Tom Petty

Да, конечно не всем нравится то, что Том с ДЖеффом делали в свое время (это я не о себе), но Том знает все минусы подобной работы, поэтому если уж он взялся снова работать с ДЖеффом, то имеет на то свои причины.

Как могут не нравиться такие шедевры, типа Tr.W, FMF & ITGWO, благодаря которым Тома наконец-то узнали в СССР и России?

2Alex Red:

>Как могут не нравиться такие шедевры, типа Tr.W,
>FMF & ITGWO, благодаря которым Тома наконец-то
>узнали в СССР и России?
Ох, не знаю, возможно просто люди ждали более простого или более жесткого звучания, работы Джеффа слишком изысканы и слишком чувствуется его рука.

Tom Petty recounts near-fatal arson in new book Mon Aug 1, 4:54 AM ET



Rocker Tom Petty is opening up in detail for the first time about the arson fire that destroyed his house in 1987, likening the deed to a rape and admitting he was rattled for years afterwards.

Petty recounts the near-fatal incident in the upcoming memoir, "Conversations with Tom Petty," written by Paul Zollo. It is set for release in November via Omnibus Press.

The blaze occurred on May 17, 1987 at Petty's Encino, Calif. home as he and his (now-former) wife were preparing to host her birthday party. One of their two daughters was also home, as was a housekeeper whose hair caught fire as she tried to hose down the flames. Petty also grabbed a hose, but it melted in his hands, he recalls.

Everything was lost, apart from a few guitars and some tapes, but they were lucky to get out alive. He says he was initially dubious when told that the fire had been deliberately lit, but then firefighters showed him where someone had lit a can of lighter fluid and thrown it against the wall.

"We were shaken for years by it," says Petty, adding that he could not bring himself to use the word "fire" in a song. "It's sort of like being raped, I would imagine. It really took a long time. And it was 10 times as bad, because you knew that somebody just went and did it. Somebody tried to off you."

In the book, he gives special mention to Annie Lennox, who was on the scene because her Eurythmics partner Dave Stewart lived next door to the Pettys. She was "bright enough" to realize that everyone would need clothes and shoes, so immediately rushed out and bought "some pretty nice stuff."

The family moved into a hotel for a few weeks, with beefed-up security, and Petty took them on the road with his band the Heartbreakers to join Bob Dylan on a tour of Europe and Israel. "Without a possession. Without anything," he says with a laugh in the book.

A bigger house was eventually rebuilt on the property, partly because Petty wanted to show the unknown arsonist that he would not back down.

Reuters/VNU

1

2

3

4

Heartbreakers strong at summer concert box office
Wed Aug 3

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers are putting up some of the biggest numbers of their career this summer, averaging more than 16,500 people a night in attendance, according to Billboard Boxscore.

Perhaps more importantly, the band is having a great time on the road.

"We enjoy playing with each other, which I think is a pretty important part of this," Petty told Billboard.com. "If we didn't, we'd have given it up a long time ago. The idea when we started was to take five people and keep 'em together no matter what and see what we could get out of it, and we've pretty much stuck to that plan."

Petty and the Heartbreakers have been together nearly 30 years now, compiling a huge list of hit songs and fan favorites in the process. Such an arsenal of songs can make paring them down for a set list challenging.

"We have a set list, but we work up a lot more (songs) than we're gonna do," Petty said. "That way we can throw things in and change it around, especially if we're in a place for two days. It's good to keep yourself interested. The last show we did five songs we never rehearsed and that certainly sparked us up."

Petty's history with the band leads to an instinctive alchemy on stage. "The Heartbreakers are one of those rare groups (where) I can really throw them something and they'll go for it and they'll pull it off," he said. "I have this really deep faith in them that they're gonna read me and follow me. That comes from all those years of playing together."

Petty and the Heartbreakers' 2005 dates will wrap Sept. 2-3 in George, Wash., with no plans to extend the tour. Fans can satisfy their Petty cravings with the oral memoir "Conversations with Tom Petty," written by Paul Zollo, which is due in bookstores in November via Omnibus Press.

Additionally, Petty manager Tony Dimitriades said a new album is due early next year, the band's first since "The Last DJ" came out in October 2002.

"Look out for next year -- that's the 30th anniversary," Petty said. "We're gonna party."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050803/music_nm/music_petty_dc;_ylt=AjsLs7w7I68wFIyR4v9KLO...

Rocky Mountain News

To print this page, select File then Print from your browser
URL: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/entertainment_columnists/article/0,1299,DRMN_84_3...

Vince Bucci © Afp © Getty Images

It was one of the most surprising news stories about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, the last thing you'd expect to read, because bassist Howie Epstein was one of the sweetest, low-key guys on earth.

But there it was, in black- and-white - he'd been arrested with his longtime girlfriend, Carlene Carter, in a stolen car with a bunch of heroin. In the mug shots police released at the time, both looked just moments from death, especially Carter, whose wasted face didn't resemble the gorgeous country singer she once was.

That 2001 arrest was a shock (Carter eventually took the fall for what clearly were Epstein's drugs), but set the stage for the downhill slide. Epstein eventually was kicked out of the Heartbreakers, as he grew more and more unreliable.

When he died of a heroin overdose at his Santa Fe home in February 2003 at 47, it was supremely sad, but not unexpected. How did it come to this?

I remember him beaming onstage at the Greek Theater in L.A. in '82 when he was in John Hiatt's band. Backstage at Fiddler's Green in '89 he was loose and talkative. At a folk festival in L.A. in '93, Epstein and Carter wandered happily backstage like rock royalty, gorgeous, healthy and glowing. He produced critically acclaimed albums for Carter and John Prine. And at the time of his arrest, the Heartbreakers had never been bigger, and Epstein was a huge part of their sound.

Finally, 2 1/2 years after Epstein's death, the full sad story is revealed in an excellent book due in November, Conversations with Tom Petty. We'll save the full review of the book for when it's published, but advance copies have a chapter simply titled Howie that shows the heartbreaking struggle the band and Epstein went through as his heroin addiction took his money, his musicianship, his career and finally his life.

Heroin overdoses seem so '60s, so Janis and Jimi, but its toll on rock is just as terrible today - Epstein, Kurt Cobain (heroin and a shotgun blast), Brad Nowell of Sublime and plenty more. I once gave a publicist grief when a planned interview with Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode fell through at the last minute - and felt terrible later when I learned it wasn't her fault: Gahan had OD'ed at Chateau Marmont, the place where John Belushi died.

When I last interviewed Jerry Cantrell of Alice in Chains, I asked if the band might be able to re-form if singer Layne Staley could get his heroin addiction under control. Cantrell said he'd like nothing more. As we were speaking, unbeknownst to either of us, Staley's body was being discovered in his Seattle apartment after decomposing for two weeks.

In conversations with writer Paul Zollo, Petty goes over his life, career, songwriting and more, but there's nothing more painful or touching than the "Howie" chapter.

"It didn't affect his ability for a long time," Petty told Zollo. "Heroin can be like that with musicians; I think that's why you see so many musicians drift that way, because you can remain musical for a long time. But I think, without exception, they all hit the wall eventually and the creativity goes."

They'd known Epstein had dabbled in heroin; Petty even tried it once when Epstein offered it, and immediately knew it was bad news.

Epstein's appearance and musicianship began sliding, Petty recounts, and all members of the band tried to talk sense to him. There was a forced rehab, when a roadie flew to Epstein's ranch just outside of Santa Fe, and physically took him to a facility in Florida.

"This paints a very bad picture of him," Petty tells Zollo. "This is a guy we loved with all our hearts. Who never wanted to cause any trouble. He had the biggest heart and was so sweet. But he also had a habit he couldn't shake to save his life.

"We said 'You're going to have to quit this. It's gonna get you. You just don't win with heroin. You die or you go to jail. There's no middle ground. There's no other options,' " Petty says in the book.

It's reminiscent of a scene in the new Flaming Lips DVD career documentary, The Fearless Freaks, where band member Steve Drozd explains his heroin habit on-camera while shooting up.

"I lead kind of a productive life . . . but I've been addicted to heroin for five years now," Drozd grimly explains to the camera while preparing for injection.

"That's what I've given all my money and my time to in the past five years," he says. "I'm out of money. I've got no car. Anything that was personally mine is gone. Anything of any value is gone."

He was ready to quit, he says.

"I'm either gonna get out now or I'll be in jail soon. I know people are worried that I'm trying to kill myself. I'm not trying to do that," Drozd tells the camera. "I'm getting kinda scared that something's gonna happen soon if I don't quit."

Drozd was able to get clean and sober; Epstein never made it. Like a parent or a spouse, Petty and the Heartbreakers watched helplessly as Epstein kept promising to get clean and obviously wasn't. They had to deal with the same issues any family does - do you cut the guy off hoping it'll be a wake-up call?

The Heartbreakers dealt with that, keeping him on long after his music had severely declined. They kept him on after his arrest jeopardized a tour starting the very next day. They kept him on while watching him decay.

Multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston had to be constantly at ready to take over Epstein's duties if he didn't make a show.

"We felt we were basically financing Howie's drug habit by letting him be in the band. We should kick him out of the band, just if for no other reason than to wake him up. But (for years) we didn't," Petty says.

They finally had to, letting him know that his job was always waiting for him the minute he was clean and sober.

"And I never saw him again," Petty says.

фото
The band's star was unveiled on Hollywood's Walk of Fame in 1999. From left are Mike Campbell, Howie Epstein, Tom Petty and Benmont Tench.

The show behind the show
A small army ensures that concerts at Merriweather Post Pavilion come off without a hitch.

By Laura Cadiz
Sun Staff
Originally published August 3, 2005

Tom Petty apparently is a fan of Coke - in glass bottles.

And so on the day before the rock star was set to play the Merriweather Post Pavilion recently, Tina May, the venue's hospitality manager, was scouring grocery stores looking for that notoriously hard-to-find beverage item.

Cans? Plastic bottles? No problem. But she looked in four stores until she found two six-packs of Coke in glass bottles at the Giant in Wilde Lake.

"Other areas have had trouble finding it," Merriweather manager Jean Parker says. "So, now that she's found it, she's a hero."

May, a.k.a. "The Goddess of Happiness," is part of the team that works for hours behind the scenes to put on the shows that rock Columbia's open-air amphitheater all summer.

Fans may have little clue about the detailed setup that begins early the day of a show - by the time they arrive, the stage is set and the performers are ready to entertain until the late evening hours.

But getting there is a long process.

Every concert at Merriweather - 20 are scheduled so far this season - takes a small army of workers to attend to the needs of the fans and the performers, sometimes working 18-hour days.

They put together the stage; prepare food for the performers and fans; sell the last remaining tickets; deal with a plethora of questions from ticket holders; and make the evening's show appear effortless.

For the recent show featuring Petty, along with the Black Crowes, a local crew of about 400 workers, along with 68 entourage members for the bands, worked in the blazing heat to ensure the bands and the fans would enjoy the evening.

A peek behind the scenes at the setup for that concert illustrates the kind of controlled chaos that goes into arranging for a memorable night of live music at one of Maryland's longest-running venues.




The day of a concert at the pavilion begins about 8 a.m., as the semi-trucks and buses carrying the crew and the equipment for the bands roll in, Parker says.

Vic Rivkin, the head production runner, takes the drivers to a nearby hotel to get some rest. Fifty-four workers from the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Union Local 19 in Baltimore start building the stage, erecting the video, lighting and sound equipment, said Clark Hospelhorn, the union's steward.

The workers, most of them in shorts and T-shirts, are dripping in sweat and combating the oppressive heat - with the temperature soaring into the 90s - by wrapping white towels around their heads or shoulders.

By early afternoon, the bare stage has been transformed into a fully functioning entertainment venue; most of the light, video and sound equipment is in place, along with all the instruments.

Jeff Kerstein is starting to tune 36 guitars, 22 of which belong to Petty. Kerstein will tune them for hours, even during the show.

"It's so hot today, I have to go through them all," Kerstein says. "The temperature changes the pitch."


Musical interlude

About 2:45 p.m. Petty's song, "You Don't Know How It Feels" starts blaring from the speakers on the stage. But this isn't a sound check; there will be no sound check today. Petty's production manager Chris Adamson's philosophy on sound checks: Strumming a guitar and singing to an empty amphitheater is virtually pointless. That doesn't come close to the veracity and energy of a live show.

(продолжение)
Ticket sales
Mike McKenny is the coolest person on the staff. As Merriweather's box office manager, he gets to sit in his air-conditioned office and monitor ticket sales, ensuring that every last ticket is sold.

"My excuse is - the ticket stock won't work if the air conditioning isn't on," he says. "It's true - they get sticky with humidity."

Even if a show sold out months ago, Merriweather sometimes releases extra tickets the day of the concert - some from the band's share and others that the venue set aside in case the production equipment would have taken seat space.

In the morning, the venue released about 50 tickets. By about 3:30 p.m., all the tickets were gone. The show is sold out, about 18,000 tickets.


Creature comforts

Pavilion staff members do everything they can to make the performers comfortable. They set up an artists' lounge outside back stage, where performers can relax in the serene green setting by a pond and get massages.

Rivkin takes their laundry to be drycleaned, then picks up take-out food from a restaurant for the band after the show.

Though food is just one piece of the larger puzzle, it is a crucial one.

"The two things bands remember when they come here are how much they got paid and how good the food was," Parker says.

May shops for hours to get each food item that artists want in their dressing rooms. She buys cereal, energy bars, beer, nuts, fruit. She is happy to do it - she says the requests usually aren't unreasonable. But one thing irks her.

"At the end of the night, if I go back there [to the dressing rooms] and it's barely touched," she grimaces. "It's really annoying."

Merriweather also gives the artists Merriweather duffel bags to remember the venue. They're nothing spectacular, just canvass bags with the pavilion's logo. But Parker said the bags travel the world with the bands, and every so often an artist will come back to the venue and say, "I need a new bag."


Weather problem

By the time the gates open at 5:30 p.m., the stage is fully set. The concession stands and carts are stocked with sushi, wraps, pit beef, hot dogs, not to mention 10,000 bottles of water and 25,000 pounds of ice.

Vendors have set up 18 styles of T-shirts, key chains, bandannas, about $60,000 worth of merchandise.

In Petty's dressing room are two six packs of Coke in bottles, a box of Trader Joe's corn flakes, energy bars and tea bags.

Fans start filing in, blankets in hand, to claim their slice of grass on the lawn seats.

But about 6:30 p.m., the sky opens up and a downpour begins, complete with thunder and lightning.

Some fans run for cover, back to their cars, to wait out the storm. Pavilion staff dash into the administrative office, soaked from the rain, and run out with yellow rain slickers.

Right now, Jennie Burke, the receptionist at Merriweather, probably has one of the hardest jobs at the venue.

With a pleasant voice and a smile plastered on her face, she is answering every call that comes into the pavilion's office. People wondering if the show is still on because of the rain. People wanting tickets to the sold-out show. People wanting directions.

She speaks with a polite cadence into the phone: "You shouldn't have gotten on Snowden River Parkway, you should have stayed on Broken Land Parkway. ... Take the first exit into the parking lot. ... Broken. Land. Parkway. ... Right now, it's pouring down rain, but the concert is still on as scheduled. ... No, no, it says right there on your ticket, no refunds, no exchanges. ... You cannot tape the show, under no circumstances."


'A quick out'

About 7 p.m., the rain lets up, with some drops still falling. The crowd is ready for the Black Crowes, who take the stage about 30 minutes late, at 7:30 p.m.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers also start late, and the band can't complete its set without violating the 11 p.m. curfew. But Howard County police allow them to run over by 15 minutes, ending at 11:15 p.m., said Pfc. David Proulx, a police spokesman.

The bands then do what the staff calls a "quick out."

"The band pretty much says thank you, good night, jumps in their limos and takes off," Rivkin says. "Before the crowd is even finished clapping, they're down on [Interstate] 95."

And the search for Coke in glass bottles will begin anew at the next venue.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/howard/bal-ho.merriweather03aug03,1,2862059.stor...

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Verizon Wireless Music Center- Noblesville, Indiana
July 21, 2005


‘America’s Band,’ Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was welcomed by the heart of the Midwest at the Verizon Music Center, Noblesville, Indiana. Although claps of thunder could easily be mistaken for the crowd’s thunderous roar at the onset of every song, Petty played hit after hit until mother nature let loose and shortened the planned 2 1/2 show. Playing his signature Rickenbacker guitars, before (17) geometric video screens, this show will be remembered by his brave-hearted, ‘let’s just party until we dry out’ die-hard fans.

Tom Petty has consistently been on the charts since 1976 when his self-titled debut album was released containing the hit Breakdown. For almost thirty years, Tom Petty has rocked this planet with the Heartbreakers, as a solo artist, or with The Traveling Wilburys, a low-key super group comprising Tom Petty, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne and Roy Orbison. Amazingly, after critical acclaim and a huge fan base, Tom Petty won his first Grammy in 1989 when the Traveling Wilburys’ debut album took the category for “Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal.” Petty won a statue for himself in 1995 for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance with You Don’t Know How It Feels. But the most incredible ‘Petty Fact’ is that it took (16) major hits to win a Grammy (13) years into his career! A glaring example showing that the critic’s choice isn’t always the people’s choice.




Petty's first solo effort, 1989's Full Moon Fever, was produced by Jeff Lynne and featured the support of most of the Heartbreakers. Full Moon Fever became Petty's commercial pinnacle; reaching number three on the U.S. charts, going triple platinum, and generating the hit singles: I Won't Back Down, Runnin' Down a Dream, and Free Fallin'. In 1990, he contributed to the Traveling Wilburys' second album, Vol. 3. Petty officially reunited with the Heartbreakers on Into the Great Wide Open, which was also produced by Jeff Lynne. Released in the spring of 1991, Into the Great Wide Open sustained the momentum of Full Moon Fever, earning strong reviews and going platinum. In 1993, Greatest Hits was released- a 17-tracker enters the album chart. It will reside there for 155 weeks and receives its ninth platinum certification from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) signifying sales of nine million copies.

Petty’s second solo album, Wildflowers, was released in 1994 with yet another smash single You Don’t Know How It Feels. In 1995, Playback, a box set that marks Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 20th anniversary was released. One of the best of its kind, the six-disc set contains 92 tracks, plus a booklet, poster and laminated backstage pass. Fittingly, Petty wrote a foreword for 'Start Your Own Band: Everything You Need to Know to Take Your Band to the Top!' in 1997. Two more solo efforts follow with the release of Echo in 1999 and The Last DJ in 2002. At age 42, Petty was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. At this point, it’s pretty safe to say that Tom Petty’s new solo LP, Highway Companion, anticipated for early ‘06 is a pretty safe bet.

2/

3//

Sweet Little Queen XIII***
Королева, не можете ли Вы выложить фото Дэны Петти, какое-нибудь покрупнее. Без сыночка. Благодарю заранее.

Боюсь, что хорошего качества ее персоональных фото нетхорошего качества, разве что с мужем.

Ну вот еще одна. Может она была уже.

Спасибо!!!

Не за что :)