaborations with Stevie, I'd like to know what they think about this.

Personally, I think it's good that Hypnotic eye is so high, it's arguably his best album since the 2000's.
My favourite is Damn the torpedoes and it would have been my choice as first, but I can see why they chose Wildflowers. Same with Hard promises for the second position.
I totally don't understand why Into the great wide open and Southern accents receive such mixed opinions.

[SisterNightroad]

Top 10 Censored Rock Songs
by Bryan Wawzenek


Rock ‘n’ roll has always been about breaking rules and pushing boundaries. So, it’s not a surprise that every entry in our list of the Top 10 Censored Rock Songs is an all-out classic. The songs were either altered or banned completely from radio, television, department stores and even the singles charts. The reasons for the censorship are more varied than you might think, ranging from the usual sex-and-drugs content to insensitivity and product placement.

10
‘Kick Out the Jams’
MC5


The opening line from this proto-punk gem (along with the offending word printed on the album’s inside cover) caused a ruckus when the MC5 released their debut album in 1969: “It’s time to … kick out the jams, motherf--er!” The original edition of the LP was removed from store shelves and replaced with two versions: one with a censored cover and audio and another with the censored cover but uncensored audio (to be sold from only behind the counter). But the hometown Hudson’s department stores refused to carry any version of ‘Kick Out the Jams,’ which eventually became a ban on selling all records from MC5’s label, Elektra Records. To retaliate, the band took out full-page ads in Ann Arbor and Detroit newspapers with the words “F-- Hudson’s!” printed at the bottom. Elektra then dropped the group.




9
‘Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds’
The Beatles


The debate continues as to whether or not this psychedelic classic was about LSD. For his part, John Lennon always claimed he was inspired by artwork his son Julian brought home from school. When asked what the painting was, Julian told his dad that he had painted his classmate Lucy in the sky with diamonds. John wrote the bizarre imagery of the song’s lyrics as a result and maintained that the LSD initials were incidental. The BBC didn’t agree and banned the song from the airwaves because of perceived references to the hallucinogenic. Years later, fellow Beatle Paul McCartney claimed that it was “obvious” that the tune was about drugs.




8
‘My Generation’
The Who


In this instance, it was a stutter that flustered the good ol' British Broadcasting Corporation. Upon the release of ‘My Generation,’ the BBC banned the Who's song from the airwaves due to Roger Daltrey’s stuttering of some lines. The official reason was that the single might offend listeners who had stuttering problems. In addition, there were rumors that some folks at the BBC thought that the line “Why don’t you all f-f-f-fade away” suggested another f-word. The real reason for Daltrey’s stutter is nearly as elusive. Depending on who you believe, it was inspired by John Lee Hooker’s ‘Stuttering Blues,’ meant to mimic stuttering mods or was an accident caused by Daltrey trying to learn the lyrics. Regardless, after the song became popular, the BBC reversed the decision, and ‘My Generation’ received significant airplay.




7
‘Eve of Destruction’
Barry McGuire


Barry McGuire never utters an obscenity in this protest cut (one of the few to make our list of the Top 10 Censored Rock Songs). He doesn't mention sex or drugs either. But ‘Eve of Destruction’ was banned by many U.S. radio stations (many of them in the South) because programmers disagreed with its ugly view of humanity. Some felt that the single, with lines like “you’re old enough to kill but not for votin’,” was “an aid to the enemy in Vietnam.” P.F. Sloan was only 19 when he wrote the lyrics as a prayer for humanity and as a rallying cry against the evil he saw in the world. Many fans agreed with what they heard, sending the topical hit all the way to No. 1.




6
‘Lola’
The Kinks


The BBC censored Ray Davies’ ode to a sweet transvestite, but not for the reason you’d think. The broadcasters were fine with the title character who “walked like a woman and talked like a man,” but not as happy with the reference to Coca-Cola. At the time, the BBC had a policy against airing material with product placement. Paul Simon would later run afoul of the censors with ‘Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard’ (it mentions Newsweek) and ‘Kodachrome’ (for obvious reasons). In order to circumvent the ban, Davies had to fly all the way back to London from New York -- where the Kinks were touring -- to overdub “it tastes just like cherry cola.” The song was then cleared for airplay and became a No. 2 hit in the U.K.




5
‘You Don’t Know How it Feels’
Tom Petty


Tom Petty’s steady-rolling single might not have become a radio and MTV staple without one key change. On the censored version, when the Florida-born rocker sings “Let’s roll another joint” in the chorus, the offending word was played in reverse, and it ended up sounding like Petty somehow lost control of his mouth or just couldn’t come up with a proper rhyme for “point.” Not that it mattered. ‘You Don’t Know How it Feels’ reached No. 13 and won an MTV Video Music Award.




4
‘Money for Nothing’
Dire Straits


Talk about delayed reaction. Dire Straits’ 1985 mega-hit ‘Money for Nothing’ wasn’t censored until 2011, when the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council deemed it unsuitable for airplay. The reason was frontman Mark Knopfler’s use of a gay slur in the second verse. The derisive term violated the council’s code of ethics and was forbidden on private Canadian radio stations. Some outlets protested the ban, due to the song’s enduring popularity and that the offensive word was not used in a hateful manner. Knopfler wrote the song after overhearing an appliance-store worker’s commentary while watching MTV in his shop. ‘Money for Nothing’ is written from this unenlightened man’s perspective. The CBSC altered the decision a few months later, maintaining its stance but allowing stations to use their own discretion.




3
‘God Save the Queen’
Sex Pistols


British establishment took offense to this single’s title (stolen from the U.K.’s national anthem), cover artwork (featuring a defaced picture of Queen Elizabeth II), content (“there’s no future in England’s dreaming”) and, well, pretty much everything associated with it. Just in time for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee, Johnny Rotten equated the British monarchy with a fascist regime in an attempt to illustrate the divide between the royals and everyday people. Because of that stance, the song was banned from the BBC and the Independent Broadcasting Authority. ‘God Save the Queen’ hit No. 1 on the NME chart, but reached only No. 2 on the official U.K. singles chart (it was suggested that it may have been rigged to keep the Sex Pistols from the top spot). In some publications, the chart entry ran as two black bars on top of each other because the publishers found both the name of the song and the name of the band in poor taste.




2
‘Let’s Spend the Night Together’
The Rolling Stones


This rollicking, sexually suggestive Rolling Stones chestnut was never banned from the airwaves, although it earned the ire of Ed Sullivan. The TV host objected to a performance of the band’s latest hit on his popular Sunday-night program until a compromise was reached: Mick Jagger would sing “Let’s spend some time together” instead of the original lyric. Jagger (unlike Jim Morrison during the Doors' performance of ‘Light My Fire’) held up his end of the bargain, even though he repeatedly rolled his eyes at the camera. After the performance, the Stones returned to the stage wearing Nazi uniforms, at which point Sullivan barked at them to put their other clothes back on. The band left the theater and was banned from the show for the next two years.




1
‘Louie, Louie’
The Kingsmen


Sometimes, songs are banned for no real reason at all -- like in the case of the No. 1 track on our list of the Top 10 Censored Rock Songs. The Kingsmen’s garage-rock nugget was banned from several radio stations, prohibited throughout Indiana (thanks to its governor) and subjected to a 31-month investigation by the FBI. All because some teens somewhere started a rumor that the words singer Jack Ely was howling were about an explicit sexual encounter. In reality, the lyrics (written by Richard Berry in 1957) recounted a sailor’s rather banal ode to his dream girl. But because Ely was singing in pidgin English, screaming at the top of his lungs and wearing new braces, his enunciation wasn’t perfect, and rumors escalated. The FBI then spent a fair amount of taxpayer dollars interviewing almost everybody associated with the recording and listening to the hit single at various speeds in an attempt to decipher the “true” meaning. In the end, the FBI threw their hands up and declared their inability to interpret any of the lyrics. Despite, and because of, its reputation, ‘Louie Louie’ has become one of the most important songs in rock history.



Read More: Top 10 Censored Rock Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/censored-rock-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

[becca]

The 'Classic Albums' DVD for 'Damn the Torpedoes' is one of the very best for that series, really loaded with detail... should be next to the one they put together for 'Rumours' of course. :nod:

[Hawkeye]

I agree with their number one album but not much else of that order matches what I think. My biggest difference is I think long after dark is incredible. His best album until the 90s.

And I've never had anyone share this opinion but other then refuges and breakdown I think his first three albums aren't very good at all. This is how I drank them:

1. Wildflowers
2. Into the Great Wide Open
3. Long After Dark
4. Mojo
5. Hypnotic Eye
6. Full Moon Fever
7. Southern Accents
8. Echo
9. Hard promises
10. Danm the Torpedoes
11. Your gonna get it
12. She's the One
13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
14. Highway Conpanion
15. Let me up I've had enough
16. The last DJ

[SisterNightroad]

I agree with their number one album but not much else of that order matches what I think. My biggest difference is I think long after dark is incredible. His best album until the 90s.

And I've never had anyone share this opinion but other then refuges and breakdown I think his first three albums aren't very good at all. This is how I drank them:

1. Wildflowers
2. Into the Great Wide Open
3. Long After Dark
4. Mojo
5. Hypnotic Eye
6. Full Moon Fever
7. Southern Accents
8. Echo
9. Hard promises
10. Danm the Torpedoes
11. Your gonna get it
12. She's the One
13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
14. Highway Conpanion
15. Let me up I've had enough
16. The last DJ
Well, that was an objective list that ranked the album for music contribution and crap like that, but every list is subjective in the end.
Southern accents is 7th because you don't like it or just because there are others you like more? What album on your personal list is the rupture between good and bad?

[Hawkeye]

1 thru 9 I feel are incredible albums. Love multiple songs on all of them.

1. Wildflowers
2. Into the Great Wide Open
3. Long After Dark
4. Mojo
5. Hypnotic Eye
6. Full Moon Fever
7. Southern Accents
8. Echo
9. Hard promises



10 thru 13 are eh. Like I said earlier refugee and breakdown are both top 5 petty songs to me but nothing else on those albums do anything really for me.

10. Danm the Torpedoes
11. Your gonna get it
12. She's the One
13. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers


And I have almost no desire to ever listen to the last 3
14. Highway Conpanion
15. Let me up I've had enough
16. The last DJ

[chiliD]

I'd put them:

1) Mojo
2) Highway Companion
3) Mudcrutch
4) Hypnotic Eye

Then all the others in random order.

[SisterNightroad]

Top 10 Loser Songs
by Bryan Wawzenek

Even rock stars get down on themselves sometimes, a topic we’re investigating in the Top 10 Loser Songs. You’d think the artists below — people with talent, fame, groupies and money — wouldn’t be so depressed about love and luck, but these songs prove otherwise. Rod Stewart sang about female frustration. Tom Petty railed against being forgotten. John Lennon wrote about feeling like a phony. Even those who appear to want for nothing can’t have it all, which might be of some consolation when the rest of us feel lame. So, the next time you’re lost and despondent, commiserate with these Top 10 Loser Songs:

10
'I'm a Loser'
UFO


From: 'No Heavy Petting' (1976)
On this acoustic-tinged track, British hard rockers UFO seem to be recalling some troubled teenage memories along with the loneliness of touring. Frontman Phil Mogg sings about missing his train and being unable to go home ("They locked the doors and I'm left out alone"), before declaring himself "a loser on the road." Yet there are glimmers of hope, from friends who offer up a couch for the night to a real "thing" with Ginger. And, of course, a Michael Schenker guitar solo always makes everything OK.



9
'Loser'
Jerry Garcia


From: 'Garcia' (1972)
We shouldn't do the Top 10 Loser Songs without a tune about a gambler, and this gem from Jerry Garcia's solo debut couldn't be more appropriate. Co-written with Robert Hunter (and instantly absorbed into the Grateful Dead's live repertoire), 'Loser' features a down-on-his-luck cowboy who begs for money, wishes for riches and dreams of violence. For a con man, he's a sad sack, whimpering for the "10 gold dollars" that will, surely, provide the foundation for his change of fortune. "I've got no chance of losin' this time," he convinces himself, and this loser and those gold dollars ride off into the sunset.



8
'Poor Poor Pitiful Me'
Warren Zevon


From: 'Warren Zevon' (1976)
The story goes that Warren Zevon pal Jackson Browne was the inspiration for this song, a wry portrait of a man who carries a heavy heart despite being beloved by women. Zevon's opening lines showcases his sledgehammer sarcasm: the guy's such a screw-up that he can't even manage to get run over by a train. 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' only gets cheerier from there, suggesting an abusive relationship and sadomasochism ("I don't want to talk about it," Zevon famously demurs at the end of the verse). In a move that might have been masochistic, Browne produced Zevon's debut LP, including 'Poor Poor Pitiful Me' -- which featured Lindsey Buckingham on backing vocals and Bobby Keys on sax, as well. He also convinced Linda Ronstadt to cover a slightly altered version, which became one of her best-known tracks.



7
'Women Is Losers'
Big Brother and the Holding Company


From: 'Big Brother and the Holding Company' (1967)
On the first Big Brother and the Holding Company album, Janis Joplin didn’t yet give us a piece of her heart, but rather a piece of her mind. Fronting a male-majority band in a male-run industry (that was a small part of a male-dominated world), Janis belted out her truth: “Women is losers.” With a rasp that electrified your blood (and an attitude so genuine, she could have stolen it from the ghosts of the blues), Joplin delivered the state of women’s lib, circa the Summer of Love. By 1967, many things were changing, but still, “men always seem to end up on top.”



6
'Even the Losers'
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers


From: 'Damn the Torpedoes' (1979)
At first listen, you might think that Tom Petty is granting a hard-fought win in the chiming ‘Even the Losers.’ But this tale of an all-too idyllic romance gets spoiled every time he whines the verses' last line: “It couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me.” But it couldn’t have been that difficult either, right Tom? She’s obviously moved on and he’s the one living off of these meager, faded memories. Perhaps ‘Even the Losers’ is a response to the famous Alfred Lord Tennyson quote, “’Tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.” Petty is clearly not so sure.



5
'Three Time Loser'
Rod Stewart


From: 'Atlantic Crossing' (1975)
In the leadoff track from Rod’s first American-made LP, he’s once, twice, three times a loser. Although it’s never stated explicitly, Rod’s math appears to indicate his loser status is because the “jezebels” of this world have left him sexually wanting, flat broke and with an STD (“Now my friends say it’s here to stay”). In the course of this steady-rolling soul song, Rod the Mod isn’t simply forced the indignity of having to pleasure himself with Playboy magazine, he gets the full-on Costanza treatment in Chelsea when he’s left broke and naked by a woman who only lusts after his money. Rod might have been a loser, but the song wasn’t. It was the only track off the album that the Faces deemed worthy of inclusion during their final tour.



4
'Beautiful Loser'
Bob Seger


From: 'Beautiful Loser' (1975)
A book of Leonard Cohen poetry (also titled ‘Beautiful Losers’) inspired Bob Seger to write this ode to people who over-promise and underachieve. Yet, Bob’s idea of a “loser” appears to be a pretty decent guy. He’s polite and dependable, doesn’t complain and is willing to cede the spotlight. Sounds just like the kind of people most rock stars would love to have hanging around. But according to Seger, this ‘Beautiful Loser’ is guilty of wanting to be everything to everyone (even himself). The singer’s just waiting for it all to fall apart. At the end of the song, he repeats the lesson like it’s a mantra: “You just don’t need it all.”



3
'King Midas in Reverse'
The Hollies


Single (1967)
Although credited to multiple members, Graham Nash was the sole songwriter behind this portrait of an epic loser. As the title implies, the man in question is the opposite of King Midas: “all he touches turns to dust.” Co-singers Nash and Allan Clarke spend the song trying to ward off potential interests with portents of darkness, including, “I’ll break you and destroy you.” Pretty sinister stuff for a song so brightly colored with gorgeous harmonies, a stomping beat and a soaring orchestra. It was the Hollies’ most ambitious single to date, although it turned out to be a bit of a loser itself. ‘King Midas in Reverse’ arrived back then as the Hollies' lowest-charting U.S. release since their 1965 breakthrough.



2
'Deacon Blues'
Steely Dan


From: 'Aja' (1977)
If a wildly successful college football team can have a grandiose name like the Crimson Tide, then why can’t a washed-up jazz musician invent a persona that’s just as grand? That’s the question that led Steely Dan masterminds to flesh out ‘Deacon Blues,’ the story of a man who leaves his old life behind in order to cling to a romantic notion of the suffering artist. It sounds like the crazy, rambling ideals of a college kid who’s just become infatuated with Charlie Parker: “I’ll learn to work the saxophone / I play just what I feel / Drink Scotch whiskey all night long / And die behind the wheel.” He might be a loser, but at least he’s got a plan. Call him Deacon Blues.



1
'I'm a Loser'
The Beatles


From: 'Beatles for Sale' (1964)
We bookend the Top 10 Loser Songs with another, more famous, song titled ‘I’m a Loser,’ which was inspired by some pretty big winners, including Buck Owens, George Jones and Bob Dylan. John Lennon internalized the country-style picking of songs released by the first two along with the downbeat and complicated nature of tunes being written at the time by Dylan. As such, ‘I’m a Loser’ marks the first instance of the folk influence creeping into the Beatles’ sound. It’s also one of the first instances of the band moving past writing about the joy and pain of young love. Ostensibly, ‘I’m a Loser’ is about a breakup, but that’s merely the entryway into this depression. Lennon, who would plunge deeper into darkness in the coming years, expressed the duality of his pop star persona in the song (“Although I laugh and I act like a clown / Beneath this mask I am wearing a frown.”) John also goes deeper from a vocal perspective, bottoming out on a low G, and then reminding us, “I’m not what I appear to be.”





Read More: Top 10 Loser Songs | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/top-loser-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty Awarded Cowriting Credit for Sam Smith’s ‘Stay With Me’
by Jeff Giles January 26, 2015 9:59 AM


One of 2014′s biggest hit singles just put some extra money in Tom Petty‘s pocket.
Consequence of Sound reports that as soon as Sam Smith‘s ‘Stay With Me’ hit the interwebs and airwaves last spring, people started pointing out melodic similarities to Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down,’ particularly in the chorus. Petty and Smith apparently agreed, and the two have reached an agreement that changes the song’s writing credits accordingly.
“When Sam’s track was originally released, it was clear to a lot of musicians that there were notable similarities between the tracks,” explained a source. “After it was pointed out to Sam’s camp, they didn’t try to fight it and amicably dished out royalties. It wasn’t a deliberate thing, musicians are just inspired by other artists and Sam and his team were quick to hold up their hand when it was officially flagged.”
Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’ co-writer, Jeff Lynne, also benefits from the change, which was reportedly worked out last fall, but is only being reported now; as the source put it, the whole thing was “done behind closed doors without any mud being slung.” Check out both songs below, and join us in cheering an example of people solving a multimillion-dollar problem amicably.



Read More: Tom Petty Awarded Cowriting Credit for Sam Smith's 'Stay With Me' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-sam-smith/?trackback=tsmclip

[Macfanforever]

I wonder how his RS special issue sold.

[SisterNightroad]

I wonder how his RS special issue sold.
What month was it?
In my country Rolling Stone has another issue, so I can't read it, I hope I'll be able to download it from internet when I can.

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty Settlement the Result of a ‘Complete Coincidence,’ Says Sam Smith
by Jeff Giles January 27, 2015 9:58 AM

http://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/ultimateclassicrock.com/files/2015/01/Tom-Petty-630x420.jpg


Tom Petty and Sam Smith have reached an amicable settlement regarding the similarities between Smith’s ‘Stay With Me’ and Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down,’ but even if Smith ended up yielding cowriting credits to Petty and Jeff Lynne, he’s adamant that any musical overlap between the two songs was definitely not on purpose.
Responding to a flurry of reports about the change — which took place last fall, but was kept quiet for months — a spokesperson for Smith told Rolling Stone that the whole thing was just a fluke of songwriting.
“Recently the publishers for the song ‘I Won’t Back Down,’ written by Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne, contacted the publishers for ‘Stay With Me,’ written by Sam Smith, James Napier and William Phillips, about similarities heard in the melodies of the choruses of the two compositions,” explained the representative. “Not previously familiar with the 1989 Petty/Lynne song, the writers of ‘Stay With Me’ listened to ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and acknowledged the similarity. Although the likeness was a complete coincidence, all involved came to an immediate and amicable agreement in which Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne are now credited as co-writers of ‘Stay With Me’ along with Sam Smith, James Napier and William Phillips.”
Petty hasn’t issued any official comment, but that isn’t terribly surprising; he doesn’t have anything to gain by adding his two cents here, and in the past, he’s expressed a very laid back point of view regarding unintentional plagiarism of his work. “I seriously doubt that there is any negative intent there. And a lot of rock ‘n’ roll songs sound alike,” he told Rolling Stone in 2006 when asked about similarities between the Red Hot Chili Peppers‘ ‘Dani California’ and his own ‘Mary Jane’s Last Dance.’ “Ask Chuck Berry. The Strokes took ‘American Girl’ [for their song 'Last Nite'], and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you.’ It doesn’t bother me.”



Read More: Tom Petty Settlement the Result of a 'Complete Coincidence,' Says Sam Smith | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-sam-smith-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

UPDATE – Sam Smith Says Tom Petty Settlement the Result of a ‘Complete Coincidence,’ Petty Agrees
by Jeff Giles January 29, 2015 10:00 AM


1/29 UPDATE: Tom Petty has released an official statement ”about the Sam Smith thing,” calling it “a musical accident.” He said, “I have never had any hard feelings toward Sam. All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by. Sam’s people were very understanding of our predicament and we easily came to an agreement. The word ‘lawsuit’ was never even said and was never my intention. And no more was to be said about it. How it got out to the press is beyond Sam or myself. Sam did the right thing and I have thought no more about this. A musical accident, no more no less. In these times we live in, this is hardly news. I wish Sam all the best for his ongoing career. Peace and love to all.”



Read More: Tom Petty Settlement the Result of a 'Complete Coincidence,' Says Sam Smith | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-sam-smith-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

[Macfanforever]

What month was it?
In my country Rolling Stone has another issue, so I can't read it, I hope I'll be able to download it from internet when I can.

I guess it was this month of January.

Heres what it looks like.

[Macfanforever]

UPDATE – Sam Smith Says Tom Petty Settlement the Result of a ‘Complete Coincidence,’ Petty Agrees
by Jeff Giles January 29, 2015 10:00 AM


1/29 UPDATE: Tom Petty has released an official statement ”about the Sam Smith thing,” calling it “a musical accident.” He said, “I have never had any hard feelings toward Sam. All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by. Sam’s people were very understanding of our predicament and we easily came to an agreement. The word ‘lawsuit’ was never even said and was never my intention. And no more was to be said about it. How it got out to the press is beyond Sam or myself. Sam did the right thing and I have thought no more about this. A musical accident, no more no less. In these times we live in, this is hardly news. I wish Sam all the best for his ongoing career. Peace and love to all.”



Read More: Tom Petty Settlement the Result of a 'Complete Coincidence,' Says Sam Smith | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-sam-smith-songs/?trackback=tsmclip

I just heard this on my radio today.

[SisterNightroad]

‘Tom Petty’ Makes Startling Plagiarism Discovery in New Video
by Nick DeRiso February 6, 2015 11:59 AM


In a hilarious new video, Funny or Die imagines an entirely different response from Tom Petty to the recent plagiarism controversy regarding a hit song by Sam Smith.
The clip, which you can watch above, finds “Tom Petty” acknowledging the similarities between his own ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and Smith’s ‘Stay With Me,’ and adding that this sort of thing has happened before with his music. In sharp contrast to his remarkably chill real-life response, however, this time you get the sense of a previously unseen rage bubbling just beneath the surface.
“I now get 12 percent of that songs royalties,” the actor playing Petty quips, laughing himself so silly that he nearly swerves into the path of an oncoming car. “Hey! Sounds a lot like my car horn,” he shouts over the honking. “I got your license plate, thief! Don’t f– with me! I’ll steal 12 percent of your soul!”
It’s only later, during a trip down the radio dial, that the video uncovers similarities in Petty’s own songs with earlier hits by the likes of Blue Oyster Cult, Chris Isaak and Talking Heads. Oops!



Read More: 'Tom Petty' Makes Startling Plagiarism Discovery in New Video | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-funny-or-die/?trackback=tsmclip

[FuzzyPlum]

‘Tom Petty’ Makes Startling Plagiarism Discovery in New Video
by Nick DeRiso February 6, 2015 11:59 AM


In a hilarious new video, Funny or Die imagines an entirely different response from Tom Petty to the recent plagiarism controversy regarding a hit song by Sam Smith.
The clip, which you can watch above, finds “Tom Petty” acknowledging the similarities between his own ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and Smith’s ‘Stay With Me,’ and adding that this sort of thing has happened before with his music. In sharp contrast to his remarkably chill real-life response, however, this time you get the sense of a previously unseen rage bubbling just beneath the surface.
“I now get 12 percent of that songs royalties,” the actor playing Petty quips, laughing himself so silly that he nearly swerves into the path of an oncoming car. “Hey! Sounds a lot like my car horn,” he shouts over the honking. “I got your license plate, thief! Don’t f– with me! I’ll steal 12 percent of your soul!”
It’s only later, during a trip down the radio dial, that the video uncovers similarities in Petty’s own songs with earlier hits by the likes of Blue Oyster Cult, Chris Isaak and Talking Heads. Oops!



Read More: 'Tom Petty' Makes Startling Plagiarism Discovery in New Video | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-funny-or-die/?trackback=tsmclip

Ha ha. That's pretty funny.

[SisterNightroad]

Yes, it's VERY funny!

This is almost better:

http://41.media.tumblr.com/9950ded6ce844d43365e2f16d2ba076a/tumblr_niz1o94BOM1qi4qz3o1_1280.jpg

[SisterNightroad]

The Beatles’ First ‘Ed Sullivan’ Appearance: 10 Rock Stars Remember
by Bryan Wawzenek


More than 73 million Americans watched the Beatles’ debut performance on ‘The Ed Sullivan Show’ on Feb. 9, 1964. Among those inspired by this event were the youngsters who would grow up to be some of classic rock’s biggest stars. The Fab Four’s first performance on ‘Sullivan’ is such a watershed moment in the history of rock and roll, its influence on future music stars is taken for granted. If you picked up a guitar or got behind the drums in the decade that followed Beatlemania, it was just assumed that the ‘Sullivan’ broadcast had completely changed your life.
Decades later, in his song ‘I Saw It on T.V.,’ John Fogerty would sing, “We gathered round to hear the sound comin’ on the little screen / The grief had passed, the old men laughed, and all the girls screamed / ’Cause four guys from England took us all by the hand / It was time to laugh, time to sing, time to join the band.” Below are 10 stars who watched the Beatles that fateful night and then “joined the band.”


Tom Petty

“I think the whole world was watching that night. It certainly felt that way. You just knew it, sitting in your living room, that everything around you was changing. It was like going from black-and-white to color. Really. I remember earlier that day, in fact, a kid on a bike passed me and said, ‘Hey, the Beatles are on TV tonight.’ I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me, and I thought to myself, ‘This means something.’ [The Beatles] came out and just flattened me. To hear them on the radio was amazing enough, but to finally see them play, it was electrifying.” (Guitar World)





Read More: The Beatles' First 'Ed Sullivan' Appearance: 10 Rock Stars Remember | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/beatles-ed-sullivan-rock-stars-remember/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

30 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Struggle Through Ambitious ‘Southern Accents’
by Jeff Giles March 1, 2015 8:39 AM


Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took a three-year break from new music between 1982-85, but the band wasn’t on vacation. In fact, they were hard at work on Petty’s most ambitious project to that point.
Southern Accents, the band’s sixth LP, arrived in record stores on March 1, 1985 — and while all those years of dogged creative pursuit were audibly reflected in nine of the most intricately produced songs Petty had released to date, the album was actually a heavily truncated version of the project as he’d initially imagined it, and it was only completed after months of painful and occasionally chaotic effort. Ultimately, while it gave the band another Top 10 album, and a pop crossover hit with “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” Accents got the best of Petty, and left the band emotionally drained as well as physically battered.
It started innocently enough. During a run of dates in the Deep South during the early ’80s, Petty — a Florida native — found himself driving around thinking about an album inspired by the region’s rich past. “I just would write one word titles. ‘Apartment.’ ‘Rebels.’ ‘Trailers.’ Things like that,” Petty told Paul Zollo in Songwriters on Songwriting. “So when I came home, I had kind of a sketch of what I wanted to do. And then I just started sketching them out.”
Those sketches hinted at musical depths that were, by Petty’s own admission, occasionally beyond his reach. “What a really crazy album that was. It was intentionally going to be a double album. And it got cut down to one. We never even finished. That was a weird period because I don’t think we’d ever been off the road that long. That was the first time we’d really stopped. It was like, ‘Go, go, go, go, go, go!’ The whole time. And then suddenly, boom. We stopped.”
That sudden halt produced a disorienting effect in some ways but, in others, it allowed Petty the time and energy to add another layer to his songwriting. On tracks like the album opener, “Rebels,” he adopts a storytelling approach not unlike the one employed by Randy Newman, getting inside the skin of a fatally flawed protagonist whose essential humanity still came shining through, drawing the listener inside a story that — while distinctly regional — is also universal.
“I was just thinking about the average young guy down there who is brought up in this tradition that tells you, ‘This is the way it has always been and the way it should be.’ I’m not just talking about jobs, but a whole way of living,” Petty said of “Rebels” during a conversation with the Los Angeles Times. “In the song, the guy is born with it all lined up against him, but for some reason he just can’t get in line and play the way he’s supposed to.”
It’s a character Petty could recognize from his own past — and, on some level, his personal journey out of the South. “I never bought the idea of having your life laid out for you and I got out, but a lot of them never do,” he continued. “It’s hard to understand why, but that tradition is so strong that they don’t ever realize that two hours in any direction gets you somewhere else. I could see the creases in the curtain at a real early age. One thing that helped me break away was music.”

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Plenty of the songs Petty and the Heartbreakers worked on during the Southern Accents sessions were cast by the wayside after tortuous rescue attempts, but they didn’t all require hard work. The title track, which Petty himself still regards as one of the better songs in his catalog, came out quickly during a late-night writing session.
“I started with the title,” Petty recalled when Performing Songwriter asked about writing “Southern Accents.” “I thought at the time I was going to do an album based on southern themes and southern music. I wrote it at the piano — very late at night, about four or five in the morning. I still think it’s probably one of my best two or three things that I ever wrote. I thought it was very personal, so that was one where it just took me over. I don’t know what happened there. I do have a vague memory of being extremely glad when I hit the bridge. I actually woke up my wife and made her listen to this song.”
“The Best of Everything,” originally written for 1981′s Hard Promises, also earned an early spot on the Southern Accents running order — and offered one of the troubled album’s sweetest stories when Robbie Robertson volunteered to take over the arrangement, contributing a Band-worthy horn chart and inviting Richard Manuel to sing harmony vocals.
But looming behind Southern Accents‘ bittersweet beauty was a roiling chaos, compounded by the lack of oversight that went with recording the bulk of the album at Petty’s home studio. Struggling to realize his vision for the songs while supervising increasingly fractious sessions — and developing some seriously unhealthy habits — Petty and the Heartbreakers started losing focus.
“Tom was dancing with the devil at that point,” Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch told Uncut. “I imagined he was going to go. … Something was going to happen real bad.”
In discussion with Paul Zollo, Petty agreed. “This is the first time that the evils of success started to creep in — because we had all this time on our hands,” he said. “And we were living in Los Angeles, and we started doing cocaine and pot, and drinking started to show up. I remember there was cocaine around then and a lot of drinking. We were the wildest we ever were then in our personal lives. We were just wild and crazy. We had too much time on our hands. I didn’t know how to live in the world. I just didn’t know how to do it.”

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This period may have reached its nadir at the infamous moment in which Petty, exhausted and sick of trying to figure out how to sculpt a coherent narrative out of the mass of music they’d recorded, ended up taking a swing at one of the studio walls. The wall won, leaving Petty with a broken hand and a lengthy period of rehab and recovery just to get back to the point where he could play guitar again.
“It wasn’t like I was furious and smashed my hand against the wall,” he insisted later. “I was just at a point where I had been working on the album for over a year, and I thought I was finally about done. I kept wanting to say, ‘That’s it. We’re finished,’ but I sat down and listened to one of the songs and I knew it still wasn’t right, so I started walking back up to the house and just swung my hand — like I’ve done a lot.”
Cautioned by his doctor that his guitar-playing days could be over, Petty insisted, “I never really accepted the possibility that I couldn’t play again. The band also tried to keep it real light. They’d joke about how I’d have to take less money if I was just the singer.”
Those lighter moments came in greater abundance after Southern Accents was finished, even if the final track listing — which included a trio of co-writes from producer/Eurythmic Dave Stewart — fell frustratingly short of Petty’s original idea. In the end, perhaps the album’s greatest lesson for Petty and the Heartbreakers was that it was better to work quickly than to labor for perfection — an aesthetic that was applied to 1987′s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) as well as Petty’s 1989 solo debut, Full Moon Fever.
“In therapy and in the hospital I started to realize that I had taken intensity about as far as it could go in my personal life and with the guys in the band and business people and everybody,” Petty later told Q. “I realized I couldn’t go on living so intense and revved up and stuff. Because, with some kind of flash of realization, I realized that I had actually never really enjoyed myself. I’d done partying and I’d done work, but I’d never genuinely enjoyed myself. I’d been very reclusive, and I didn’t know a lot of people and I didn’t ever see many people. I wasn’t very social at all, because I was revved up all the time. And I just was not very happy. It was time to calm down. And I made this great discovery: people are quite fun, you know.”



Read More: 30 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Struggle Through Ambitious 'Southern Accents' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-southern-accents/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

16 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Barely Hold It Together on ‘Echo’
by Jeff Giles April 13, 2015 1:57 PM

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Everything Tom Petty touched turned to platinum during the ’90s, starting with the sales carryover from his 1989 solo debut Full Moon Fever and continuing through a series of bestselling releases that included a pair of albums with the Heartbreakers, the solo Wildflowers LP and a greatest-hits record that boasted a couple new hits of its own. When Petty and the Heartbreakers announced an April 13, 1999, release for their 10th studio LP, Echo, expectations were understandably high.
Looking at the liner notes, it seemed reasonable to assume that Echo was destined to become yet another huge hit for Petty and his bandmates. Like Petty’s previous release, a soundtrack album for the 1996 Edward Burns movie She’s the One, as well as 1994′s Wildflowers, the new LP boasted the involvement of producer Rick Rubin, who’d helped give Petty’s recent work a slightly rougher, more no-nonsense sound while working to maintain the focus on songwriting that had made the band such reliable hitmakers.
But if the personnel were basically the same, it was still immediately evident that Echo presented a different Petty. Clustering together 15 songs that weighed in at more than an hour in length, the album announced itself with “Room at the Top,” a five-minute lament of lost love that begins on a starkly defiant note before closing with the gut-wrenching plea “Please love me, I’m not so bad / And I love you so.” In between, there’s a howling middle section in which Mike Campbell’s guitar is unleashed over a stomping Steve Ferrone beat — but through it all, Petty sounds broken, resigned, defeated.
Like “Room at the Top” — a song Petty once sarcastically described as “one of the most depressing songs in rock history” — Echo is a record that rocks in its way, but is permeated by the same stark sonic palette reflected by its somber black-and-white cover photo. It comes across, in a way, like an echo of the sound — and the band — fans had come to expect.
There were some very good real-life reasons for this. “I had some long periods of severe depression,” Petty told USA Today. “I took some hard knocks and retreated from the world and lived in this little cabin. I didn’t see a lot of people. I wasn’t happy, and I didn’t want to lay that on everybody. Even when I was in public, I didn’t want to be there, and that’s a terrible feeling. It took me a while to want to come back.”
Even the biggest rock stars have contractual obligations to worry about, however, and Petty’s pulled him back into active duty before he was really ready to face the prospect of making a new album.
“I think Echo was probably the most scattered I’ve ever been,” he told Dean Goodman. “I never played it. I looked at the cover the other day and there was a song or two I didn’t recognize, I don’t even remember writing. It was a very hard time when I did that record. It was the only record I did kinda under the gun in my life where there was this huge tour booked and I had to finish the record.”
The hard time, as fans were aware, stemmed from Petty’s divorce. “Divorces are really furious things to go through, really draining,” he explained. “So to try to make a record and get my life together at the same time was really rough.”
It all added up to what Petty called “a very dark record” — and one he didn’t have the strength to support once it was out in stores. “I didn’t do anything to promote it. I didn’t do any promotion. I didn’t make a video. I didn’t do nothing. I think that probably played into it. Plus,” he conceded, “I don’t know how good it is.”
Many artists are their own worst critics, and while Echo may not be a great album by Petty’s estimation, even the worst Tom Petty record is better than many other artists’ best. Although it still represented a bit of a tumble from the lofty heights he’d enjoyed with releases such as Into the Great Wide Open and Wildflowers, reviews were generally kind and the album sold respectably, peaking at No. 10 while going gold and sending three singles (“Free Girl Now,” “Swingin’” and “Room at the Top”) into the Top 20 at Mainstream Rock radio.

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Ultimately, Petty himself found a way to love an album that represented a painful snapshot from a dark personal period. “I think that my life was such a circus at that time, that I don’t think I felt like I was there half of the time,” he told Paul Zollo in Conversations With Tom Petty. “I know Rick doesn’t feel like I was there half of the time. But I was.”
After some prompting from his second wife, he finally listened to the album, and was surprised by what he heard. “I thought for the longest time that I didn’t like it. And later Dana and I were in the car, and [Echo] came on the CD-changer, and I said, ‘Oh no,’ and she said, ‘Listen to this. Really listen to it.’ And we were driving somewhere that was a fairly long drive, and I listened to it, and I really, really liked it,” he admitted. “I went, ‘Damn, you know, this ain’t that bad, is it?’ For some reason, I got in my head that I didn’t like it. But I really did like it that day when I heard it in my car.”
Still, even if he can appreciate it now, Petty still sounds an ambivalent note regarding Echo, and not just because some of the songs stemmed from the end of his marriage. The Heartbreakers themselves were on the verge of saying goodbye to one of their own — bassist Howie Epstein, who would succumb to years of addiction struggles in 2003, shortly after being fired from the band.
“There was a lot going on then in my life. Howie was disintegrating before our eyes. That was a big issue. Not the happiest time for the Heartbreakers,” Petty told Zollo. “We did a tour behind that record. We did a pretty long tour, for us. That’s what I remember most about it, doing the tour. And the tour went on and on and on. And we played quite a few songs from it. But I was kind of glad to get to another place after Echo. I was kind of glad to get somewhere else. I don’t know why, but I kind of felt like we came back into the sun after that.”


Read More: 16 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Barely Hold It Together on 'Echo' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-echo/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

28 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Succumb to the ’80s on ‘Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)’
by Matt Springer April 21, 2015 9:38 AM

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There’s a dark, evil creature shambling through the back catalogs of the greatest rock artists ever, and it’s called the ’80s.

In 1987, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had just come off the road supporting Bob Dylan. They went into the studio and the beast of the ’80s made its move, resulting in Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), an album that sounds like a product of its time.

There seems to be no limit to the impact the diabolical beast had on most of the era’s mainstream rock recordings. From all-time classics to obscure platters, there’s always a synth lurking around every corner, and a too-clean sheen sprayed over so much of the decade’s recorded output.

Behind the processed veil, however, Let Me Up stands as a record with an self-conscious-free looseness and a well-earned status as an underrated gem in Petty’s catalog. Even with the ’80s breathing down his neck, Petty can’t help but keep the songwriting crisp, with a hint of twang.

The record blasts out of the gate with its biggest single, “Jammin’ Me,” which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock chart. It’s catchy and moves, but suffers not only from the dated production, but lyrics that call out Eddie Murphy and Vanessa Redgrave.

Fortunately, the record recovers quickly on track two, “Runaway Trains,” though again, you have to take off your headphones and cover your ears through the first 30 seconds or so during one of those inexplicable synthy intros that so many rock artists favored back in the day.

Once Petty’s voice cuts in, it’s a fast trip to the cutting heart of an emotional bedrock of a tune, with a chorus jacked through with big major chords and off-kilter metaphors: “I guess it’s one of those things / You can never explain / Like when an angel cries / Like runaway trains,” Petty sings.

The rest of the record ping-pongs between these two extremes of strong songwriting backed with classic Heartbreakers sound, and uncomfortable moments where the ’80s are sitting on the sofa and drinking all the good beer. “The Damage You’ve Done” and “Think About Me” wouldn’t be out of place on a new Petty record, grounded in electric guitar and Stan Lynch’s big-bopping drums. Then “My Life / Your World” takes a perfectly decent slide guitar acoustic intro and fades it into what sounds like a leftover song from one of the era’s more pop-oriented artists.

But Let Me Up closes strong: Benmont Tench’s piano on “How Many More Days” is the perfect kind of Heartbreakers hook, one that takes the bones of Petty’s song and covers it with muscle and skin. The title track at the album’s close evokes the Rolling Stones with a crunchy guitar riff and an effortless swing.

These days, Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) sounds like a scattered record, with plenty of big ups and deep downs. But in the end, it’s an album where the ups make the downs worth weathering.



Read More: 28 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Succumb to the '80s on 'Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-let-me-up-ive-had-enough-turns-25/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Watch Kris Kristofferson Cover Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’
by Jeff Giles April 24, 2015 10:49 AM

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If you’re going to hire Kris Kristofferson to star in your eight-hour miniseries about the dawn of the Texas republic, it stands to reason that you’d also ask him to record a song for the soundtrack.
The 78-year-old singer-songwriter legend plays President Andrew Jackson in the History Channel’s upcoming Texas Rising event, which will dramatize the 1830s war between Texas and Mexico over 10 hours, spread out across five nights starting Memorial Day. But the show’s kept him busy behind the scenes, too — he also covered Tom Petty‘s “I Won’t Back Down” for the first trailer, which you can watch above.
According to Rolling Stone, Kristofferson’s sparse take on Petty’s hit is one of several newly recorded numbers on the Texas Rising soundtrack, which reportedly also includes songs from George Strait and José Feliciano.
Kristofferson, who stars alongside a cast that includes Bill Paxton and Ray Liotta, was a huge casting coup for executive producer Leslie Greif, who told Variety, “This iconic story and role really needed an American who is able to command the screen and captivate audiences. For me Kris was an obvious choice, there aren’t too many actors that are able to embody this character and the stature, strength and liberty to play the part. … When I announced to the cast and crew that we got Kris, the set erupted in loud cheers and everyone was yelling, ‘Yee-haw!’ We are blessed and thrilled that he enthusiastically jumped on board.”
For more information on the series, visit the Texas Rising page at the History Channel’s website. Check out Petty’s original version of “I Won’t Back Down” below.

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Read More: Watch Kris Kristofferson Cover Tom Petty's 'I Won't Back Down' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/kris-kristofferson-i-wont-back-down/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty Trades Intensity for Happiness: The History of ‘Full Moon Fever’
by Jeff Giles April 25, 2015 1:51 PM

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For much of 1987 and ’88, Tom Petty‘s career seemed to be stuck in a holding pattern, but his work with the Traveling Wilburys signaled a creative and commercial rebound — one that really shifted into high gear with the release of his first solo LP, Full Moon Fever, on April 24, 1989.

By the time Fever arrived in stores, fans had been waiting for it for months; in fact, it was originally supposed to see release in August 1988, under its original title of Songs from the Garage. As Petty explained to In the Studio, the delay was caused by a number of things, including the release of the Wilburys’ Vol. 1 in October of that year. “The record companies weren’t really pleased with both of them coming out at the same time,” recalled Petty, adding that for once, music industry politics improved the end result. “I was writing more songs and I thought when the Wilburys got done I’d go back in and finish these other four up and put ‘em all together and put ‘em out … it came out much better by waiting, I think.”

Although Full Moon Fever couldn’t help but sound a little like a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers record, Petty helped establish his solo sound by hooking up with producer Jeff Lynne — a fruitful friendship that not only heavily influenced Fever and the Wilburys, but went on to have a major impact on the next Heartbreakers LP, 1991′s Into the Great Wide Open. And as Petty later recalled, it all started because he decided to go shopping for baseball gloves on Thanksgiving Day of 1987.

“I wanted to play baseball real bad and the only place open was Thrifty Drugs,” Petty told BAM. “Now George [Harrison] had given me his [Lynne-produced] Cloud Nine album just before it was released. I loved it and I’d been playing it all day before I went to get these mitts. So when I get to this light, and there’s Jeff, the next car over, it was like…He was going to produce Brian Wilson at the time. And he said, ‘Do you want to come to the studio with me?’ I said, ‘Nah, I’m going to play baseball.’ But we agreed to stay in touch and it turned out he lived in my neighborhood, just up the street.”

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“I didn’t hear from him for about a month and then he started coming over,” Petty told Spin. “The first day I played a song for him that I had written called ‘Yer So Bad.’ He said he liked it, but how about if I tried a B minor here, and it instantly improved the song. We finished that song the first day and the next day we wrote ‘Free Fallin”’ Most of the Heartbreakers were spread all over the country at the time so I grabbed Phil Jones, who plays percussion on some of the Heartbreakers records, and me, him and Jeff went to [Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell's] garage studio and made demos of these new songs. When I heard them, I thought, ‘Hey, these sound like a record. Hmmm. Why not release them as a solo album?’ And that was that.”

Even though the Heartbreakers were on hiatus, Petty’s decision to strike out solo ruffled a few feathers. “They weren’t in love with the idea when I told them. They were pissed off at first, to be honest. But they’ve been pretty big about it,” he told BAM, and by the time the Heartbreakers regrouped for a tour in the fall of 1989, those fences seemed all but mended.

“For years my last name was Drummer for T.P. and the Heartbreakers,” drummer Stan Lynch told Rolling Stone. “It was good for me to do some other projects. We all as band members have been allowed to do whatever we want. Tom just says, ‘Keep it clean. Do things we can all be proud of.’ But Tom’s never had the possibility. For 14 years he’s been the faithful bandleader. Now that he did some other things, that in the end could keep the band together.”

And although Fever was technically a solo venture, it wasn’t without its share of Heartbreakers. Bassist Howie Epstein contributed backing vocals to a couple of songs, keyboard player Benmont Tench made an appearance, and the whole thing went down with the assistance of Campbell, who handled various instrumental duties in addition to co-producing the sessions at his garage studio (hence the album’s original title). His presence is particularly strongly felt in solos like the one he tracked for “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” which Petty laughingly recalled to In the Studio, saying, “He really ripped it up — I just was jumping around the room losing my mind over it.”

Audiences immediately responded to Full Moon Fever, sending it to No. 3 on the Billboard 200 and granting it double-platinum status before the end of the year. In addition, the album’s first three singles (“I Won’t Back Down,” “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” and “Free Fallin’”) all hit No. 1 on the rock chart while breaking the pop Top 40. While Petty certainly had enjoyed his fair share of hits with the Heartbreakers, these songs had a looser, lighter, and even more radio-friendly feel — something Petty later chalked up to an emotional turning point experienced after a temper tantrum during the sessions for 1985′s Southern Accents left him with broken bones in his hand.

“In therapy and in the hospital I started to realize that I had taken intensity about as far as it could go in my personal life and with the guys in the band and business people and everybody,” Petty told Q. “I realized I couldn’t go on living so intense and revved up and stuff. Because, with some kind of flash of realization, I realized that I had actually never really enjoyed myself. I’d done partying and I’d done work, but I’d never genuinely enjoyed myself. I’d been very reclusive and I didn’t know a lot of people and I didn’t ever see many people. I wasn’t very social at all, because I was revved up all the time. And I just was not very happy. It was time to calm down. And I made this great discovery: people are quite fun, you know.”

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“This has been a very prolific time for me. It’s fairly magical, in a way,” he added during an interview with BAM. “I feel kind of revitalized, musically. There’s a lot of music going in my head now and it’s been an inspiration to have so much input from a lot of different artists, not only the Heartbreakers. In our little world here [in Southern California], it’s funny, but I’ve never seen a period like this where there are so many people trading ideas and so open to it. ‘Cause [the Heartbreakers] used to be awful about that. We didn’t let anybody into our sessions. If you weren’t in the Heartbreakers, you didn’t come in. It was a very closed club. We lived like that. And I don’t really want to live like that anymore.”

But that epiphany — and the raging success of Full Moon Fever, which nabbed three Grammy nominations on top of all those hit singles and millions of albums sold — didn’t mean he was ready to leave the Heartbreakers behind. “I’m still very much in the Heartbreakers,” he told Rolling Stone just before the album was released. “I wouldn’t think of performing with another group.” He echoed those sentiments after it came out, telling Bam that “there wouldn’t be any point” to touring with a band other than the Hearbreakers.

“I mean, you can’t put together a band like that,” Petty pointed out. “I don’t think I’ll do many solo records, to be honest. We’ve been together such a long time, it’s really like dealing with your brothers, your family. We have our ups and downs with each other, but we all love each other, really. We’ll always stay together, I think, as long as we’re gettin’ better and gettin’ something out of it.”



Read More: Tom Petty Trades Intensity for Happiness: The History of 'Full Moon Fever' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-full-moon-fever/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

37 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Release ‘You’re Gonna Get It!’ Album
by Michael Gallucci May 2, 2015 12:45 PM

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A year and a half after Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ self-titled debut album fooled some music fans into thinking that the Los Angeles-based classic rockers were maybe a New Wave act, the quintet doubled down. You’re Gonna Get It!, which was released on May 2, 1978, loaded up on Byrdsian jingle-jangle, classic-rock guitar crunch and a few meathead riff-based songs that made it clear that Petty and his band had little in common with the skinny-tie kids and their synthesizers.
Unlike 1976’s Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, You’re Gonna Get It! comes off as a straightforward rock ‘n’ roll album with few detours (except for those that turn back to the ‘60s). But where the debut bristled with new-band energy, the follow-up LP lags at times, barreling through some of its songs with a workmanlike thud. The heavy touring that accompanied the first album started to take its toll on the band, especially Petty who penned 10 songs that couldn’t quite keep up with the best of the debut. Essentially, You’re Gonna Get It! doesn’t get much breathing space.
Still, the band had generated enough buzz from its debut to fuel much of the second album’s drive. The record – which was originally titled Terminal Romance – was recorded in Hollywood through 1977 and early 1978. Fresh off the road, the group sounds tough and hard on You’re Gonna Get It! Their playing, song for song, is even better than on the debut; it’s the songs that bring them down. Only the singles “I Need to Know” and “Listen to Her Heart“ manage much identity among the somewhat faceless rockers.
You’re Gonna Get It! still ended up reaching No. 23 – a better showing than Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ No. 55 peak. Neither single made it to the Top 40, but “I Need to Know” almost did, stopping at No. 41. The album went gold, the band went back on tour and they came out swinging on 1979’s Damn the Torpedoes, their masterpiece. And in a way, they needed to make You’re Gonna Get It! to get there. You can thank or blame second-album nerves, or deadlines, or even the usual sophomore slump.


Read More: 37 Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Release 'You're Gonna Get It!' Album | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-and-the-heartbreakers-youre-gonna-get-it/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty Releases Lost Song From ‘Wildflowers’ Era, Announces New Album
By Nick DeRiso June 2, 2015 12:50 PM

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Tom Petty has just released “Somewhere Under Heaven,” co-written with Mike Campbell for 1994′s Wildflowers but left unheard until now. The track, available for purchase now through digital retailers, will be part of a new archival project titled Wildflowers: All the Rest.

Even a brief listen to “Somewhere Under Heaven” places it firmly in context with the original album’s layered complexity. You can hear a sample of the new song above. The three-times platinum Wildflowers, a No. 8 hit that marked the first of three Petty albums co-produced by Rick Rubin, moved with deceptive grace from brawny rockers (“You Wreck Me,” “Cabin Down Below,” “Honey Bee”) to acoustic fragility (the title track, “Time to Move On”) to moving longform narratives (“It’s Good to be King,” “Crawling Back to You”).
And apparently there was much more where that came from. The release of Wildflowers: All the Rest, which features songs written between 1992-94, apparently corrects a wrong that goes back more than two decades. Petty says Wildflowers was originally intended to be a double album.

“Somewhere Under Heaven” can also be heard during the closing credits for the new movie Entourage, which opens this week. Petty’s most recent studio album, last summer’s Hypnotic Eye, became his first-ever U.S. No. 1. It was also his highest-charting U.K. release since Wildflowers went Top 10 20 years ago..



Read More: Tom Petty Releases Lost Song From 'Wildflowers' Era, Announces New Album | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-wildflowers-all-the-rest/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Five Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Rediscover Their Roots on ‘Mojo’
By Jeff Giles June 15, 2015 8:44 AM

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There was never any arguing Tom Petty‘s status as one of the world’s biggest rock stars as the ’90s wore into the aughts, but he did seem to be suffering from a certain creative drift. To pull himself out of that rut, he needed to rediscover his roots.

That process started, quite literally, with the unexpected reunion of Petty’s old band, Mudcrutch, which had fallen apart after releasing one single in 1975. While getting the group back together wasn’t as difficult as it could have been — Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, both of whom were long-tenured members of Petty’s band the Heartbreakers, were also in Mudcrutch — the process of quickly writing and recording the band’s self-titled 2008 effort reawakened something in his spirit.

“I don’t think I’d be here with the Heartbreakers if I hadn’t done that,” Petty told Sound and Vision in 2010. “We didn’t have even that much material when we started out. I had a couple of songs, maybe three, and we just had to whip them up and make it happen. The studio work went so well that I just thought, ‘I can’t possibly go back to any other way of working. It’s too gratifying.’ That was a real valuable musical lesson.”

That lesson carried over to the sessions for the next Heartbreakers record, which started in the spring of 2009 at Petty’s home studio. The first Heartbreakers album since the untimely passing of bassist Howie Epstein in 2003, it further exemplified the homecoming theme in Petty’s music by marking the full-time return of Ron Blair, the group’s original bass player. Unlike the previous Petty and the Heartbreakers set, 2002′s The Last DJ, the songs didn’t really have any concept tying them together; instead, they were cut from the same bluesy musical cloth. More than perhaps any other Petty LP to that point, this collection — eventually titled Mojo — was a blues album.

“I’d say that part of what drew me here was, you know, when we played naturally. Like if there’s no agenda at all, it’s always blues,” he explained in conversation with the Huffington Post. “I thought, well, let’s work where we feel the most comfortable, and I really felt like we had sort of mined all the other things we’d done. I feel like we found somewhere to sit down for a while, like this is something where there’s a lot to explore.”

The Mojo sessions proved back to basics in more ways than one. Though Petty was certainly no stranger to layered production, for these tracks — cut with production assistance from Campbell and longtime band engineer Ryan Ulyate — they opted for a “live in the room” approach, using stage monitor amps and playing in a circle. It had a lot in common with the way the young artists of Petty’s generation recorded when they couldn’t afford to spend money on studio tricks or overdubs — and perhaps not coincidentally, playing like he was a kid helped Petty unleash a creative torrent. Mojo ultimately weighed in at 15 tracks and more than an hour in length, and whittling it down even that far required some painful cuts.

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“We had such a great time doing it, we didn’t really want to quit, you know? I felt really hot, like we could have done a lot more, but this tour was looming over our heads. We had to stop, but I’m just in love with recording right now,” Petty continued during his talk with the Huffington Post. “I’ve never felt as proficient at it as I am right now. We did this without the use of headphones or separation — it was just all in the same room playing together. And it felt a little like a rehearsal feels, I guess. But I don’t know … it was just so much fun. I don’t see why we would go anywhere else.”

The majority of Petty’s fans didn’t seem to be clamoring for any kind of change in direction. Even though none of Mojo‘s singles really put much of a dent in the pop or rock charts — “I Should Have Known It” came closest, topping out at No. 40 at Mainstream Rock — the album itself sold solidly, peaking at No. 2, the highest mark for a Petty and the Heartbreakers release since Damn the Torpedoes in 1979.

For those who missed Petty’s punchier, poppier fare from the ’80s and early ’90s, or appreciated the level of craft and labor he’d put into the Heartbreakers’ earlier efforts, Mojo could admittedly feel frustrating — a set of songs that consistently smoldered while stubbornly refusing to flat-out burn. Like much of what Petty had done since 1991′s rather intricately produced Into the Great Wide Open, Mojo was a no-frills, somewhat shambolic affair — the sound of a band content to swagger now that it no longer felt the need to strut. For Petty, it was exactly the right record at exactly the right time.

“My music has always just come from where the wind blew me. Like where I’m at during a particular moment in time. This was something I have been thinking about for a long time,” he told the Huffington Post. “It had been ages since we made a record, and there were times when I wondered if we’d ever make another one. If we were going to make one, all of us said, ‘You know it’s got to be something really good or there’s no point in doing it.’ So, we’re all pretty pleased with ourselves right now.”

That contentment manifested itself with a period of renewed activity for Petty and the Heartbreakers, starting with the exhaustive Live Anthology box they released in the fall of 2009 and continuing through a live Mojo tour album and the group’s 13th studio LP, Hypnotic Eye, in 2014. With a new Mudcrutch record slated for the not-too-distant future, Petty’s artistic course seems set — having achieved every level of critical and commercial success he could possibly have dreamed of, he’s thoroughly content to make the music he wants to make with the musicians closest to his heart.
“I didn’t really anticipate us really doing it at this time in our lives,” he admitted to the Washington Post after Mojo‘s release. But, he quickly added, “I still got music in my head, and I’m in this incredibly amazing rock-and-roll band … If we started to suck, we would all hang it up. But I think we’re a long way from that.”




Read More: Five Years Ago: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Rediscover Their Roots on 'Mojo' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-mojo/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty Says His Use of Confederate Flag Onstage Was ‘Downright Stupid’
By Nick DeRiso July 14, 2015 2:35 PM

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Florida native Tom Petty now thinks differently about a mid-’80s decision to display the Confederate flag during his Southern Accents tour. “I wish I had given it more thought,” Petty tells Rolling Stone. “It was a downright stupid thing to do.”

Specifically, the flag was used in conjunction with a song from the album, “Rebels,” which was written from the point of view of a Southerner who still blames the North for the troubles in his life. “I regretted it pretty quickly,” Petty said after fans started flying the flag during later tours.

One time, a flag even found its way onstage, and Petty said he halted the show to respond. “I stopped everything and gave a speech about it,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a Confederate flag to our shows again because this isn’t who we are.’”

He recalled a mixed reaction at the time, but he’s stood firm, going as far as removing a photo from the 1985 concert album Pack Up the Plantation: Live because it depicted the Heartbreakers playing in front of a Confederate flag. “I still feel bad about it,” Petty said. “I’ve just always regretted it. I would never do anything to hurt someone.”

Petty noted that he grew up around the emblem, and that contributed to his ignorance about what the flag represented to others. But what about recent artists like Kid Rock, who’s stood by the Confederate imagery throughout this period of intense debate? “Isn’t Kid Rock from the Midwest?” Petty asked with a chuckle. “I think they were on the other side of the Civil War.”



Read More: Tom Petty Says His Use of Confederate Flag Onstage Was 'Downright Stupid' | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-confederate-flag/?trackback=tsmclip

[SisterNightroad]

Tom Petty on New Mudcrutch LP and Why He's Done With Solo Albums
"There's nobody I'm longing to play with," says Petty. "I'd rather play with the Heartbreakers"

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Tom Petty says the Heartbreakers are "just my favorite band to play with." Paul R. Giunta/Getty

Earlier this week, we chatted with Tom Petty about the Confederate Flag and his regret over using it as a stage prop back in 1985. But politics weren't all we discussed. He gave us an update on the upcoming Mudcrutch album and the band's likely tour, future plans for the Heartbreakers, a forthcoming LP of songs cut from Wildflowers and why he's unlikely to ever play one of his classic albums in concert or make another solo record.

I spoke to Mike Campbell recently and he said the plan was for Mudcrutch to convene in August to begin work on a new album. Is that still the plan?
Yeah, yeah. It's coming up.

Are the songs all written?
I wish they were. I'm kind of frantically working on material for that right now, really over the past month. The good thing is that everybody brings in a song so I don't have to write 12 or something. But I'm working on it. Some of the most fun I have is those Mudcrutch sessions. It was just so much fun and I think that's one of the better albums I was ever involved in. I'm hoping it's something like that again. It'd kind of intimidating to have to follow it up.


Where are you going to record it?
We're gonna use the Heartbreakers studio. We have a big Heartbreakers club house out in the valley, which is where we made the last one. I imagine most of it will be done there. The wild thing about the last album is that the vocals and even the harmony vocals were done live on the floor of the studio at the same time we played it, so there weren't many overdubs. I'm hoping we can do that again. They play their solos on the fly, so every take is a little different, but in the end you just go for the best one. We made that record in ten days.

Do you think this one will also be that fast?
I don't know. I'm gonna see.

It's great to watch you playing with Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh again. It's clear how much everyone is enjoying themselves.
I know. Playing the bass is so much fun for me because I started out as a bassist. I did that until the Heartbreakers formed, so being back in that position and playing with Randall is just so much fun. I love playing with him. He's such a good drummer, and he's a drummer that plays to the vocal rather than being hung up on the bass and stuff. And Tommy's just out of sight on the guitar. We spent our teenager years singing together, so we have a good blend.

Are you going to tour when the album is done?
Sure. I want to get over to the East Coast with it too. Last time we were kinda under the gun because there was a big Heartbreakers tour coming up not long after that, so we didn't have a lot of time. We kind of just ran up and down the West Coast real fast and did a fairly long stand at the Troubadour. Those were really fun gigs. It's a totally different thing than the Heartbreakers. It's a different rhythm section. It's a different style of music. Just writing for this group is interesting because I have to change my mindset from where I'm at today with the Heartbreakers.

How many songs do you have so far?
I think I have four, but I'm working on a couple more of them.

Onto the Heartbreakers, those shows you did a couple years ago at the Beacon and the Fonda where pretty amazing. Do you want to do more theater gigs in the future?
It changed my whole way of thinking about playing live. Two days after playing the Fonda we were playing in front of about 100,000 people at Bonnaroo. It was like, "Oh yeah, there's this too." Right away we started to work some of the stuff from the little shows into the big shows. I love playing all kind of places, but I don't think we could carry on any more if we don't slip that kind of thing in from time to time. You grow as a band by doing that. I love the freedom of it.

The Allman Brothers broke up this year, ending their Beacon residency. You guys could just take over, come play every March or something.
Pick up the torch! I'd love to do that. It's complicated business-wise because, and I don't know this for sure, but I would bet that it costs us money to do those shows. But I could figure that out, you know? I loved it there, and the Fonda was good, too. At the Fonda, though, we had big electrical buzz onstage that we couldn't quite control, which kind of irritated me. Other than that, it was great. I love the whole idea of doing a different show every night.

It was great to watch you do a song like "Walls," "Billy the Kid" or that cover of Chuck Berry's "Carol" when you guys fumbled the intro.
The funny thing about that "Carol" is that we came in at two different keys. Part of the band thought it was in one key and another part thought it was another one. The exact same thing happened at a Mudcrutch show in 1970, with the same ****ing song. We played it in rehearsal in one key, tried it in another and then decided to go back to the original key. I guess somebody missed a meeting. When we did that again, it was just killing us laughing that all those years later, the same song, we did the same thing.

I loved that. It showed this isn't some perfectly-rehearsed Broadway play or something.
It was fun. It was kind of like, "Well, what are you gonna do? Arrest me? I'll just start again and hope I can get it right."

What's happening with the Wildflowers box set? I've been hearing about that for years.
It's not really a box set. They have the second album of the double album that was originally made. We are going to release the second disc that hasn't been released before. I like it a lot. The original plan was to release it as as the complete Wildflowers album with the original album and this. And Warner Bros. came back to us and said, "Look, this is far too good a record to just send straight to the catalog racks. We're going to put it out as its own album." I was behind that decision too. It's done and we're eventually going to put it out. It's just sitting there finished, so I'm waiting to hear when they're going to put it out.

After the Mudcrutch album and tour, do you think you'll do a solo record or a Heartbreakers record?
I don't think I'm going to do any more solo records. I don't see that on the horizon. Well, the truth is that I would call these guys to play anyway. There's nobody I'm longing to play with, and I'd rather play with them. At this point in my life, it's such an honor to play with Benmont and Mike. It's just my favorite band to play with. I just don't want to make a solo record. I don't see the point.

So many of your peers have done tours in recent years when they play one of their classic albums straight through. Does that idea appeal to you?
That sounds really dull to me. I've heard about that and it sounds dull. Why would you want to do that? Records aren't made, at least mine, to be concerts. They aren't paced in that way. I don't know that doing one all the way through would make a great concert.

I guess they do it because it sells more tickets and the concert becomes this big event.
Well, that's fine it the big event is actually good. The Stones did one this year where they did Sticky Fingers, but I noticed they changed the running order. I see why you'd have to do that because otherwise you wouldn't have the pulse of a show.

Jagger told me they couldn't do it in stadiums because there's simply too many ballads.
Exactly. That's the thing with stadiums and arenas. The pacing of the show is really important. You're trying to keep a lot of people on the same page. There's an art to doing that.



Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-petty-on-new-mudcrutch-lp-and-why-hes-done-with-solo-albums-20150716#ixzz3g9jGVmem
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[SisterNightroad]

How Tom Petty Finally Hit the Big Time With ‘Damn the Torpedoes’
By Michael Gallucci October 19, 2015 8:43 AM

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The signs were there, signaling that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ third album, Damn the Torpedoes, would be their breakthrough. After two albums of heartland rock spiked with some tempered punk fury and classic rock ‘n’ roll drive, Petty and his band of Florida rockers took admiral David Farragut’s legendary Civil War declaration of “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” as their personal call to arms in 1979.

With 1977’s self-titled debut stalling outside of the Top 50 and the following year’s You’re Gonna Get It! climbing to No. 23, things were looking up for Petty and his four Heartbreakers. They managed to just crack the Top 40 with the debut’s “Breakdown,” but two singles from the follow-up — “I Need to Know” and “Listen to Her Heart” — stopped short of matching it.

So, after some behind-the-scenes drama involving a standoff with his record company that led to Petty declaring bankruptcy so he wouldn’t be tied to a contract, the album — which was recorded in late 1978 and early 1979 in Hollywood’s Sound City studio — was set for release. (It wouldn’t be the last time Petty butted heads with his bosses over the ownership and marketing of his music: His next album, 1981’s Hard Promises, was delayed after Petty balked at the label’s proposal to raise the record’s list price.)

And from the opening, ringing riff that ushers in “Refugee,” Damn the Torpedoes sounds like an instant rock classic. New producer Jimmy Iovine loads almost every track with a monumental significance, like this could be your new favorite song or Friday-night anthem. It really was “full speed ahead” for Petty, and there was no turning back.

The songs remain cornerstones of the band’s catalog and live sets; “Refugee,” “Here Comes My Girl,” “Even the Losers” and “Don’t Do Me Like That” are staples of classic-rock radio. And almost immediately Damn the Torpedoes — which was released within days of Petty’s 29th birthday in October 1979 — became the yardstick on which Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers albums were gauged.

The commercial upswing also was felt almost immediately. The album made it all the way to No. 2 and stayed there for seven weeks, kept from the top spot by Pink Floyd‘s The Wall (it was their highest-charting record until Hypnotic Eye debuted at No. 1 in 2014). “Don’t Do Me Like That” became the band’s first Top 10 single, and “Refugee” followed it into the Top 15.

Damn the Torpedoes set up Petty and the Heartbreakers for the upcoming decade. Their next three albums all went Top 10 and spawned a string of Top 40 singles. Besides the band’s 1993 Greatest Hits package and Petty’s 1989 solo debut, Full Moon Fever, it remains their bestselling album. But more than that, the record sparked rock ‘n’ roll during a period in which punk and disco almost killed it. All these years later, it still sounds like redemption on a Friday night.



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