Tom Petty

MALIBU, Calif. — While getting his 14th studio album off the ground, Tom Petty happily discovered he was past the point of learning to fly.

"All the craft I've picked up and all the life experience I've had rolled into a place where making records is easier," he says. "If I get an idea, I know how to put it down. When I was a kid, that was the struggle. Now I can do what rolls through my head without a lot of effort. It validates the idea of being in rock 'n' roll when you're 55. I feel, what's the word?"

He frowns, then brightens.

"Relevant!" he says, erupting into laughter.

"I feel like there's a reason to buy another Tom Petty record. Once you've put out 10 or 12, is there a reason to make more? In any job, you eventually ask yourself, 'What's the point?' I feel I still have something to say and something to contribute."

He's relieved and surprised to find himself in this spot 30 years after he and The Heartbreakers released their debut album.

Since then, the band has sold more than 50 million albums globally while cementing a reputation as inventive rock traditionalists with unyielding integrity and commitment.

Despite nursing a toothache, Petty is unusually buoyant as he discusses his third solo disc, Highway Companion, out today. First single Saving Grace is No. 1 on triple-A and classic rock radio charts. In this digital age of one-track buys, he has built another carefully sequenced song cycle, a sparse but textured soundscape slashed by Mike Campbell's sterling slide guitar and overlaid by Petty's tales of searching, escaping and yearning.

"These characters are all on the move, leaving home, going home, wondering where home is," Petty says. "It's not a real loud record or an all-out rock fest. It's quieter but not mellow. I wanted to make this for a long time. It's not a record I could have made in the '70s. I wasn't seasoned enough."

Ensconced in a dressing room at the Malibu Performing Arts Center, Petty fetches a bottled Coke after stubbing out a Camel. A few creases betray his years, but his look has altered little over the decades: wispy blond hair, faded jeans, scarf and loafers, a sly grin.

He's proud of Highway, a close-knit collaboration with co-producers Jeff Lynne and Campbell, the only other players on the album. Petty revised his writing habits, approaching melodies only after painstakingly finishing lyrics and completing songs before entering the studio. He played guitar, bass, harmonica, keyboards, even drums.

"We were like young kids," Petty says. "We never hit any bumps. Wildflowers (1994) was good, but it was a lot of trial and error. A lot got thrown away. This didn't seem like work."

His joy today sharply contrasts the pressures that clouded recent projects. The Last DJ, 2002's concept album that took aim at music industry greed, drew heat from all corners of the business.

"Yeah, I got beaten up pretty good and halfway expected to be," Petty says. "At that point in my life, I had gotten so upset about all that stuff, and I had a lot to say. It was a relief to have it out of my head. I knew it wasn't going to be popular at the record company, but I think it will stand the test of time."

He's less enamored with 1999's Echo, which opens with the grim Room at the Top, "one of the most depressing songs in rock history," Petty says, grinning.

"If anything will make you want to kill yourself ..."

He trails off, then adds glumly, "I was in a rough place when I did that record."

Depleted by divorce and other personal blows, Petty opted for a hermitic existence in a ramshackle Los Angeles hideaway.

"I had some long periods of severe depression," he says. "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."

Petty, who says he maintains very few close friendships, also was crushed by the deaths of best buddy George Harrison in 2001 and Howie Epstein, who overdosed on heroin in 2003 shortly after being fired from The Heartbreakers.

Petty's saving grace was Dana York, whom he married in 2001.

"She saved me from going down the tubes," he says. "She got me to a good place where I did want to rejoin society and keep going. I've got a great girl, and she's strong. It took a strong person to deal with me at that point.

"It got pretty dire. I had a lot of repair work to do with my family and children. I had to grow up in a lot of ways. If you do this all your life, you don't have a normal experience. The rock 'n' roll lifestyle does not encourage you to be responsible. I'm still sorting it out, but I'm on better ground."

Little can deflate Petty's mood these days. He's blasé on the talk about unmistakable similarities between his 1993 rocker Mary Jane's Last Dance and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' current Dani California. It's not grand theft, he says. Possibly Petty larceny?

"I don't know if they stole it or not," he says. "It's their cross to bear, not mine. That one does sound particularly close in meter and chord and even subject matter. I think it's odd that Rick Rubin produced both records and never noticed it when my gardener did. I won't sue, but I wouldn't mind if they cut me in for a piece."

He laughs and adds, "I sometimes hear my stuff in other songs, and I don't get that upset because I do the same thing. You don't set out to steal something, but there are only so many notes and chords."

It's little surprise that artists deliberately or subliminally lift from Petty's hit-heavy catalog, says Paul Zollo, author of Conversations with Tom Petty, the first exhaustive overview of the rocker's career.

"He's had so many powerful hits, but he's never contrived hits to get on charts," Zollo says. "His songs are about solid songwriting, craftsmanship, inventive lyrics and tremendous musicianship. It's never about trends and fitting into one time. He had an authentic rock 'n' roll dream and realized it without getting derailed in a way so many musicians were.

"More significantly, he had a burst of greatness in his 20s, but unlike so many others, he continued to create music with substance and meaning, and sustained that quality over decades. He's certainly in the pantheon."

A reluctant elder statesman, Petty claims to have little understanding of the industry's modern machinery and doubts he'd survive the rigorous media drills imposed on newbies.

Band websites may be cool, but music on the Internet is "so vast and unfocused," he says. "It's impossible to keep up. I miss the idea of record stores."

He's encouraged that music lovers are digging up the past for inspired sounds, but he believes the beloved rock 'n' roll that set fire to his youth has gone the way of jazz and blues and is no longer a driving force in pop music.

As a kid in the '60s, he reveled in '50s rock. He still looks back, marinating in "the beautiful purity" of Chess label blues and rooting out even older fare he may have overlooked.

Likewise, he's a Turner Classic Movies junkie, favoring Howard Hawks and John Ford and sophisticated '40s films.

But that's a luxury his music obsession rarely accommodates. His wife leans on him to slow down, and he might curtail touring duties — to make more records.

"There's rumor that I'm not going to tour anymore," he says. "I don't think that's true, but I'd like to take a long break. I have recording projects I want to do, and that's going to last longer than the shows. I love playing, but it eats up so much of your life.

"I'm really conscious of wasting time. It's funny when you realize there are time limits. I'm impatient now with anything that gets in the way of what I want to do. I want to get everything down. Why would I want to do anything else? Rock 'n' roll is such a good job."


http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/2006-07-24-petty-main_x.htm

Here Comes Your 14th Breezy Breakdown
Mr. Petty inspires more Full Moon Fever, but not much else

by Max Berry
July 24th, 2006 12:42 PM

As teenagers, my friends and I spent our Saturday nights loitering in parking lots. While we waited for adventure to strike, Tom Petty's "You Don't Know How It Feels" rattled the frames of more parked cars than anything not written by Marshall Mathers. The song goes nowhere; the singer would go anywhere. He wants to run with us tonight on a moonlight ride because, as he's said before, he's tired of himself, and tired of this town. Highway Companion, Petty's 14th album, is the collection of road tunes its title suggests, and though those roads take him home, there isn't an "Oh hell yes" in sight. Ten songs in, he puts it bluntly: "This old town is a sad affair." Regardless, this rarely works as the heart-heavy traveling music Petty has in mind; while he flees or revisits dark corners in every song, Petty sings like he has nothing at stake. This breezy album is great for a cookout, but anyone who's ever tried to go home again will tell you it doesn't ring true. Pleasant but slight, it flirts with revelations it can't quite kiss. But it's appropriate that the stakes feel highest on "Big Weekend," the one that sounds most like a kid in a parking lot, doing his best to shout it: "I need a big weekend/Kick up the dust/I need a big weekend/If you don't run, you rust." Here comes my girl?

В журнале Mussic Box (русском)статья о Томе, еще не читала.


Зато прочитала к несчастью интервью в русском издании Ролиинг Стоун. Такого передергивания фактов в сравнении с оригиналом статьи перевирания итп. я не видела давно !!!!!!!!
Это просто кошмар!!!!!!!! Оченнь надеюсь, что скоро на нашем сайте будет нормальная версия перевода. Она уже почти готова.

The Heartbreakers Hit the Big Three-O and Tom Petty Goes Solo on Highway Companion

30 Years & Counting
By Art Thompson | July 2006

“We were just listening to Buck Owens ON THE way over here,” says Tom Petty as he settles into an easy chair at the Heartbreakers’ rehearsal studio after spending most of the day stuck in L.A. traffic. “I was in this band called the Epics when I was 16, and we used to go out on road trips on the weekends. A lot of times, we’d be driving back from the gig, and we’d pull into these truck stops where I’d hear Buck Owens on the jukebox. I thought he was terrific.”

Petty’s recollections of hearing the late country star’s 45s spinning on a jukebox highlight the long road he has traveled since his earliest days with both the Epics and the country-rock band Mudcrutch—the group that would give him his first taste of songwriting success, as well as bring him together with Heartbreakers’ guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench. Petty certainly has a lot to reflect on as the Heartbreakers celebrate their 30th Anniversary this year. The band’s remarkable run to the top—which began with the 1976 release of their debut album Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers—has resulted in 50 million records sold, four Grammy Awards (from 16 nominations), 25 top singles, and more music-industry honoraria than any of the typically self-effacing members of the Heartbreakers probably cares to recall.

Petty’s remarkable band dropped onto the scene at a time when rock fans were salivating for some of the primal elements that were AWOL in the bloated rock scene of the late 1970s. “We probably invented new wave, but we were running ahead of it,” says Petty. “I didn’t want any label to be put on us, and I was very conscious that we were a rock and roll band and not anything else.”

Apparently, that’s all that the millions of new riders on the Heartbreakers’ bandwagon wanted them to be. Following the 1979 release of their powerhouse third album, Damn the Torpedoes, the band had to suddenly balance their phenomenal success with the challenge of figuring out what to do next. And instead of blowing to bits, as did so many other young groups that had skyrocketed to the top of the charts, the Heartbreakers just kept churning out album after album of great music.

To celebrate the band’s 30th year, a couple of exciting projects are in the works. Perhaps the biggest treat for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fans is a feature-length documentary directed by famed auteur Peter Bogdanovich. The famously private band members allowed Bogdanovich access that no one else has ever been offered, and the yet untitled film promises to be the most comprehensive overview of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ever produced. Principal photography started last year, but, at press time, there was no release date scheduled.

The Heartbreakers’ summer anniversary tour is also designed to be an event, with a revolving cadre of famous guest stars. The actual dates weren’t confirmed at the time of our interview, but the opening acts are reported to include Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers, and Trey Anastasio.

Petty is also keeping busy doing the second season of Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure—his weekly XM Satellite Radio Network show—and voicing the character of Lucky on King of the Hill. Most recently, Petty, Campbell, and producer (and former ELO frontman) Jeff Lynne joined forces to record Tom’s third solo album, Highway Companion [American Recordings], a spare but deliciously inviting album that sounds in many ways like something the band might have recorded decades ago. It’s a tribute to the consistency and depth of Petty’s songwriting, as well as how timeless his songs sound when Campbell applies his magic to them.

How did you wind up partnering with Jeff Lynne again on your new solo album?

Jeff and I were asked by Olivia Harrison [George Harrison’s wife] if we would go to New York and induct George into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004, and we were supposed to play a couple of his songs. Jeff doesn’t like to play live, but I talked him into it. The performance went well, so on the trip back I said to him, “We ought to do a track sometime.” Then, Mike and I went over to Jeff’s house, showed him a tune, and he wanted to cut it right there in his studio. We didn’t have a band, so Jeff said, “You play drums don’t you?” So I wound up being the drummer. Anyway, that first track went really nice, so we just pitched camp at Jeff’s studio. I kept dragging out songs, and, the next thing we knew, we’d recorded ten tracks. It was just the three of us. Jeff played bass, Mike played all the solos, and each one of us would fill in wherever we could on keyboard and guitar.

Was it your intent to produce a very streamlined sound?

Early on, we decided not to use a lot of instrumentation. I kept saying to Jeff and Mike that I wanted it to sound like a combo. I wanted to leave a lot of space, and not try to fill everything in. Of course, Jeff is a master at recording vocals, and he knows how to make a vocal sound full, even when there are not a lot of different textures around it. We didn’t use a lot of keyboards, either. Because this was a solo record, I steered away from anything that was too Heartbreakers sounding.

There’s certainly more slide playing than on most Heartbreakers albums.

Mike kept saying, “Do you really want slide again?” I wanted this record to have a distinct vibe, and a continuity of sound, and his slide playing really does that. There’s slide on just about every number, but Mike was able to find enough tonal variations to produce lots of textures without the album sounding slickly produced. We’ve always paid a lot of attention to the textures and characters the guitars create.

There’s a consistency in the Heartbreaker’s sound that goes back to when you first started, and when you listen to some of the early Mudcrutch songs on Playback, it’s impressive how good you guys sounded even way back then.

It’s amazing, because I think I was 19 when we recorded some of those songs. We had never really been in a studio before, and we did “Up in Mississippi Tonight” and one other song in four or five hours. They were done really fast, put on a 45, and released in the Gainesville area—which is where we were from. “Mississippi” did pretty well on the radio. For a local group, we got a lot of play on it, which was cool, because we got to raise our prices a little bit. But we were just kids, and how we did it I have no idea. It’s all kind of mystical—like it was meant to be.

To what do you attribute the Heartbreakers ability to stay together for so long?

We just like to do it. We’re probably one of the five top rock and roll groups, and I couldn’t think of leaving. To go anywhere else would be a disappointment. But I think the number one reason we’ve stayed together is that we have become a family over all these years. Me and Mike and Ben go back further than the Heartbreakers—back to around 1970. I don’t have a lot of family of my own, and Mike is the same way, so we have that bond together. We’re very much like brothers, and we fight like brothers, too. But the band has somehow become bigger than all of us. I see it in kind of a holy way. The Heartbreakers have made so many people happy that it would almost be a sacrilege to turn my back on it.

Do you think the band could make it if you had to start over today?

No, I don’t. We were so nurtured by Denny Cordell—a great producer who had done all these amazing records, such as “A Whiter Shade of Pale” and all the Joe Cocker stuff. He was the secret. He signed us, and he let us play in the studio for a year before we put our record out. If we had just shown up in town, and were told to cut a record, I don’t think it would have been that good. We were allowed to grow. The first record we put out did okay, the next did even better, and the third one just exploded.

How is the situation different now?

These days, if a group puts out their first record and doesn’t have any success, the record company just moves on to another group. It’s more cost efficient or something. The sort of nurturing we got doesn’t seem to go on today. Denny was looking at us as a band that was going to have a career, rather than a band that was going to make a hit record. And what got drilled into our heads is that it’s not about any particular record, it’s about a consistency of work. You want your work to be the best it can be all the time, and you don’t want to get caught up in what everyone else is doing, or what is an immediate hit. If you do good work it will take care of you. I think that’s what has carried us this far. When you go back and listen to some of these old songs we did, they still hold up. I’m kind of surprised by it, too. I heard “Breakdown” on the radio a few days ago, and it sounded great. That was a really well made little record. And we were just kids. We didn’t know we were making something that was going to last for decades.

kind of feel that I’m never done writing. I’m always looking for a song.


http://www.guitarplayer.com/story.asp?storycode=14679

The Heartbreakers have a very identifiable guitar sound. Can you explain what you do to create that?

Mike and I have a sound we make together that is particularly us, and it doesn’t happen when we play with other people. There’s something the two of us instinctively do. It’s about the way our chords ring, or their voicings, or how our tones work together. It’s partly because we’ve played together for so long, but it’s also because we always had to make a lot of racket to carry that sound in a small group. We’ve learned how to use it to our advantage—especially when we play live.

What kind of music has inspired you lately?

I really like blues a lot—especially the stuff on the Chess label by Lightning Hopkins, Muddy Waters, and others. There’s something extremely pure and poetic about that music. Some of it is pretty rugged and raw, but there’s also something about it that’s just beautiful. That’s what’s speaking to me lately. But I have to listen to so much music these days for my weekly satellite radio show. I go through a lot of stuff putting the shows together—a really wide range of blues, R&B, rock, and garage rock from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

How has your setup evolved over the years?

I was using Vox amps for many years, and then I started playing Fender Bassmans, but they sounded a bit too growly for me. Then, I came across this old red Marshall on the road, and I started using that. Last year, we rolled out the old Vox Super Beatles we’d bought back in the band’s early days. They make a pretty cool sound, so we tried them again, and we wound up using them on the last tour. But I still kept the Marshall, which I run though a Vox cabinet. I also have another Vox head and cabinet, and I use a footswitch to select either the Marshall or the Vox or both.

What effect has the Marshall/Vox rig had on your stage volume?

I’m probably playing louder now. I try not to, but when you play big places you need a little air movement. A lot of people are putting their amps under the stage and playing though headphones, but I need to feel some air moving. But I’m not slamming it to 10 and trying to kill everybody. I just turn it up enough to where the sound is full and it has some nice bottom.

What is your main guitar now?

I started playing Stratocasters again last year—mainly early ’60s models. I like Teles, Gretsches, and Rickenbackers, but I guess if I had to pick one guitar to get the job done, it would be a Strat. I used about a dozen different guitars on the last tour—of course, some were in different tunings, and some were acoustics. One of my favorite guitars for recording is an Epiphone Casino. It’s a great guitar, but it’s kind of tough to take it on the road because it feeds back at loud volumes. Even so, the last time we were in here rehearsing, the Casino is what I was playing most of the time.

Do you often write songs in response to things that have affected you on a personal level?

I’m sure that everything you write probably comes from some place in your soul. I mean, you can only write what you know, so it’s all going to creep in there. But I don’t often sit down and say, “I’m going to write about this.” I just start playing, and things come in. When something feels like it has a nice ring to it, and it connects with me, then I trust it. Sometimes, I’ll hear the song six months later, and think, “I know exactly what was on my mind then.”

Have there been songs you thought were too introspective to release?

I thought “I Won’t Back Down” was too introspective. I was hesitant with that one, because there’s not much ambiguity or metaphor in it. It just says it. I remember asking Jeff Lynne—who produced it—if he thought the song might be a little embarrassing. He said, “No. It feels great.” So I was surprised when it was received the way it was. People are always telling me, “That song helped me through the worst time of my life.”

The thing about songwriting is that there’s an exception to every rule. It’s hard to talk about it generally, because each song is so different. I think my best songs are the ones where you can find different levels of meaning in them. Those are the ones I find the most intriguing, but I don’t always write that way. Sometimes, I’ll write a linear kind of thing, such as “Into the Great Wide Open,” which is just straight-on storytelling. But the ones I really like have a bit of ambiguity. I don’t have a method that always works. The process is so random, and yet it keeps happening. I just look up every year or so, and I’ve got ten more songs. It’s not something I work at every day, but I kind of feel that I’m never done writing. I’m always looking for a song

July 26, 2006
For Petty, signs of vindication
By Patrick Berkery
For The Inquirer

For 30 years they've been a model of consistency and integrity.

Classic albums like Wildflowers, Full Moon Fever (technically, solo Petty discs), and Damn the Torpedoes weren't return-to-form follow-ups after putrid flops, but part of a succession of good-to-great records.

You've never heard "Runnin' Down a Dream" in a Chevy ad - Petty refuses to license his music for commercials. Lest we forget, Hard Promises from 1981 was almost called $8.98 because Petty's label tried to jack up the suggested retail price from $8.98 to $9.98 (it caved).

Despite all this, and resume-builders like induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers simply don't get their due as one of the all-time great rock-and-roll institutions.

"That's the drawback to being consistent," Petty says with a laugh, on the phone from his home in Southern California between legs of his 30th-anniversary tour (which will hit the Tweeter Center on Aug. 18).

"Sometimes, I feel as though we've been taken for granted. We've always been there and always did what [the fans] thought we should do. We've had such a great deal of success it's hard to complain. Now, if the records had failed or no one came to see us, then it would bother me.

"I'm kind of happy this year because I do feel that people are finally starting to get it. They're starting to reevaluate what we've done, and are starting to realize that this is one of the great rock-and-roll bands."

To hear Petty's languid drawl over the phone is to be reminded of a voice that sang to you as a child, a voice that was the soundtrack to teenage kicks, and has helped you through adulthood's more trying days.

Millions probably cite a similar relationship with Petty, now 55, and his enduring songs like "Breakdown," "Refugee," "The Waiting," and "You Don't Know How It Feels" (to name but a few). They've outlasted every next big thing, from disco to rap-rock.

And they've influenced modern rockers like the Strokes, who appropriated the sprightly jangle of "American Girl" for "Last Nite," and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose recent single "Dani California" shares some DNA with "Mary Jane's Last Dance," a likeness Petty just shrugs off.

"Ah, so it sounds a little similar, bless 'em," he says.

That those whippersnappers would cop from songs that are 30 and 13 years old, respectively, underscores the timelessness of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' sound. The clarion tone of Rickenbacker guitars, two-lane-blacktop riffs, an occasional slow-burn groove, sun-blessed harmonies, and lyrical truisms like "The waiting is the hardest part" - it's as deeply woven into the fabric of American rock as the band's chief influences: Elvis, the Beach Boys, Dylan and the Byrds.

Credit the expert textures of the Heartbreakers - original members Mike Campbell on guitar and Benmont Tench on keyboards, 12-year vet Steve Ferrone on drums, 17-year vet and multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston, and original bassist Ron Blair, who returned in 2002. They're a crack unit whose musical lexicon embraces country, rock, blues, surf, soul, folk, lengthy jams and tight pop.

Discussing the Heartbreakers' underrated place in rock - particularly, that his versatile band often takes a backseat to Bruce Springsteen's more lauded, though arguably more one-dimensional, E Street Band - Petty slyly dances around the issue.

"Better for you to say that than me," he says, again laughing. "I'd say, put anybody up against them and you'll really see what's going on there, you know? The Heartbreakers, it's a multifaceted thing. You've got the hits, the albums, and a whole different personality as a live group. There's a lot of music in those boys."

Though he holds the Heartbreakers in high regard, Petty sensed early that his brilliant new album, Highway Companion (out yesterday), was shaping up to be a mellow affair and needed to be an intimate solo project. He'd play most of the instruments, rely on Campbell for his trademark lead and slide guitar lines, and tap Full Moon Fever coproducer and fellow former Traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynne to produce.

"I knew as the songs were being written that this was going to be a more delicate sort of record," Petty says of the album, which was initially being recorded simultaneously with a new Heartbreakers disc. "I wanted to use the space to my advantage and let the words do the work. And the band was cool about it, because they know we've got this other [album] that's going to be great."

When that new Heartbreakers record appears (Petty says it will include live favorites from recent tours such as the Southern-gothic epic "Melinda" and the breakneck garage-rocker "Black Leather Woman"), expect to see Petty out there promoting it. He disputes assertions recently in Rolling Stone that he's swearing off interviews and touring.

"You can quash that rumor. All I meant was that we're going to take some time off. A lot of projects have accumulated that I want to get done. And I can't get them done if I keep stopping and putting half the year into touring. I just want to finish this tour and get these things done. Give us a year or two; we'll come back

Past 'Breakdown,' The Essential Petty

Ten Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers songs you won't hear on WMGK-FM:

1. "Runaway Trains" from Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), 1987. So very "Boys of Summer"-ish, so very forgotten single from the mid-'80s.

2. "Counting on You" (Echo, 1999). The Heartbreakers posing as Memphis soul men on a standout track from an unjustly overlooked album.

3. "Something Big" (Hard Promises, 1981). Cinematic dime-store mystery set in a dry, no-horse town.

4. "Honey Bee" (Wildflowers, 1994). Heavy dose of caveman blues-rock in the midst of a very pretty album.

5. "Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)" (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, 1976). Angry young Petty gets done wrong and screams, "I Don't Like It."

6. "When the Time Comes" (You're Gonna Get It, 1978). Their Byrds-y jangle was finely honed by the time of their sophomore album.

7. "Two Gunslingers" (Into the Great Wide Open, 1991). Breezy song inspired by the Gulf War, still pertinent today.

8. "Echo" (Echo, 1999). Stunning melancholy from a dark time in Petty's personal life.

9. "Southern Accents" (Southern Accents, 1985). A poignant song about Petty's Dixie roots, with orchestration from Jack Nitzsche.

10. "Like a Diamond" (The Last DJ, 2002). A beautiful, harmony-filled ballad from a song cycle about the corporate tainting of America.

Patrick Berkery

Tom Petty's concept for his third solo album is laid bare in its very title: it's called Highway Companion, which is a tip-off that this record was made with the road in mind. As it kicks off with the chugging Jimmy Reed-via-ZZ Top riff on "Saving Grace," the album does indeed seem to be ideal music for road trips, but Petty changes gears pretty quickly, down-shifting to the bittersweet acoustic "Square One." Although the album ramps back up with '60s-styled pop of "Flirting with Time" and the swampy, Dylanesque "Down South," the quick move to the ruminative is a good indication that for as good as Highway Companion can sound on the road, Petty looks inward on this album just as frequently as he looks outward. Perhaps this is the best indication that this is indeed a solo affair, not a rock & roll record with the Heartbreakers. Petty of course doesn't go it completely alone here: his longtime guitarist Mike Campbell is here as is producer/co-writer Jeff Lynne, who helmed Petty's 1989 solo debut Full Moon Fever and the Heartbreakers 1991 Into the Great Wide Open and now returns to the fold 15 years later. Lynne's previous Petty productions were so bright, big and shiny they would have suited for an ELO album, and given that track record, it would be easy to assume that he would follow the same template for Highway Companion, but that's not the case at all. Highway Companion has as much in common with the rustic, handmade overtones of 1994's Wildflowers as it does with the pop sheen of Full Moon Fever — it is precise and polished, yet it's on a small scale, lacking the layers of overdubs that distinguish Lynne's production, and the end result is quite appealing, since it's at once modest but not insular. But Highway Companion also feels a little off, as if Petty is striving to make a fun rock & pop record — a soundtrack for the summer, or at least a good drive — but his heart is in making a melancholy introspective album, where he's grappling with getting older. This gives the album a sad undercurrent even at its lightest moments, which makes it ideal for driving alone late at night. Since it arrives after the bombastic The Last DJ, it's refreshing to hear Petty underplay his themes here, and it also helps that Lynne helps toughen up his songcraft. All this makes Highway Companion at the very least another a typically reliable collection from Petty, but at its core, it's a moodier than most of his records. It has a lot in common with Petty's divorce album Echo, but it's coming from a different place — one that's content, yet still unsettled. That may mean that this album isn't quite as fun as it initially seems on the surface, but that bittersweet undercurrent does indeed make Highway Companion a good partner for long nights on the road.

TOM PETTY SHOWS OFF DRUMMING SKILLS ON NEW ALBUM

If you listen carefully to the new Tom Petty solo album Highway Companion, you'll notice a different kind of drum sound on the tracks. That's because the album features a new drummer, and his name is Tom Petty. Petty told us that he decided to handle that end of the music simply because there wasn't anyone else around: "We got together at (producer) Jeff (Lynne)'s studio and didn't have a drummer. I had been playing the drums on the demos I made, and so, we just decided to keep it that way. I'm not that great a drummer -- I mean, I could do it in the studio because the engineer can forgive a million sins in the studio, but I wouldn't try to do it on stage."

Petty also played guitar and keyboards on Highway Companion, in addition to playing the drums and singing.

Из RS

Альбом Highway Companion уже в продаже в Москве, магазин Пурпурный Легион. Цена 629 рублей, но на него, как на новинку действует скидка 12%, получается 553 рубля.

Разворот буклета

В Питере альбом тоже в Пурпуном легионе появился.

Статья из Q Magazine from the UK

Фото к ней

08/2/06 – Highway Companion debuts at No. 4 on album charts. Thank you!
Tom Petty's third solo album, Highway Companion, will debut at No. 4 on The Billboard 200 Album Sales chart this week, the highest-ever debut for any Petty album.

Highway Companion, which was released on July 25, sold 112,000 copies in its first week in stores. This is the highest opening week tally for Petty -- solo or with the Heartbreakers -- since Nielsen SoundScan began tracking record sales data in 1991.

The album's lead single, "Saving Grace," is currently No. 1 at Triple-A, No. 1 at Classic Rock and Top 10 at Mainstream Rock radio.

Highway Companion is also Tom's highest-charting release since Full Moon Fever, his first solo album, which reached No. 3 in 1989.

Thank you to everyone out there who bought the album and to those fans who have supported Tom and the Heartbreakers over the years for being the No. 1 reason for this remarkable achievement.

Вышла официальная биография Стеши. Наверняка в ней упоминается Том.
http://stevienicksbiography.com/

Интересно а Tom Petty давал свои концерты на Post-Советском пространстве? Лично Я Таких не припомню! Может Я Ошибаюсь?

Rolling Stone Review
In a career that has now reached its thirtieth year, Tom Petty has never made a bad album. Some flirt with greatness, others simply deliver the goods (his last release, 2002's The Last DJ, was actually one of his weaker efforts, weighed down by its grouchy theme), but the man's consistency is pretty astounding. Highway Companion not only keeps his winning streak intact, it even rates above average by these standards.

The album is Petty's third release under his own name, minus the Heartbreakers. Curiously, while his band is among rock's sturdiest units, his previous two solo albums, Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers, were arguably the best Tom Petty discs of all. Highway Companion doesn't reach the towering heights of those two knockouts, but it shares their combination of stylistic range and rock-solid songcraft.

Tom Petty was always slightly hard to peg. When he first emerged from the Florida swamps, it wasn't clear if he was a classic-rock stoner or an edgy New Waver (on his current tour, the opening acts include the Allman Brothers Band and the Strokes). Highway Companion comes out of the gate with this versatility intact -- the opening ZZ Top/John Lee Hooker boogie of "Saving Grace," the first single, is followed by the spare, delicate "Square One." His songs are filled with images of motion, travel and the road; the sharpest writing appears in the cryptic, evocative "Down South," describing a journey that includes plans to "see my daddy's mistress," "sell the family headstones" and "pretend I'm Samuel Clemens/Wear seersuckers and white linens."

The biggest surprise is Jeff Lynne's production. For once, the Electric Light Orchestrator (and Petty's one-time bandmate in the Traveling Wilburys) avoids his signature airless walls of sound and keeps things relatively simple and clean. The album runs out of gas a bit toward the end, with a few too many songs in a row stuck in a midtempo Neil Young-ish lope. But for most of the ride, Highway Companion is worth the trip.



ALAN LIGHT