![]() Protracted legal wrangling ensued, but Petty eventually negotiated a deal that allowed him to retain his publishing rights and form his own Backstreet label while MCA agreed to manufacture and distribute his band’s future recordings.Ĭonsistent and unerringly melodic, Damn The Torpedoes yielded two major U.S. ![]() ![]() Business-related difficulties, however, threatened to derail their progress when Shelter and its distributor, ABC Records, were both sold to MCA in 1979. Listen to Damn The Torpedoes on Apple Music and Spotify.Īt home, however, success remained elusive, and The Heartbreakers only scored a major commercial breakthrough when their sophomore LP, You’re Gonna Get It!, from 1978, earned them a well-deserved gold disc. Also featuring talented ex-Mudcrutch duo Mike Campbell (lead guitar) and Benmont Tench (keyboards), in addition to new recruits bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch, The Heartbreakers gigged hard and quickly chalked up international acclaim when “Anything That’s Rock’n’Roll,” the second single from their eponymous 1976 debut, entered the UK Top 40, setting them on the path to success with their 1979 album, Damn The Torpedoes. Issues with personnel and their label, however, caused a series of reshuffles and, by early ’76, Petty was fronting a new quintet, The Heartbreakers. Wildflowers is worthy of that longstanding impact and evidence that this American boy is moving through middle age with all the gusto and poise that his admirers have come to expect.Promising Florida-born singer-songwriter Tom Petty initially pitched up in LA with his first band, Mudcrutch, who recorded a lone 45, “Depot Street,” for Leon Russell and Denny Cordell’s Shelter imprint in 1975. and others would later use to revitalize contemporary music. "Buoyant tracks like 'A Higher Place' and 'You Wreck Me' remind us that Petty and his band were the first to marry the chiming lyricism of the Byrds to a more raw, harder style of rock & roll, prefiguring the approach R.E.M. "The key virtues are grit and grace, and Rubin's taut, muscular production emphasizes both these gifts," Elysa Gardner noted in the original Rolling Stone review. Rubin insisted the group use no synthesizers and non-acoustic keyboards so they'd have a more organic sound. It's an extremely mellow effort, highlighted by the title track, "You Don't Know How It Feels to be Me," "It's Good to be King" and "Honey Bee." Petty cut the solo album over the course of two years with producer Rick Rubin. It was an extremely close contest, but Petty's 1994 solo disc Wildflowers won this poll by a hair. After this one, he could sell out arenas all over the country until the end of time. He never had another album this huge, but it didn't matter. It cemented Petty as a rock giant, and when he played the Super Bowl in 2008, 75 percent of the songs came from the album. The result was a commercial juggernaut, landing classics "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down a Dream" onto the charts and MTV. (Heartbreakers drummer Stan Lynch wasn't included, and he was quite furious with the situation.) Members of the Heartbreakers did play on the album, but Lynne and Petty wrote all the songs together. He decided to make some big changes, bringing in his Traveling Wilburys partner Jeff Lynne to produce his first solo album. Living up to the promise of Damn the Torpedoes was tough, and when 1987's Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) stiffed at the record stores, it was beginning to seem like he was on a downward trajectory. Tom Petty was a superstar in the 1980s, but for much of the time, he was creatively unfulfilled. ![]() It's not a bunch of old assholes trying to take your money.'" Like the song says, 'I was so much older then/ I'm younger than that now.' And I listen to the new album and I feel so good, because it's not a cheap shot. I didn't go through it a few years ago, when I was feeling like a failure at everything. "And it's tough when you look in the mirror and go, 'Shit, I'm an old guy.' But the night I turned 40 there was a big party for me, so I was surrounded by friends, and I'm glad that I turned 40 at a good time in my life. "The night before we started the record, I turned 40,'' Petty told Rolling Stone in 1991. The record wasn't quite the commercial monster of Full Moon Fever, but "Learning to Fly" and "Into the Great Wide Open" were huge hits and fans loved the disc. Much to the relief of the Heartbreakers, he brought them back into the fold for the highly anticipated Full Moon Fever follow-up disc. Full Moon Fever, his recent solo album, was an enormous hit and restored much of his commercial luster after the poorly received Let Me Up (I've Had Enough). Tom Petty was in a very good place when he began cutting Into the Great Wide Open in late 1990. ![]()
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