Tom Petty - Runnin' down a dream

It's an American story, that of Thomas Earl Petty. With all the trimmings: the fable of the kid who meets his idol, the dream, the self-made man, the glory, the dusty and heroic epic of rock'n'roll. And yet there's also something that makes it wonderfully different, unorthodox, in some ways unique. Because the man, though seemingly monolithic in his fidelity to the model of the working-class, morally upright rocker, actually reveals a whole range of nuances, if not outright contradictions, that set him apart from the cliché. Starting with that biting self-irony that always let him flit freely between sardonic lyrics and daring sonic detours, while still holding to an underlying musical consistency. A Clint Eastwood with the brilliant irreverence of a Ric Ocasek. A mad hatter of rock with a top hat full of pop melodies and killer jangle. Nothing to do with the rhetoric of Bruce Springsteen, to whom he's often inappropriately compared. But he doesn't have all that much in common either with the master Dylan, to whom plenty of clues inevitably link him. You'd almost call him an outsider, if he hadn't sold tens of millions of records.

As every American story teaches us, though, it's the beginning that explains everything. And the beginning lies in the swampy Florida town of Gainesville, where the future Heartbreaker was born on October 20, 1950.

I was 8 years old when I first saw Elvis, on the set of "Follow That Dream", in Florida. I was mesmerized and decided to sell my slingshot in exchange for a box of his 45s.

(Tom Petty)

When Elvis came to town

The prologue reads like the screenplay of a Hollywood movie: little Tom, born on October 20, 1950, spends a quiet childhood in the Southern backwater of Gainesville until, at age 8, he encounters the messiah Elvis, who strikes him down on the road to rock and changes his life forever.

It's 1961 when Presley arrives in Florida to shoot his ninth film, "Follow That Dream". Tom's uncle, who works on the set, invites his nephew to watch some takes being shot nearby in Ocala. For Tom it's a revelation. He's left dazzled by the charisma of the King of rock 'n' roll and even decides to sell his slingshot in exchange for a box of Elvis's 45s. From that moment it's settled: when he grows up, he'll be a singer. Sixty years later, that legendary appearance by Presley in Florida will also inspire a musical, "When Elvis Came To Town".

Tom Petty, a fair-haired, part-Seminole kid, picks up his first guitar at 11. By the time he's barely seventeen, he's left school to devote himself full-time to his first bands: the Sundowners, then the Epics, and then Mudcrutch, who, dreaming of being the Beatles at Liverpool's Cavern Club, end up becoming the house band at Dub's Diner in their small hometown of Gainesville. They'll also try their luck in California, but the band will soon fall apart, leaving behind a single, "Depot Street" (1975), which will pass almost completely unnoticed. Two of the Mudcrutch members, however, will follow Petty into the future Heartbreakers: guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench. Meanwhile, Tom also gets some experience in Tulsa (Oklahoma), joining Al Cooper and John Sebastian for the sessions of a Leon Russell album that, however, will never be released.

Gone Hollywood

And if this story is a movie, its natural setting could only be Hollywood, California. It's here that Tom Petty relocates and puts down roots. To play his winning hand: the Heartbreakers. The band that will carry him to success is formed in 1976, around this crucial line-up: Mike Campbell (lead guitar), Benmont Tench (piano, organ, harmonium and vocals), Ron Blair (bass and vocals) and Stan Lynch (drums and vocals). His friendship with Denny Cordell, owner of Shelter Records alongside Russell himself, lands them a deal and the chance to record an album at the label's studios, in Hollywood.

Oh yeah, all right

Take it easy baby

Make it last all night

She was an American girl

(“American Girl)

And that's how the Petty sound was born. A dazzling cocktail of southern rock, British beat (Beatles, Who), Byrds-like arpeggios and elite pop, its bubbles already fizzing from the debut album, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers (1976), branded on the cover with his unmistakable trademark: a heart pierced by a guitar.

Unfazed by the new punk and new wave ferment shaking up the States, Tom looks back to the proud tradition of rock, unashamed to sound démodé. Black leather jacket and knowing look, he has himself pictured on the cover like a new Elvis, ready to break hearts with blazing riffs and breathtaking choruses. Starting with those of the stunning single “American Girl,” a frisky rock'n'roll number à la Byrds complete with tempo changes, backing vocals and chiming guitars: Petty sings in a nasal register everyone compares to Bob Dylan and Roger McGuinn, but no less distinctive, with that drawling, subtly neurotic inflection. The only link to the contemporaneous punk of the Ramones lies in the immediacy and the return to the purest roots of Sixties rock, even in the lyrics, almost an ode to adolescence and fun, with that liberating refrain: “Oh yeah, all right/ Take it easy baby/ Make it last all night/ She was an American girl”. When, thirty-five years later, the ultra-conservative Republican Michelle Bachmann will rashly try to use “American Girl” for her election campaign, the Democrat Petty — who had in fact already granted its use to Hillary Clinton in the past — will be furious, hurling insults and threatening lawsuits.

But it's not just the first of a long string of hits that shines on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. The opening “Rockin' Around,” written by Campbell, is a charging rockabilly number in the style of the Who, who are also honored (in the title) in the nostalgic “Fooled Again (I Don't Like It),” which instead leans closer to certain Stones-like rawness; “Anything That's Rock'n'Roll,” with its frenzied drive, is the closest the band gets to punk; the softer “Breakdown” sounds almost Steely Dan-like in its sinuous, bluesy movement around Campbell's descending Rickenbacker riffs and Tench's organ hits, with hazy West Coast harmonies in the background; “Hometown Blues” is exactly what it promises: a return to the purest wellsprings of blues, with a melody as simple as it is enchanting.

Finally, the more “atmospheric” tracks reveal the potential of Petty the balladeer that will emerge so strongly in years to come: “The Wild One, Forever,” with its crisp electrified acoustic guitar arpeggios, the quasi-psychedelic “Luna,” dominated by Tench's sinister organ, and the crepuscular “Mystery Man,” languishing under country slide guitar.

The lyrics, too, stand out for their nostalgic imagery, suspended between dream and reality, hope and disillusionment. But the album doesn't exactly set American audiences on fire, and the band has to wait for the British tour supporting Nils Lofgren (guitarist for Young and Springsteen) to become better known, at least across the Channel, where the record climbs into the Top 30. Riding this wave of success, Shelter tries to relaunch them at home too, this time with better results: the second single, “Breakdown,” enters the Top 40, while “American Girl” takes over FM radio.

We were too hard for mainstream lovers and too soft for the punks.

(Tom Petty)

So by the time You're Gonna Get It! (1978) comes out, the heartthrob with the Rickenbacker slung over his shoulder has already won over the American public, who see in him a possible “new Dylan” with polished manners and refined melodic taste — a feeling that will help the album cross the threshold of the US Top 40. And yet Petty senses he's “out of step” with the trends of the period: “We were too hard for mainstream lovers and too soft for the punks,” he will later admit. The fact is that the singles pulled from the album — the tender, Byrds-like ballad “Listen To Her Heart” and the hot-blooded rock'n'roll of “I Need To Know” — don't repeat the success of “Breakdown.”

The record sounds slightly more electric than its predecessor (perhaps that's why some oddly filed it under “new wave”), but it largely rehashes the same insights. The band is still a relentless war machine, and Petty confirms himself as a born entertainer, playing the disappointed lover in the melodramatic “Magnolia” (“Well her lips were as warm/ As that wet southern night/ Her eyes were as black as the sky… Then she took hold my hand/ As she looked up at me/ And said now I must tell you goodbye”) and in the “vengeful” title track (“I don’t want you no more/ I ain’t gonna give any more than you give to me/…  Can’t try any harder than you tried for me/ You’re gonna get it babe/ I should quit it babe but you look so good”), or kneeling before an insatiable femme fatale in the torrential “Too Much Ain't Enough” (“I’m tryin’ to make this easy baby/ You seem to like things rough/ You just can’t be satisfied/ Too much ain’t enough… Come on baby I’m down on my knees/ Guess some little girls just can’t be pleased”).

Another gallery of broken hearts, losers and dreamers, for a transitional album in which Petty nonetheless further refines his style, without quite managing to land the knockout blows that will make him famous.

The gestation of the third record is far more troubled. Shelter goes bankrupt, ABC Records tries to transfer the contract to MCA, and a lawsuit breaks out over the rights to the new songs. The legal costs will be financed by a new tour, aptly named the “Lawsuit Tour.” But nothing can stop the rise of a band about to make the definitive leap into stardom.

Everybody has to fight to be free, you see

You don’t have to live like a refugee

(“Refugee”)

Successful refugees

Released on the new Backstreet Records label and produced by a (future) guru like Jimmy Iovine (already coming off the experience of working alongside Springsteen on “Born To Run”), Damn The Torpedoes (1979) is the springboard to stardom. It will climb all the way to No. 2 on the Billboard chart, sitting there for seven weeks behind “The Wall” by Pink Floyd, and will go triple platinum in the US with over three million copies sold. Credit also goes to a handful of killer singles, starting with the splendid “Refugee,” destined to become one of his classics: a proud love song, but, read differently, also the manifesto of an indomitable rocker (“everybody's got to fight to be free/ you don't have to live like a refugee”) in an era dominated by other trends and other commercial interests: an angry tone that Petty himself attributes to the resentment toward the music business built up during the lawsuit with ABC/MCA. The song is one of those relentless instant classics: an epic guitar charge interspersed with the vibrant swell of the organ, over which Petty's impassioned plea rises. The swaggering r'n'b of “Don't Do Me Like That” hides yet another love wound amid swirls of Hammond organ and a catchy chorus, while nostalgic Sixties atmospheres and a masterful spoken passage send the other hit, “Here Comes My Girl,” soaring — another heart-wrenching serenade steeped in simple, noble feelings (“And then she looks me in the eye, says, we gonna last forever/ And man, you know I cant begin to doubt it… Here comes my girl/ Yeah, she looks so right, she’s all I need tonight”). Moods that Petty also manages to evoke by crafting those atmospheric rock ballads at which he is a master (“You Tell Me”), unafraid to draw on the glorious (if by then thoroughly derided) tradition of country-rock à la Eagles and Creedence Clearwater Revival (the tender “Louisiana Rain”).

But, as mentioned, what dominates is a sense of proud defiance, which fires up Southern-style rock'n'roll numbers like "Century City", with its slide guitar on full display, and reaches its peak in that jangle-driven anthem "Even The Losers": "Even the losers get lucky sometimes" is Petty's own personal fuck-you to the world. "I still play it today, and every night there are thousands of people waiting for it and singing along, because it's about them," he would later recall.

The whole album, which alternates unreleased tracks with reworkings from the Mudcrutch era, is a miracle of balance and restraint. Perfect right from the title, which recalls the famous line ("damn the torpedoes!") spoken by Admiral David Glasgow Farragut during the Battle of Mobile Bay in the Civil War. A remarkable resurrection of that "classic rock" sound that the new punk and new wave generations had already written off as dead and buried. Perhaps this is also why American critics would celebrate it, entrusting it - as Bertoncelli writes - with the future of American singer-songwriter music. Paradoxical, for an artist who has always had his eyes fixed on the past.

But the success of Damn The Torpedoes is also the well-deserved crowning achievement for a band, The Heartbreakers, who prove once again, album after album, to be one of the most explosive rock ensembles of all time, with their blend of shimmering jangle and searing guitar solos (Campbell), carpets of organ and keyboards (Tench), and a rock-solid rhythm section (Lynch and Blair). A steamroller of a band comparable in power and cohesion to Springsteen's E Street Band. But the similarities with the Boss, so often played up by critics of the era, end there. Petty shows none of the Motown soul influence or the lessons of Van Morrison, nor that raw guitar-driven urgency (the distinctive twelve-string Rickenbacker gives the Heartbreakers' sound a brighter, more ringing quality); the use of horns and keyboards also differs, but above all what sets them apart is their approach: Springsteen's hews closer to the classic rocker mold, while Petty's is, in some ways, more eclectic (one might almost say "avant-garde"), with its nods to beat, pop, and the most sophisticated Adult Oriented Rock. An eclecticism to which Gaines' Heartbreaker adds a proud, independent personality, one that would push him into a new standoff with the music industry - this time over the retail price of the new album, the first of the new decade.

In the end, Petty wins out: Hard Promises (1981) will hit stores for a dollar less than the label wanted, but it will be worth it. Because the new album easily cracks the American Top 10, and the supporting tour is a triumph.

The main new development is the forceful arrival of Stevie Nicks in Tom Petty's life: with the captivating Fleetwood Mac chanteuse he would begin a long and turbulent artistic and romantic relationship, of which the heartfelt duet "Insider" is only a preview.

Enriched by the Byrds-like grace of the single "The Waiting" and the melodic spark of the hushed "A Woman In Love" (yet another guitar feat from Campbell), the album nonetheless struggles to recapture the verve and consistency of its predecessor. The other guitar ballad, "The Criminal Kind", falls back on craft alone, relying mainly on Petty's sharp, ironic vocal delivery; the new rock excursions "Kings Road" and "A Thing About You" don't leave much of a mark, while the folk-rock of "Something Big" openly winks at Dylan (even in the vocal delivery). Even the broken-hearted serenade number ("Letting You Go") fails to charm this time, caught between mawkish keyboards and predictable lyrics ("I always knew, one day you'd come around/ Now I wonder if dreams are just dreams"). Better, if anything, is the closing "You Can Still Change Your Mind", an old-school power ballad of the kind the Cars used to entrust to Benjamin Orr's velvety voice.

It so happens that the (potential) high point of the album is the aching "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around", which Petty instead leaves off the tracklist, generously giving it away to Stevie Nicks for her solo debut ("Bella Donna", 1981).

But for Petty it's a golden moment regardless, one that also finds him behind the mixing desk for Del Shannon's "Drop Down And Get Me", one of the singers who shaped his adolescence. Another one, John Lennon, was supposed to attend the Hard Promises sessions, but Mark David Chapman's murderous hand got there first, cutting short the ex-Beatle's life on the evening of December 8, 1980, in New York. Petty would then decide to add a tribute inscription to Lennon, "We Love You JL", on the vinyl copies of the record.

You got lucky, babe…

When I found you

("You Got Lucky")

For the next chapter of the Heartbreakers saga, Long After Dark (1982), Howard Epstein takes Rob Blair's place on bass, also contributing significantly on vocals. Petty's winning streak is confirmed by the wonder-single "You Got Lucky", a moving rock ballad in which every piece slots perfectly into place: the intro with its sobbing synths setting the pace, the entrance of Petty's aching voice, the languid guitar flourishes, the epic sweep of the choral refrain. With a bold lyric, delivered as a kind of warning: “You better watch what you say/ You better watch what you do to me… Good love is hard to find/ You got lucky, babe… When I found you”. It would storm up the charts (No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 1 on the Billboard Top Tracks) thanks also to the first of a long series of brilliant music videos that would help build MTV's fortunes. It's the record's centerpiece, alongside the other twilight ballad "Straight Into Darkness", a leap into darkness carried solely by the evocative power of keyboards, piano and guitars, chiselling out aching phrases over which Petty delivers yet another masterful performance.

It's a more polished album, in keeping with the tradition of American FM rock, starting with the radiant refrain of the opener "One Story Town", set to the chime of Byrds-like guitars. The Petty sound has by now become a proven trademark: take "Deliver Me", with its blend of piano and guitars framing another anthem to the conflict between reason and feeling (“Every woman and every man/ Knows the feeling so well/ Those times when the heart just can’t understand/ The times when you never can tell”), or the syncopated "We Stand A Chance", driven by a sharp guitar riff and handclaps, or again the primal rock'n'roll naturalness of "Change Of Heart" and "Between Two Worlds".

Elsewhere, though, one gets the impression that this war machine is spinning its wheels for lack of choruses up to the task ("Finding Out", "The Same Old You"), eventually getting completely bogged down in the syrupy closer "A Wasted Life".

In any case, another more-than-decent album, one that cements a trademark that by now seems unshakeable in the rock firmament, however stubbornly it swims against the current.

Petty, meanwhile, lends a hand to the fledgling Lone Justice for their explosive self-titled debut album, also produced by Iovine, writing a great song for them ("Ways To Be Wicked") and leaving in the court of the wonderful Maria McKee her new boyfriend Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, essentially the backbone of the Heartbreakers.

I was born a rebel

Down in Dixie on a Sunday morning

Yeah with one foot in the grave

And one foot on the pedal

("Rebels")

Tom in Wonderland

For the Heartbreakers' next album, however, Petty takes a longer break than usual, partly due to a fractured left hand caused - the story goes - by a punch thrown at a studio wall in a moment of frustration. This also reduces the number of tracks in the final lineup of Southern Accents (1985), on which trusty Jimmy Iovine is joined in the control room by Robbie Robertson (The Band). The main novelty, though, is the collaboration with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, who lends his sound more electronic, experimental tints, starting with the hugely successful single "Don't Come Around Here No More", made even more famous by its memorable video, with Petty playing the Mad Hatter in a grotesque "Alice in Wonderland" that ends with the heroine turned into a cake, cut into pieces and devoured by the onlookers. But no less astonishing than the video is the song's musical structure, a goldmine of brilliant touches: from Petty's listless vocal delivery to the asynchronous synth drones, from the square-cut drums to the guitars treated with a harpsichord-device to mimic a sitar, from the disorienting vocal arrangements to the stunning rock acceleration at the end, with a galloping bass and guitars battered by wah-wah. Stewart's "electronic" touch is certainly noticeable, and purists of the original Petty sound may well turn up their noses, but there's no doubt this is one of his masterpieces.

The record's real distinguishing feature, however, is precisely the coexistence of more experimental episodes alongside more traditional ones, to the point that Petty had initially even considered a double album, rigidly split along those lines. In the end, though, it's exactly this diversity and the constant shifts in register that make these nine tracks all the more enjoyable to listen to, starting with the opening "Rebels", one of the Heartbreaker-in-chief's classic anthems, steeped in working-class-hero epic, with "“I was born a rebel/ Down in Dixie on a Sunday morning/ Yeah with one foot in the grave/ And one foot on the pedal”". Rock-leaning atmospheres poised between Dylan and the Stones return in the other dusty on-the-road romp "Dogs On The Run", a sort of moral parable on poverty and wealth, with the usual Heartbreakers playing like wildfire.

But the apotheosis of Southern pride is the manifesto-ballad that is the title track: picking up the microphone again with all the pride and vulnerability that are his trademark, Petty delivers a moving ode to his roots over a soft bed of piano and strings: “There’s a southern accent, where I come from/ The young ‘uns call it country/ The yankees call it dumb/ I got my own way of talkin’/ But everything is done/ with a southern accent/ where I come from”. A song of Young-like intensity: it's his own "Southern Man".

The soul horns, electronic beats and avant-garde piano of "It Ain't Nothin' To Me" represent the boldest thing, and the furthest departure from his usual sound, that Petty had made up to that point. But there's no shortage of other disorienting moments, from the vibrant black-music feel of "Make It Better (Forget About Me)", with its call-and-response, jazzy piano and funk horns, to the full-trumpet elegy of the closing "The Best Of Everything".

Caught halfway between experimental ambitions and more conventional sounds are "Spike" and "Mary's New Car", probably the two weakest tracks on the record.

Emblazoned on its cover with Winslow Homer's 1865 painting "The Veteran In A New Field", Southern Accents is a record that's almost more important than it is beautiful, not just for its courage, but also for the ease with which Petty manages to immerse himself in entirely new (and highly risky) territory without losing an ounce of his class. Some old fans will inevitably turn up their noses, but sales will reward the album regardless, with a seventh-place finish on the US charts.

While the video for "Don't Come Around Here No More" dominates MTV, Petty picks up his guitar again and sets off with the Heartbreakers on a long tour, immortalized on Pack Up The Plantation - Live (1985), further proof of their incendiary live performances, with Stevie Nicks lending a hand on vocals on two tracks.

The Heartbreakers are like one single person. They're the last great American rock band.

(Bob Dylan)

Good times roll

The following year, and part of 1987, see Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers serving as the support band on Bob Dylan's "True Confessions Tour". Mr. Zimmerman is thrilled: "The Heartbreakers," he'll say, "are like one single person." He returns the favor by singing and co-writing with Petty "Jammin' Me", the lead single from the Heartbreakers' new album, Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), released in 1987.

It's a return to the safer tracks of classic rock, but without any particular points of interest. Beyond the liveliness of the single (the usual gritty, old-school rock'n'roll), only partly matched by the closing title track, there's little else worth mentioning: between workmanlike ballads ("Runaway Trains"), flabby country-rock ("The Damage You've Done") and toothless pop-rock ("All Mixed Up", "Think About Me"), Tom Petty seems, for the first time since his debut, to have lost his way. It's no coincidence that Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) would be the only album not represented on his 1993 Greatest Hits.

Meanwhile, his private life also suffers a trauma: an arsonist sets fire to his house in the San Fernando Valley, destroying much of his belongings and terrorizing his wife and two daughters, who are fortunately unharmed.

Perhaps sensing the difficulties of the moment with the Heartbreakers, Petty takes a break to work with Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra on a new project: a supergroup called Traveling Wilburys, which also features Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison. What is, to all intents and purposes, one of the most sensational all-star bands of all time actually comes together almost as a lark, to record the B-side of a single by the ex-Beatle, who had just returned to success thanks to Lynne with the album "Cloud Nine". But the result, the guitar ballad "Handle With Care", is so thrilling that it spurs them to record an entire album. Thus comes Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 (1988), in which our heroes, each equipped with a Wilbury pseudonym (Petty is Charlie Wilbury Jr.), cross guitars and, gathered in a circle around a microphone, unleash a handful of breezy, good-times rock'n'roll ("Dirty World", "Last Night", "End Of The Line"), in which the melodic genius of Lynne and Harrison blends perfectly with Orbison's magnetic voice, Dylan's folk charisma and Petty's rock energy. The record, wrapped in a veil of mystery, wins over both audiences and critics. But a shadow falls over the project just a few weeks after the album's release (on December 7), with the news of Roy Orbison's sudden death.

Two years later, in October 1990, the group would return with a new album, ironically titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 (the would-be "Vol. 2" was never released and only circulates as a bootleg).

My sister got lucky, married a yuppie

Took him for all he was worth

Now she's a swinger dating a singer

I can’t decide which is worse

("Yer So Bad")

Full Moon fever

Buoyed by the experience alongside those giants and having convinced Lynne to oversee production, Petty records his first solo album, Full Moon Fever (1989). Of the Heartbreakers, only Campbell remains, acting as multi-instrumentalist and co-producer. But it's no snub: the album's sound is simply too far removed from the Heartbreakers' trademark to be released under their name. During the long recording process, though, two Wilburys did lend a hand: George Harrison (acoustic guitar and backing vocals on "I Won't Back Down") and, shortly before his death, Roy Orbison (backing vocals on "Zombie Zoo").

The result is stunning. Illuminated by the melodic grace of that master of the hook, Lynne, Petty hits on a string of killer singles and breathtaking ballads, aided by masterful arrangements and a sound that's decidedly rounder and more sophisticated, in line with the (admittedly waning) canons of the Eighties. The gorgeous harmonies of Campbell and Lynne, the shimmering layers of keyboards and the Beatlesque charm of the melodies (almost inevitable, given that Petty and Lynne are both obsessive fans of the Fab Four) breathe new life into a sound that seemed to have run dry, giving it practically a second life. Because the folk-rock roots, the jangly Byrds-ian echoes and even the lyrics themselves, with their small and large sagas of small-town losers, haven't disappeared. It's one of those magical alchemies that can turn a career around. And that's exactly what happens: the album becomes his all-time bestseller, reaching number three in America.

The first hit, "Free Fallin'", is the gradual introduction to the new frontier: the harmonies stand out above all, with arpeggiated guitars accompanying the free fall into a new emotional vortex, made of inadequacy and impossible loves, with that touch of disenchanted irony that has always set the man apart: “She’s a good girl, loves her mama/ Loves Jesus and America too/ She’s a good girl, crazy ‘bout Elvis/ Loves horses and her boyfriend too… And I’m a bad boy, ‘cause I don’t even miss her/ I’m a bad boy for breakin’ her heart”. But already "I Won't Back Down" is a sensational foray into a magically velvety pop-rock, practically a cold fusion of ELO and the Heartbreakers, with the "gentle weeping" of Harrison's guitar backing another proud declaration of independence. The sound picks up speed and rock swagger on the other triumph "Love Is A Long Road", with a play of stops and keyboards that brings to mind "Baba O'Riley" by the Who. More reflective, "A Face In The Crowd" is the melancholy rift that plants doubt, letting it slip slowly into the abyss of everyday life, into the small agonies of passing time, with wonderfully dense and elegant arrangements in which the slide guitar creeps in languidly. Petty pulls off the miracle of digging abysses of desolation while making them look like a daydream. Dreams to be chased breathlessly, behind blazing hard-rock riffs ("Runnin' Down A Dream", with Campbell front and center) or exuberant vintage beat (the cover of "Feel A Whole Lot Better" by the Byrds).

When this energy is joined by the melodic enchantment of "Yer So Bad", Petty truly seems to reach the zenith of his art of nostalgia, where irony always arrives just in time to save you from tears (“My sister got lucky, married a yuppie/ Took him for all he was worth/ Now she's a swinger dating a singer/ I can’t decide which is worse”). Only to then floor you with melancholy, with the disarming simplicity of an acoustic lullaby ("Alright For Now") that throws your heart wide open (“I’ve spent my life travelin’/ I’ve spent my life free/ I could not repay all you’ve done for me/ So sleep tight baby/ Unfurrow your brow/ And know I love you”).

"Depending On You" again plays on keyboards, on brisk, urgent cadences, while the folk'n'roll of "The Apartment Song" seals the most "Heartbreakers"-like track of the bunch. But the record also confirms its original trademark in the closing stretch, thanks to the breezy "A Mind With A Heart On Its Own" and the dancey cadences of "Zombie Zoo", which winks at the Cars' "You Might Think".

In the prairies of Petty's dreams, all of America finds rest. Millions of everyday working-class heroes see themselves reflected in his sagas of lonely, unbreakable pride. With Full Moon Fever, Tom the hatter pulls out of his hat the record that finally crowns him a star across half the world, and probably his absolute masterpiece.

I’m learning to fly but I ain’t got wings

Coming down is the hardest thing

(“Learning To Fly”)

But Petty is already missing the Heartbreakers, and for the following album, Into The Great Wide Open (1991), he reunites the band, while still keeping Jeff Lynne at the controls.

The opening “Learning To Fly” is the natural continuation of the full-moon ballads: an enveloping melody, sunny chiming guitars, sixties-style harmonies, all skilfully wrapped in a sophisticated pop package, framing yet another saga of a small-town loner: “Well I started out down a dirty road/ Started out all alone/ And the sun went down as I crossed the hill/ And the town lit up, the world got still/ I’m learning to fly, but I ain’t got wings/ Coming down is the hardest thing”. The Elo-roots rock alchemy renews all its charm on the title track, sinuously melodic and superbly arranged, with a deep, airy sound packed with harmonies and Wilburys-style guitars. It will be backed by another great video, featuring Johnny Depp, Gabrielle Anwar and Faye Dunaway.

When the tempo rises and the band veers decisively into rock territory, though, there's a bit less of the verve of the previous album: tracks like “Kings Highway”, “Out In The Cold” and “Makin' Some Noise” give the Heartbreakers' roaring guitars some air again, but without ever really drawing blood.

Better, if anything, when Petty experiments with dark, neurotic Ocasek-style ballads (“All Or Nothing”) or plays the role of the romantic crooner, intoning new odes to impossible lovers (“Too Good To Be True”) and open-hearted serenades (“The Dark Of The Sun” and “You And I Will Meet Again”).

The link with tradition, meanwhile, is kept alive by the country-folk of “All The Wrong Reasons”, with a banjo intro and his friend Roger McGuinn on guitar.

Overall, Into The Great Wide Open confirms the soundness of the formula and renews the band's success, though it stays well short of the creative peaks of its historic predecessor.

In 1992 came the single “Peace In L.A.”, in support of the Rodney King case, which had driven the city's black community to revolt.

Funeral Dances and Wildflowers

Sealing Petty's status as an American rockstar comes the stunning offer from Warner, which lures him away from Mca for 20 million dollars. The old label closes out the relationship by releasing the inevitable Greatest Hits (1993), which unveils a luxury previously unreleased track: the gorgeous guitar ballad “Mary Jane's Last Dance”, embellished with a breathtaking melody and a blazing harmonica solo. Its success was also helped along by an incredible, necrophiliac video, with Petty as an undertaker busy dancing, dining and conversing with Kim Basinger's corpse. A practically perfect song: it would become one of his biggest hits and would also be semi-plagiarized in 2006 by the Red Hot Chili Peppers in “Dani California”.

It's good to be king, if just for a while

To be there in velvet, yeah, to give 'em a smile

It's good to get high and never come down

It’s good to be king of your own little town

(“It's Good To Be King”)

Ever since that magic single, Petty found himself in the hands of the new Midas of mainstream rock, Rick Rubin (Public Enemy, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Run DMC). But our man stays true to himself and stubbornly keeps going his own way, telling his usual desolate, fatalistic stories on the double album Wildflowers (1994), released under his own name despite the presence of his band's musicians.

The new production turns back the clock, largely abandoning the synthetic sounds brought in by Lynne (and by Stewart too) and digging back into tradition for instruments like harmonium, sitar, harpsichord and mellotron, plus a solid horn section. Petty, still in a state of grace, has fun retracing every path of his now thirty-year career, gathering its fruits and insights into a kind of varied summa. Here, then, resurface largely acoustic monologues, like the graceful title track, carved around harmonium, piano and harpsichord, or the equally Dylan-esque "You Don't Know How It Feels", complete with obligatory harmonica, or again the bittersweet arpeggios and dimly lit keyboards of "Only A Broken Heart".

When he's galloping across rock's open plains, Petty always has a trick up his sleeve (the driving "You Wreck Me", the Creedence-like "Cabin Down Below", the Beach Boys homage "Honey Bee" with Carl Wilson on vocals), but by now he seems more at ease brooding alone in ravines of melancholy, whether he's flirting with the blues (the bloodless "Don't Fade On Me") or setting up sumptuous waltzes ("Wake Up Time"), taking refuge in the orchestral elegance of the splendid "It's Good To Be King" (with a dazzling instrumental coda) or drowning his bitterness in melodic delights (Beatles-esque, perhaps?) and the vaudeville stride of the folky "To Find A Friend" (with Ringo Starr on drums).

If one wanted to find any flaws, one could say that "Time To Move On" sounds a bit too close to Springsteen's "Tunnel Of Love", and that the languid Southern blues of "House In The Woods" never really takes off either, but all things considered, these are minor details.

Wildflowers is an album of nostalgic, contrite soliloquies, yet another testament from this indomitable minstrel, who has been fighting the same ghosts for thirty years but still always manages to move us. This time, perhaps, he indulges a bit too much in self-reference, but after thirty years at this level, it's the least he's entitled to.

The increasingly in-demand Heartbreakers play backing band for Johnny Cash on "Unchained", and for Carl Perkins ("Go Cat Go!"); meanwhile Petty also composes a soundtrack for Edward Burns' film She's The One (1996). It's another hit, helped along by the presence of several studio guests, including his friend Ringo Starr. His pop mastery resurfaces in the blend of jangly guitars and organ on "Walls (Circus)", with guest star Lindsey Buckingham (Fleetwood Mac) lending a hand on vocals. Catchy FM-radio tracks like the radiant "California" and the acoustic "Angel Dream (No. 4)" alternate with elegant Beatles-esque sketches ("Hung Up And Overdue", with imaginative arrangements for piano, accordion, cello and flute) and nervy Neil Young-style tours de force ("Supernatural Radio", "Climb That Hill"), while "Asshole" is a tribute cover of rising star Beck, in whom some see a possible heir to Petty himself. Finally, the hard-rock streak resurfaces on the harmonica-driven, fired-up "Zero From Outer Space".

Three years will pass before the next album, once again recorded alongside the Heartbreakers. It's a troubled period for Petty, though after divorcing his first wife Jane he meets Dana, the woman he'll marry in 2011. Either way, Echo (1999) bears the mark of this turbulent phase, with bitter, aching lyrics. Rubin perhaps lays it on a bit thick, but the spirit of the songs remains as true as ever. Clutching his Rickenbacker, Petty once again rides across rock's boundless plains, spurring the Heartbreakers into a gallop, bolstered by new drummer Steve Ferrone ("Free Girl Now", "I Don't Wanna Fight", "About To Give Out"), but what shows through most is a suffering spleen, painted into turgid ballads (the opening "Room At The Top") or more gently dreamlike ones, like the pianistic (and splendid) "Lonesome Sundown" and the equally poignant "Counting On You", built entirely on the interplay between guitars and keyboards. The peak of this emotional self-torture is the title track, where over subdued, disconsolate tones, Petty vents all his bitterness: ⟦Q1⟧.

Some tracks are above all showcases for the Heartbreakers' skill, chief among them "Billy The Kid", with Tench's exquisite organ embroidery and Campbell's blistering solos. Elsewhere, Petty's borrowing is a bit too obvious: "Swingin'" apes Dylan, the intro of "Won't Last Long" openly winks at the Stones, "This One's For Me" is yet another homage to the Byrds, and "Accused Of Love" one to Beatles-esque nursery-rhyme melodies.

On the whole, it's a pleasant, respectably conservative album that doesn't add much to the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers catalogue but keeps all its class intact, handing us, on the threshold of the new millennium, a kind of rock totem to be preserved for all eternity. And America, ever grateful to its heroes, will do just that, awarding them the fateful star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame in 1999 and inducting them, on March 18, 2002, into the pantheon of the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.

And there goes the last DJ

Who plays what he wants to play

And says what he wants to say

Hey, hey, hey

And there goes your freedom of choice

There goes the last human voice

(“The Last Dj”)

The Last DJ

While anthologies keep piling up (the best being the double Through The Years from 2000, which also includes rarities, b-sides and the forgettable unreleased "Surrender"), Petty doesn't give up and, with his usual irony, even transforms himself into the last DJ. A deliberately paradoxical title (inspired by a real Los Angeles DJ, Jim Ladd) for an album, The Last DJ (2002), that presents, with unchanged pride, his traditionalist stamp.

On the last DJ's turntable, it's always the same old, dear tune spinning: crisp Byrds-style pop jangle (the title track, "Blue Sunday"), tavern blues ("Joe"), bouncy Beatles-style music hall numbers ("The Man Who Loves Women", with Buckingham on vocals), tough-skinned power rock ("Lost Children"), Dylan-esque folk-rock touches ("Have Love Will Travel", "You And Me", almost a cover of "I Want You"), big orchestral ballads (the almost Spector-esque "Dreamville", the hushed "Like A Diamond") and so on. Once again, it's all pleasant, but just as predictable, with George Drakoulias' glossy production tending to dull the pathos. And by now, Petty is starting to run short on the killer hooks of his golden years.

What stands out more, if anything, is the leitmotif running through the lyrics: a head-on offensive against the degeneration of the music business and in favor of artistic independence. A theme that might seem paradoxical for a millionaire rock star, but not for someone like Petty, long known for his political battles and his aversion to the star system. So, in the title track, he sings: “Eccolo, l’ultimo dj/ trasmette quello che gli pare/ e dice quello che vuole/ arriva la libertà di scelta/ arriva l’ultima voce umana/ arriva l’ultimo dj”. And then: “Così mentre celebriamo la mediocrità/ i ragazzi al piano di sopra vogliono capire/ quanto pagherai/ per qualcosa che una volta era gratuito”. And again, in the telling "Money Becomes King", he tells the story of Johnny, a musician starting out, who begins out of passion and ends up "manipulated" by the music industry to which he's sold his soul.

Tom Petty, the last DJ, left standing guard over the free spirit of rock'n'roll.

In 2003, tragedy struck the Heartbreakers: bassist Howie Epstein died at just forty-seven from an overdose. A devastating blow to the band, which would nevertheless manage to celebrate its thirtieth anniversary on tour with Petty, though it would never again put its name to a new record.

Highway Companion (2006) in fact came out under the name of the Gainesville troubadour alone, with Lynne once again lending a hand at the mixing desk, alongside the ever-present Campbell. The sound, however, departs sharply from the one forged in the late Eighties with the former mastermind of Elo, leaning instead toward singer-songwriter textures. While the robust single "Saving Grace" soars on sultry blues cadences, what dominates the palette here are its more intimate, acoustic hues, paying open homage to guiding lights like Dylan and Young, name-checked repeatedly and unabashedly. What follows is a run of wan ballads tinged with country moods ("Square One", "Ankle Deep", "Golden Rose") and brisker folk'n'roll ("Big Weekend"), laid-back blues-rock ("Jack") and guitar spasms barely held in check ("Turn This Car Around"). The more "band-driven" approach of "Flirting With Time" tries to reconnect with Lynne's choral pop and Byrds-like harmonies, while "Damaged By Love" lands the best melody of the bunch, and "Night Driver" at least succeeds in conjuring the seventies, on-the-road atmosphere the album is chasing.

After the anti-establishment j'accuse of The Last Dj, the aching songbook of Highway Companion sounds almost like a resigned retreat into nostalgia for a past that cannot return. But when he apes Dylan too closely, Petty betrays his own insecurities, losing that "crosscutting" eclecticism that made his fortune. The record nonetheless cruises comfortably to No. 4 on the Billboard Chart, confirming a bond with the public that has never wavered.

We'd left some music unfinished, and it was time to go back and pick it up.

(Tom Petty)

The Memory Jukebox

2006 was a year of celebrations: in Gainesville, the firm of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers marked thirty years together with a mega-concert, released the following year as a monumental three-DVD box set, which also included the four-hour documentary film "Runnin' Down A Dream", directed by Peter Bogdanovich.

In the midst of a wave of nostalgic euphoria, in the spring of 2008 Petty even dusted off his first band, the Mudcrutch, releasing what amounts to their recorded debut.

Mudcrutch (with guitarist Tom Leadon and drummer Randall Marsh, joined by the usual Campbell and Tench) is yet another hymn to nostalgia from this eternal Southern boy with the wind in his hair, who never tires of stirring up new rock revelries dreaming of California (the long Grateful Dead-style jam "Crystal River", the abrasive "Bootleg Flyer") or lighting the fuse on other explosive covers (the boogie "Six Days On The Road", penned by Earl Greene & Carl Montgomery, the torrential Byrds track "Lover Of The Bayou", or the traditional folk tune "Shady Grove").

Campbell and Leadon's guitar interplay sets fire under the skin of rock ballads that sound as if they'd been pulled straight off some dusty Seventies vinyl (the Young-esque "Scare Easy", the Gram Parsons-style country-rock of "Orphan Of The Storm", the Southern elegy of "Topanga Cowgirl"), while the noble acoustic filigree of "House Of Stone" is a one-way trip to Nashville.

Mudcrutch climbed the charts (No. 8 on Billboard) and even played during the Super Bowl, the final of American football. "We'd left some music unfinished, and it was time to go back and pick it up," Petty explained simply, confirming his nature as a man of integrity and great heart. How many other millionaire rockstars would go back to dig up their high-school bandmates and put themselves at their service?

Reinvigorated by the Mudcrutch reunion, Petty returned to the studio with the Heartbreakers after eight years for Mojo (2010). A record cut live in the studio under the banner of "first take's the keeper", with no later tweaks or overdubs. Fifteen tracks, sixty-five minutes of music, on a new journey through the twists of memory, moving between charging blues ("Jefferson Jericho Blues", which, harmonica in mouth, recounts President Jefferson's affair with Sally Hemings) and granite-hard Zeppelin-style riffs ("I Should Have Known It"), Campbell's guitar tours de force ("First Flash Of Freedom", where Tench is no less impressive, with vintage Doors-like organ) and heart-in-throat rock ballads full of ache, like the excellent "Good Enough", echoing the Beatles' "I Want You", the mournful "No Reason To Cry", inspired by his divorce, and the airier "Something Good Coming", painted with evocative keyboard and slide-guitar brushstrokes.

A light, dreamlike spirit hangs over the record, fed by the electric piano and vocal echoes of "Pirate's Cove", the reggae vibrations of "Don't Pull Me Over", the swaggering bluesy cadences of "Takin' My Time". As if caught in some permanent spell, Petty stops the clock, even reinventing himself as a soulman for the wry nursery-rhyme of "Candy", or sitting on the banks of the Mississippi for the stomp of "U.S. 41".

Overall, a record that confirms the extraordinary skill of an unshakeable ensemble, as well as the stubborn consistency of an old-school rocker who has never lost his elegant touch, even in the absence of the fervent inspiration of earlier decades.

As proof of a still-enviable form, in 2012 Tom Petty embarked with the Heartbreakers on a long tour that, after 20 years, also reached Europe, touching down in Italy for a single date, on 29 June at the Summer Festival in Lucca.

"Hypnotic Eye" is a "moral" record that examines why men are losing their humanity.

(Tom Petty)

If in 1976, heedless of the new punk and new wave ferment, he looked back to the proud tradition of star-spangled rock, unashamed of sounding démodé, today Petty makes no secret of his intention to stand as guardian of a brand that is both history and pride. Backed, too, by a legendary lineup – the usual Heartbreakers – dubbed by Dylan, not by chance, "the last great American rock band". The fact is that Hypnotic Eye (2014), the thirteenth studio record from this glorious outfit, sounds like it came straight out of the 70s. Much like the prodigious "psychedelic pill" produced by Neil Young two years earlier. It's only rock'n'roll, Tom preaches, still buzzing from the thrilling 2008 Mudcrutch reunion. Though he warns that it's "a moral record, that examines why men are losing their humanity".

And the characters in the songs are, once again, a bunch of hopeless losers, desperate lovers and freefallers, like the one chasing an "American Dream Plan B", clinging to hope against all evidence: "My success is anybody's guess/ But like a fool I'm betting on happiness", sings Petty over a layer of searing feedback. And when those familiar harmonies arrive, blessing the interplay between Tom's jangling guitar and trusty Campbell's psychedelic fuzz, it really does feel like coming home.

But while the single has just the right punch to hit you straight in the gut, the true heartbreaker anthem of the record is "Red River", where the Byrds-style jingle-jangle of the Rickenbackers – an absolute trademark of the Heartbreakers' sound – shines once again, painting desert landscapes over which another of those breathtaking choruses that Petty churns out with impressive nonchalance unfolds. The lyrics are also remarkable, telling of a woman hunting for religious talismans to ward off her demons.

Even when working at a slower tempo, pining over youthful memories with an almost crooner-like languor – as in the hushed piano-jazz of "Full Grown Boy" or the ballad "Sins Of My Youth" – Petty manages to strike just the right chords to move you. A goal pursued successfully – almost shamelessly so, given its backward-looking fervor – in the sixties garage-rock of "Fault Lines", the Bo Diddley-style rock'n'roll of "Forgotten Man" and the old-school blues of "Burn Out Town".

Guitar obsessives will find plenty to enjoy in the electro-acoustic interplay of tracks like "All You Can Carry" and "Power Drunk", while those who buy the album on vinyl, digital or Blu-Ray can also hear Petty tackling the extremely delicate subject of pedophile priests (on the bonus track "Playin' Dumb").

So there's nothing else to say: once again, you simply have to tip your hat. Sure, Hypnotic Eye won't win Petty any new fans, because once again he has nothing new to say, nor does he want to. But had it really come out in the 70s, it wouldn't have ranked among his minor records, despite the scarcity of potential hits.

Then, in 2017, came the tragic and unexpected end: right in the middle of a tour, after three triumphant nights in Los Angeles, Tom Petty was betrayed by his own heart: a heart attack at his home in Malibu, the rush to the hospital, the desperate and futile attempt to save him, amid a chaos of conflicting reports about his death, announced a few hours earlier and then denied. But the situation was dire, and doctors had in fact already begun the procedures that follow a declaration of brain death. A few hours later, the family confirmed his passing. The rock world, in mourning, paid tribute and shared memories from every corner of the globe. The sense of loss felt by fans remains immeasurable.

In 2021, the posthumous Angel Dream was released. Before his death, Tom had been working on the reissue of Wildflowers, aiming to put it out as a double album as it had originally been conceived, and, since four of the tracks recorded for that album had ended up on "She's The One", he decided to also rework that hybrid collection of songs gathered here and there, which had never fully convinced him.

According to Petty's daughters – who oversaw the project – Angel Dream should represent the reworking Tom himself wanted, one stripped of the three songs ("Hope You Never," "Hung Up And Overdue" and "California") from the Wildflowers sessions, with the exception of "Climb The Hill", the only one that remains on both records, besides also having been added to "All the Rest" (they are different recordings, though virtually indistinguishable). Compared to "She's The One", however, Angel Dream does include some previously unreleased tracks: "105 Degrees", "One Of Life's Little Mysteries", the instrumental "French Disconnection" and a cover of J. J. Cale's "Thirteen Days".

According to Mike Campbell (the Heartbreakers' guitarist), "105 Degrees" grew out of one of the improvisations the band used to do while warming up or on a break. Tom would often make up words on the spot, and everyone had a blast jamming freely.

The oddly swinging "One Of Life's Little Mysteries" is yet another Wildflowers outtake that Petty never intended for "All The Rest" or anywhere else. Ryan Ulyate, who co-produced and mixed Angel Dream, considers it an eccentric song that truly wouldn't have fit the record as Tom had envisioned it, and we agree with him: a genuinely anomalous track in our man's catalog.

The cover of JJ Cale's "Thirteen Days" would later turn up in the band's live sets. Petty ultimately didn't include it on the "All The Rest" album, but he had considered it back in 1994 when planning to close out Wildflowers as a double LP. The brief instrumental version titled "The French Disconnection", used in the film "She's The One", closes out the record, though the real finale comes in the penultimate track, a newly mixed and expanded version of "Supernatural Radio" that now runs over six minutes. For Campbell, it's almost a jam session in which the Heartbreakers lose themselves and stretch out in a way that didn't happen often on record.

What stands out about Angel Dream is the rawness of the arrangements, especially compared to Petty's earlier productions, which were polished down to the last detail.

With wrinkles etched into his face and the eternal blond mop of bygone days, Tom Petty was the last hero of American rock. Always with one foot in the grave and the other on the pedal, as he put it in "Rebels". Looking to tradition, he managed to push it forward far beyond what he's commonly given credit for (at least in Italy, where he never managed to replicate the massive success he enjoyed at home). He played the proud guardian of a brand that was both history and pride. Even his detractors cannot help but recognize his deep honesty and consistency. In the great circus of rock, he was already a miracle.

Contributions by Lorenzo Donvito (“Angel Dream”)

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