ighlights - Musicians

 

Anthological!

The pivotal moment of Tom Petty's life came when he was introduced to Elvis Presley on the set of Follow That Dream (1962). Although the rocking- est tune Presley sang in the film was "On Top of Old Smokey," the impression made on the eleven- year- old Petty was profound. He soon traded his Wham- O slingshot for a friend's collection of 45s, which featured Elvis, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Petty, who had been playing the guitar his mother bought for him from the Sears catalogue since the age of thirteen, was swept up in Beatlemania, and in high school became the bass player for the Epics, a garage band that took their Beatles influence a little too seriously — they appeared onstage in matching suits.
 
 
 
By eighteen, Petty had formed a new collective called Mudcrutch, whose rockin' set list of original material and covers made them one of Gainesville, Florida's most popular bands. In 1973, Petty and Mudcrutch decided to go the usual route to rock stardom: they packed up an old van, and with thirty- seven dollars to their collective name, set off for L.A. They made it as far as Tulsa, Oklahoma, where they signed a record deal with Shelter Records, which distributed albums for Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf.

The members of Mudcrutch reunited (with a few additions) in 1975 as the Heartbreakers, with a significantly more musically mature Petty up front. Shelter took the band back into the studio to record its first album, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976). With the band mislabeled as punk because of the brevity of their scrappy songs and their telltale leather jackets, American audiences were slow to react to the album.
However, in England, where the Sex Pistols were setting a more revolutionary musical standard, the album was embraced readily; eventually, through a trickle- down effect, the band scored a Top 40 hit Stateside with "Breakdown." Their second album, You're Gonna Get It!, fell short of their expectations, both commercially and critically. The album's lukewarm reception wasn't the worst of their troubles: in 1978, Shelter was acquired by MCA Records, and Petty expressed his unhappiness with being bundled into the arrangement by demanding to be released from his contract. MCA responded by slapping him with a breach- of- contract suit.  
 
 
 
 
 

Following all that turmoil, Petty and his Heartbreakers were understandably dumbfounded by the explosion set off by their third album, 1979's Damn the Torpedoes. A multi- million seller, the album effectively established them as a major rock- and- roll arena act. Unfortunately, Petty's problems with MCA weren't quite over. When the record company tried to cash in on the booming popularity of Damn the Torpedoes by pricing his fourth album, Hard Promises, at $9.98 instead of the normal $8.98, Petty organized fan protests (he even threatened to title the album Eight Ninety- Eight in defiance of the price hike) and withheld the album until MCA finally backed down.

Hard Promises scored a commercial hit on par with Damn the Torpedoes, as did the follow- on release, Long After Dark. Following a 1983 tour undertaken to promote the latter album, Petty decided to take some much- needed time off. His bandmates involved themselves in a number of outside collaborations with the likes of Bob Dylan, Don Henley, and the Eurythmics, while Petty masterminded the concept for what eventually became 1985's Southern Accents. Recording Southern Accents turned out to be a trying and emotionally draining process for the reassembled band members, especially for Petty, who became so distraught while listening to the playback of the album that he slammed his hand into the studio wall, breaking it so severely that he was told he might never play guitar again.
 
He recovered, and the album was a phenomenal hit. Critics began to realize that Petty was more than just a good ol' boy rocker. The band capped off its summer Southern Accents tour with a performance at the Live Aid concert in Philadelphia, at which they were invited by Bob Dylan to back him for the Farm Aid benefit concert that sprung out of the Live Aid effort. Their teaming was so copacetic that Dylan, Petty, et al. staged a 1986 world tour. Galvanized by the experience of touring and working with Dylan, Petty and the Heartbreakers headed back into the studio to record their eighth album, Let Me Up (I've Had Enough).
 
 
 
 
 
In 1988, Petty joined Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison to form the Traveling Wilburys. The fact that Petty, a musical generation younger than the others, melded seamlessly into the group's diverse confluence of folk, pop, blues, and country, proved that he had successfully assimilated thirty years of rock- and- roll influences while developing his own unique sound. The supergroup recorded two albums, The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. One, in 1988, and The Traveling Wilburys, Vol. Three, in 1990 (Orbison died of a heart attack before the second album was recorded). Sandwiched in between these efforts, Petty released his first solo album, Full Moon Fever, to delighted critical reception and career- high sales.

Petty and the Heartbreakers' 1991 release, Into the Great Wide Open, rode Full Moon Fever's momentum to platinum status. The band bid adieu to MCA following the release of 1993's Greatest Hits album; Petty signed with Warner Bros. and cut his second solo effort, Wildflowers, the following year. The uneven album was a commercial disappointment, and Petty jumped at the opportunity to reunite with the Heartbreakers to record the soundtrack for the 1996 film She's the One — unfortunately, the critically appreciated album represented as much of a commercial disappointment as Wildflowers.
Over the course of his twenty- year- long career, Petty has shrugged off trends such as punk, new wave, and heavy metal, and has never strayed far from his Byrds- influenced, folk- rock guitar sound. He is consistent and honest, he relates to the man on the street, and he never fails to deliver catchy tunes. Petty is one of a handful of rock stars who has filled a six- CD box set (MCA released the sprawling six- disc retrospective Playback in 1995) that pleased fans and critics alike. In January and February of 1997, this elder statesman of American rock and roll played an unprecedented twenty- show engagement at the Fillmore in San Francisco.  
 
 
 
 
 

Anthology - Through The Years
Doube CD with best songs of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers

Anthology collects 34 hits and album tracks (along with a newly recorded version of the previously unreleased 1977 track "Surrender") from Tom Petty's years with MCA Records, 1976-1993. Liner notes from rock scribe/movie director/unabashed Petty fan Cameron Crowe -- while an apt testimonial to just how integral Petty and the Heartbreakers are to the fiber and spirit of American rock -- only tell about one-tenth of the story. The songs more than tell the rest.
  The slow-handed R&B groove of "Breakdown" opens Anthology, proving that no two Petty hits are hardly ever the same. "I Need to Know" sports a raucous rush of guitars and wrath that got right in punk rock's face, while "Listen to Her Heart" jangled wistfully with the hope that everything is going to be just fine in the end despite the antagonist's money and cocaine.
Singles throughout the '80s and '90s were just as disparate and satisfying. A union with the Eurythmics' Dave Stewart for 1985's Southern Accents LP brought the psychedelic "Don't Come Around Here No More," introducing wah-wah pedals and sitar to mid-'80s top 40 radio. Petty's collaboration with Bob Dylan on "Jammin' Me" plays back like '80s word association, name-checking everything from Joe Piscopo to El Salvador, while the song's big riff chugs away. And the rootsy thump of "Mary Jane's Last Dance" had people wondering if Buffalo Springfield had quietly reunited when it stormed radio in 1993.

Unlike such artists as the Stones, Springsteen, or Dylan, Petty's album tracks have never quite gotten their due. Despite questionable omissions like "Rockin' Around (With You)" and the Stax-Volt inspired "Make it Better (Forget About Me)," Anthology goes a long way toward showing there is more to Petty and the Heartbreakers than the songs that made it on the radio.

OFFICIAL TOM PETTY'S SITE