Music and Soundtrack Features

Tom Petty was going for broke because he had no other choice. He and his then-band Mudcrutch were running on fumes in their Gainesville, Florida home base — so, on April 1, 1974, they decided to head west in search of the last chance saloon of beckoning record deals. Though Mudcrutch made a brief go of it—their 1975 single on Shelter Records, “Depot Street,” stood as a hard-promise signpost of what was to come — the band soon enough dissolved with a fizzle. Undeterred, Petty regrouped with two of his Mudcrutch brothers — lead guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench — at the fore. With the addition of bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers were born anew in 1976, ready to take on the world with renewed vigor.

Fast-forward 50 years on from that fateful, not-fooling April opening day into the here-and-now modern aural world wherein the rich, full sound palette and song-based heritage of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers continue to permeate many corners of the popular music spectrum. Whether it’s the jangly guitar stylings and multi-part vocal harmonizing on display in many a modern garage band, the accented focus on character-driven songwriting deployed by a score of Americana artists, or fully sanctioned tribute albums like Petty Country — a June 2024 release on Big Machine featuring household names like Chris Stapleton, Dolly Parton, George Strait, and Margo Price covering 20 of his best-loved songs — Tom Petty’s artistic legacy carries ever onward. Though he sadly passed away at age 66 on October 2, 2017, just weeks after a final trio of triumphant shows at the Hollywood Bowl in his adopted hometown of Los Angeles to wrap up the band’s 40th-anniversary tour, Petty’s deep catalog continues to expand with carefully curated family-authorized posthumous releases.

Ever passionate about how his music sounded — first, in the analog era on vinyl, and later, by way of 5.1 and eventual Atmos mixes done by his longtime engineer Ryan Ulyate — Tom always knew he wanted to push the envelope every time he entered the studio. “We started out trying to make sounds that were fun,” Tom told me well over a decade ago. “Mike and Ben and I are really record people. We lived with records a lot. We wanted to learn, from the outset, how to use the studio to do things that perhaps we couldn’t do otherwise.”

I had the privilege of interviewing Tom personally more than a few times over the years, and it’s worth noting that it was no accident on my part that our one in-person sit-down took place on April 1, 2010, at his beach house in Malibu, California. This beautiful expanse overlooked Escondido Beach. Around 3 p.m. Pacific time that day, we adjourned to the open-space living room. I sat on a couch facing the sliding-glass doors just beyond the wood-paneled dining room that led to a beautifully finished deck overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

Tom perched in his favorite chair opposite me, his blonde hair cropped close and styled somewhat shorter than the shoulder-length locks he was mainly known for throughout his career. He also sported a neatly trimmed beard and wore the gradient shades he favored at the turn of the decade. Just a bit further back in the open room behind Tom’s right shoulder resided a reference sound system, with a vintage Technics turntable and Krell preamp amongst the visible gear. “I can’t get that Krell to be quiet enough in here when other people are talking,” he admitted. “I gotta figure out a way to cut it back a bit.”

When I reminded Tom of the importance of that crucial April 1 date, his face relaxed, and he was now fully present in the moment. He leaned forward in his chair, nodded slowly a few times at the memory, and said, “That’s right. Yeah, we did in ’74. We set out for L.A. and never went back.” He paused for a quick laugh, and then reiterated that last statement for emphasis. “Never went back.”

Free Fallin’ Forward

They had no alternative, really. “We would have been out of money. It wasn’t an option, as far as we were concerned,” Petty continued. For his part, Petty’s sympatico creative partner Mike Campbell confirmed with me directly that their backs were against the wall. “We had to get outta Gainesville, but we had no idea what was coming,” he recalled. “We were so green, just flying by the seat of our pants. We just wanted to get some gigs to play and then make a record someday. But it was all pie in the sky — distant dreaming, you know?”

The sonic building blocks for realizing those dreams were already well in place, however. “There was a whole lot of musical talent down there in Florida at that time,” observed keyboardist Reese Wynans, perhaps best known for his years behind the keys with Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble and, more recently, as a touring keyboardist for Joe Bonamassa. Wynans grew up in Sarasota and Clearwater, but he mainly plied his trade in northern Florida in Jacksonville, where, from November 1968 to March 1969, he had hooked up with Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, and Duane Allman in a band called The Second Coming, one of the precursors to The Allman Brothers Band. “At the same time we were all getting together and jamming in Jacksonville, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers were getting together as Mudcrutch in Gainesville, about 200 miles to the south,” Wynans continued, referencing the aforementioned pre-Heartbreakers band that began taking flight around 1970 — and he was quite impressed with what he had heard. “I’m a big fan of theirs, and I love their keyboard player, Ben — Benmont Tench. I just love the way he plays.”

Other Gainesville natives could see the signs as well — including a guitar slinger named Don Felder, who spent his own formative years in the Sunshine State prior to venturing west himself to join the Eagles in the early ’70s and teaching guitar to eager fretboard learners like a certain young sandy-haired Southern gentleman. “Who knew Tom Petty would become such a rock music icon?” Felder mused. “I was so proud to see Tom become as popular and influential as he did.”

With his eyes and ears perpetually on the prize, Petty knew what it would take to turn the tide. “Getting a record deal is what changed everything around,” he revealed. About halfway into their ’74 trip, they made a stop in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to see Denny Cordell, the noted British record producer and co-owner of Shelter Records with Leon Russell. In effect, Cordell made a pre-emptive strike. “Yeah, he kinda headed everybody off at the pass,” Petty agreed, “but it was a good move to make, because he was the most musical of anyone we’d run into. He didn’t seem like an executive type, so we gave him our word we would sign with Shelter. He gave us some cash right then and there, and we were committed. We probably wouldn’t have made it without him.”

Though Mudcrutch didn’t pan out, Cordell stuck to his guns and produced the first two Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers LPs for Shelter — their brash, self-titled November 1976 debut and equally raucous May 1978 follow-up, You’re Gonna Get It! At that point, the band was up and running — quite literally. “We were so fortunate that so many things came true for us,” Campbell noted, “but you could see in the ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’ video what to expect, as we didn’t know what we were doing. We were playing music, just trying to survive.” Here, Campbell refers to scenes in the animated video clip for one of Petty’s most iconic songs from his April 1989 solo album on MCA, Full Moon Fever. Upon hearing that, I cited a key line from “Takin’ My Time,” a song on the full band’s June 2010 release on Reprise, Mojo — a line that goes, “When I was a young boy / My fuse was lit.” Did the Heartbreakers guitar icon agree with that assessment? “Yeah — oh yeah! Our fuses were definitely lit — and they burned pretty hot too,” he concluded with a laugh. (Into the great wide open, indeed.)

During their 40-plus years as a functioning entity, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers made damn sure their work was never compromised, no matter the format. Perhaps Neil Young said it best after I told him how much I admired the consistent sound quality inherent in Tom’s canon. “They’re just immaculate recordings,” Young replied. “And we get to hear them in all their glory, those Tom Petty records. He really cares about the sound, and he makes his stuff as good as he can make it.”

Over the years, I’ve compiled countless comments about Tom and his music from a myriad of artists who either worked directly with him or admired the man and his music from afar, intending to someday celebrate his recorded legacy in a story like this one. The balance of these quotes has never seen the light of day outside of raw transcription files, but they’re finally put forth here collectively to paint a picture of a career artist who gave us his all, right up to the literal final note. And with that, I leave it to Tom and his Heartbreaker compadres to kick off this exercise in full Petty fever. You belong with your love on your arm / You belong somewhere you feel free. . .

Go Ahead And Give It To Me

TOM PETTY: The first objective is to make a really good song and a good record. Obviously, my vision at the time we started out doing this was just stereo, but I have come around to the idea of doing 5.1 mixes of our music. It’s interesting to do — and Ryan [Ulyate, Tom’s longtime engineer] does such a great job of it — but you gotta make a good record in the first place. If you don’t have a good song and a good track, the best mix in the world ain’t gonna mean anything.

One thing we achieved with records like Mudcrutch [their April 2008 reunion album on Reprise] and The Live Anthology [The Heartbreakers’ November 2009 4CD, 5CD+2DVD, and 7LP sets, all on Reprise] is where you get enough volume to get a presence, but we’ve preserved a nice high end without that high end starting to hurt. Especially with the live music, it was a challenge to keep that high-end nice and sweet. I think we pulled it off. I mean, we’re making records. (laughs)

BENMONT TENCH: (Heartbreakers keyboardist-cum-backbone who concurrently became an in-demand session player): Denny Cordell told me a long time ago the reason some records sound so loud is because there’s less on them. That’s probably true. For example, of my favorite stuff The Heartbreakers did, “Breakdown” [the lead single from the band’s aforementioned 1976 debut LP] has three guitars on it, but the essence of the record is Mike’s guitar lick, Tom’s vocals, a solitary Wurlitzer, bass, and drums. It’s a very spare drum pattern. And when it comes on, it catches your ear. It’s really got a lot of space.

I think that’s a really good-sounding record, “Breakdown.” We just captured a mood on that take. We had cut it earlier and thought we had it — we had cut it with a grand piano, and it was a little bit different — but Tom said, “No,” and called us back to the studio. It just takes that one moment. The good musicians can pretty much call up the moment, and the good bands, as an ensemble — whether they’re a gang of session musicians for [Van Morrison’s seminal January 1970 Warner Bros. LP] Moondance, or a band like us — can catch what the wave is. You just grab onto it, and that’s The Grail. It’s [early Beatles recordings like] “Twist and Shout,” “Things We Said Today,” “No Reply” — that’s The Grail.

MIKE CAMPBELL: (The Heartbreakers’ not-so-secret weapon in his multi-hyphenate role as guitarist, co-songwriter, and composer): We all used to listen to records together, and trade records around. I mean, there’s just something romantic about vinyl. That’s what we grew up on. There’s a sound to it that’s very familiar to me that makes the guitars sound in a certain middle range, something I really like. To think of a little metal needle on a piece of plastic, making the sound — you feel it. I think you feel the vibrations differently on vinyl than you do on digital recordings.

RYAN ULYATE: (the band’s go-to engineer/producer who’s also remastered the entire Petty catalog for vinyl and high-resolution digital reissues alike, with hopes to continue working his way through the catalog in Atmos — albeit only at the behest of the Petty family): The Heartbreakers worked very, very hard. If you listen to all their stuff, you hear how these guys are putting in that extra bit of energy to get that last take, to get that little bit of mojo, that je ne sais quois — whatever you want to call that last little bit. They were always going for it with that drive and that dedication — to achieve something that’s just higher and better than they’ve ever achieved. It shows in all of this work.

When I was working on the Atmos mix for [Tom’s November 1994 Warner Bros. solo album] Wildflowers. I told both Adria [Petty, Tom’s daughter] and Dana [Petty, Tom’s wife] about it. I said, “I’m sitting in the middle of this room listening to this stuff, and I kinda teared up.” I don’t usually do that. I was doing “House in the Woods,” and I was going, “This is so damn good! Tom would love this! Man, he would have loved this.” That just brought a tear to my eye.

Listening to it this way in Atmos, you get to hear something that is spectacular — and I know Tom just would have been like (exclaims loudly), “Whoa!” (laughs) Well, what he really would have said to me after listening to it in Atmos would have been (slight pause), “It’s f---ing great.” (both laugh heartily)

They Do Know How It Feels

CHRIS HILLMAN: (original bassist of The Byrds; Petty produced Hillman’s September 2017 solo album on Rounder, Bidin’ My Time, which was also Petty’s final production work before his passing): [Guitarist] Herb Pederson, [guitarist] John Jorgenson, and I played “Wildflowers” at the MusiCares [Person of the Year] event that honored Tom in Los Angeles [on February 10, 2017]. I had never heard it before! But I liked it, and I asked Tom if he’d mind if we cut it for Bidin’ My Time. In his usual humble way, he said, “I’d be honored if you’d do one of my songs.”

I love that song. We used to do it every night at the end of the Sweetheart of the Rodeo [50th] Anniversary Tour [in 2019] when we’d do a tribute to Tom. Roger [McGuinn] would sing “King of the Hill,” and Marty Stuart would do this killer version of “Runnin’ Down a Dream” acoustically. Oh, man! [“King of the Hill,” co-written with Petty, appeared on Byrds co-founder McGuinn’s January 1991 solo album on Arista, Back From Rio. “Hill” also featured Tom on co-lead and backing vocals.]

We [Chris Hillman, Herb Pedersen, and The Shelters] also did a recut of “Feel a Whole Lot Better” to honor the 30th anniversary of Tom’s Full Moon Fever album. I said to Ryan [Ulyate], “There’s no sense in me doing The Byrds version [which appeared on their June 1965 debut LP on Columbia, Mr. Tambourine Man]. I don’t want to stray too far away from the song, and I don’t want to do what Tom did when he covered it — and he covered it really well.” Ryan comes up with the idea, “Why don’t you guys start it acoustically?” And then we had the band come in, which was The Shelters, Tom’s protégés. I still think it was so good, and so spot on. They sure got that pure ’60s rock thing going there.

LINDA RONSTADT: (one of the leading vocalist/interpreters of the pop/rock era who always walked the walk to the beat of a different drum): I just love Tom Petty as a singer — and The Heartbreakers are, bar nothing, my favorite rock & roll band. They came along later after absorbing all the influences of everybody else, so it’s like you get everybody with them — you get The Rolling Stones, you get The Byrds, you get Bob Dylan, you get Jackson Browne.

Tom Petty makes the best-sounding records. He mixes them before he records them. They figure out the arrangements, and the mixes don’t get in the way of things when they record. Take “The Waiting '' [the lead single from the band’s May 1981 LP on Backstreet/MCA, Hard Promises]. That song was an intricate musical journey. I just kept going, “Oh, you got that from Mick Jagger.” “Oh, you got that from Bob Dylan.” “Oh, you got that from The Beatles.” “Oh, there’s some Jackson Browne.” He also got a lot of that stuff from Roger McGuinn — those hard r’s. (Linda sings, Tom-like,) “The waiting is the hardest part.” That’s Roger McGuinn, in a California accent coming from Brian Wilson. (chuckles)

Tom also sings “me” in his own way, and “you.” (Sings again,) “I want to get to youuuuu.” (laughs) Listen to his song “Southern Accents' ' [the title track to the band’s March 1985 album on MCA]. God, what a beautiful, great song that is — so beautifully done. Would I ever cover “Southern Accents''? No, because I’m not from the South — but I see what he’s saying exactly. I love that line about, “There’s a dream I keep having where my mama comes to me / And kneels down over by the window and says a prayer for me.” It set a beautiful portrait of somebody just living there at the lower bottom, or maybe the upper bottom — a working stiff just getting through. Not special, never got any breaks, and he just defines himself by his region. I thought it was the most touching, completely non-patronizing, unflinching portrait of a poor working-class American. He’s a Southern guy, you know? “That drunk tank in Atlanta’s just a motel room to me.” Bloody hell, that’s fabulous. “Think I might go work Orlando / If them orange groves don’t freeze.” It’s so great — like being an itinerant worker.

And Benmont Tench — he’s such a great keyboard player! I’ve actually worked with Ben and Mike [on her June 1998 LP on Elektra, We Ran]. Mike’s just an incredible guitar player, and all the musicians know how good he is. When you’re up there playing that beautiful, elegant stuff that he plays — he just needs that, to be able to play it. I’d love to trade places with him any day of the week. (laughs) I would totally do that. What a real master he is.

TOM PETTY: I remember Mike doing the solo on “Runnin’ Down a Dream” [on the aforementioned Full Moon Fever]. It was entirely improvised — a one-take solo — and he was sitting in a chair hunched over and looking away from us. Jeff [Lynne, the album’s co-producer] looked at me and said, “Can you believe that?” (laughs) He hit that in one go.

GEORGE THOROGOOD: (Delaware destroyer-slash-guitarist/vocalist forever bad to the bone): You’ve got to tip your hat to Tom Petty. He’s the only one from the third generation of rock people who broke through the golden veil to get to the top level of rock royalty. Nobody else did that but Tom. But I never got the chance to meet him and say, “If you want me to mow your lawn, Tom, I’ll do it.” (laughs heartily)

CHRIS SMITHER: (veteran folk/blues songsmith who covers TP’s “Time to Move On” from Wildflowers on his May 2024 LP on Signature Sounds, All About the Bones): Why is Tom Petty such an important artist in the overall rock pantheon? The answer to that is almost a tautology. He’s important because so many people like what he does, and so many important people think he’s important. Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and all The Traveling Wilburys knew he was important. They knew he had a lot to say, and he had a cool way of saying it. Catchy songs, sincerity mixed with a little humor, and a lot of musical know-how — it’s a hard combo to beat.

[My guitarist] David Goodrich suggested I cover “Time to Move On,” and I usually take his suggestions seriously enough to at least give it a shot. I played around with it a little, changed the key, shifted a little rhythmic emphasis so that I could “Smitherize” it, and suddenly it was fun to play. Give me a song like that that’s fun to play, and I’m pretty much sold.

Everybody’s Talking ’bout The Wilbury Twist

DHANI HARRISON: (son of George Harrison, he organized the Concert for George tribute to his late father — a.k.a. Nelson Wilbury and Spike Wilbury — at the Royal Albert Hall in London on November 29, 2002, a deeply moving show Tom and the band wholeheartedly participated in): I really loved working with Tom and everyone on Concert for George. They were all looking to me to see if everything was okay, so that was my role.

I’m on both Traveling Wilburys records [October 1988’s Vol. 1 and October 1990’s Vol. 3, both on Wilbury Records]. I was on a track called “Margarita,” on the first one — I’m the little kid singing with the really high voice. (both chuckle) On Vol. 3, I’m on “Wilbury Twist,” and I think I played on “Cool Dry Place.” I was definitely on “Maxine” and “Like a Ship” [the two Vol. 1 bonus tracks Dhani overdubbed guitar onto in 2007 for the 2CD+1DVD and 3LP versions of The Traveling Wilburys Collection on Wilbury/Rhino].

Yes, I chose my Wilbury name. My dad had Nelson Wilbury, after Nelson Piquet, the Brazilian Formula One champion. And I chose Ayrton Wilbury, after Ayrton Senna, [another] Brazilian Formula One champion, so we could keep it in the family. [Both of those legendary drivers won the Formula One title three times each.] Actually, on the first one, I think I might have been credited as Cyril Wilbury, and then on Vol. 3, I was credited as Ayrton Wilbury, because we all wound up changing our names.

After Tom passed away [in 2017], I spent a week with The Heartbreakers. We’re all really close, and it was a really sad week. (slight pause) They’re such lovely guys. They got me through so much, and they’ve been great support for me. I feel very privileged to have been standing alongside them. They’re such legends.

JEFF LYNNE: (ELO mastermind and producer, a.k.a. Otis Wilbury and Clayton Wilbury): Tom was so great. Did we go for a consistency in sound when I was recording guys like Tom, George [Harrison], and Ringo [Starr, who played on Full Moon Fever]? Let me tell you this. In the old days, a lot of the recordings were done on 16-track, and I’d have to bounce so much that you start to lose a bit of quality — say, bouncing 4 tracks down to 2, or 6 down to 3 — but that was to make more space. You’d just mix them down onto the same tape. They’re still there, but you have to pre-balance how loud it’s going to sound when you finally finish the record.

I did love the vocal harmonies that I’d have to fly in, back in those days. I’d mix them out onto 2-track and back in again — probably 8 tracks of vocals, if I was doing a big harmony piece — then out to 2-track, and then I’d fly them back in onto 2 tracks of the 16 tracks. That’s how you made all the space in those days.

TOM PETTY: (a.k.a. Charlie T. Wilbury and Muddy Wilbury): I think in the period where a lot of us were in garage bands, Jeff was home with a multitrack recorder — and that’s always been his real love, more than performing. He’s interested in records, and how to make records. Jeff taught me quite a lot during the making of Full Moon Fever. Writing with him was a really good experience for me. He showed me lots of things I had never thought about before with chord patterns and melodies. He approached everything with such a good attitude — it’s really like you’re just having fun. It never seems like work. He’s very efficient in the studio, and it was like we were driving the car together.

People always wanted me to have echo on my voice, and Jeff hates echo. Absolutely hates it. After working with him for about a month or so, I hated it too. I’m still real picky about using it. He just taught me to get up there and sing on the mike completely dry, and it brought out a certain sound that was kind of different for the time. Rick Rubin told me that when he heard Full Moon Fever, he quit putting effects on the vocals. I think he was working with the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers at that time [on their September 1991 Warner Bros. release, Blood Sugar Sex Magik], and he said, “I just started doing the vocals dry.” There’s something about the voice being kinda naked like that, where it’s a little more emotional. [Rubin later worked with Petty on various singles and album releases between 1993 and 1999.]

The songwriting for The Traveling Wilburys was at least four of us doing it together, though we did have input from a lot of people on those records. My favorite Wilburys song is probably “End of the Line” [from Vol. 1], but I like a lot of them. There was one Jeff and I did after one of our sessions ended — an obscure one called “Poor House,” on the second record [Vol. 3]. That was one I wrote about 10 minutes after the session had ended and everyone was leaving. I came up with this song, and the engineer Richard Dodd was like, “Hey, everybody wait — we’re gonna do this really quick.” We laid the track down, and Jeff and I went out to sing — it’s all in two-part harmony. We did it together on one mike, which people don’t do that much anymore. We just thought we’d go for it because there’s no fixing it up on one mike, so we just did it — and I really enjoyed doing that track with him like that. At that time, we sang together quite a bit, and we had gotten pretty good at harmonies. George sang with us too, but Jeff and I had really gotten the thing down where we could go out there and sing and make it sound pretty good.

You see us all singing around one mike together in the “Handle With Care” video [the lead track from Vol. 1]. On that one in the studio, I think Bob [Dylan] and I sang together, but the other guys [Lynne, Harrison, and Roy Orbison] did it separately. We did sometimes gather around the mike, mainly if it was a background part where we might go for it once. I remember Jeff, George, and I doing at least a day or two of backgrounds at Friar Park [in England], and we’d do them all three of us at once. We got to where we could do that and pull it off.

There Ain’t No Easy Way Out

BENMONT TENCH: A really good expression of what Tom put out as a songwriter — and as a person — is that, in a lot of his songs, there was this idea of encouragement. It’s important to me to be able to acknowledge the darkness, but there are people like Tom who also can shine light — and he did that a lot in his music.

MIKE CAMPBELL: I never wanted to be a rock star. I just wanna play music. I’m probably weird that way. But with Tom, he was such a great leader. It was easy for me to sit back and be in a supportive role, and not be out in front — and I’ve been very comfortable being there.

I think our legacy will be like Beethoven or Bach, you know? Good music will always be there, even a hundred years from now. This music — the good music — will hold up, just like Mozart has. Songs that touch people will last a long time.

What song of ours would I recommend to those future listeners? “American Girl.” That was on our first [self-titled 1976] album, and it’s an adrenaline rush. I think it basically says everything about what The Heartbreakers are all about — the lyrics, the style, and the energy. That’s pretty much us.

TOM PETTY: What will the group be doing in 2030? Well, I just hope to be here. (laughs) I don’t see why we have to quit, why we can’t keep growing. I think the important thing is, there needs to be a reason to buy another record. If I made [October 1979’s masterpiece on Backstreet/MCA] Damn the Torpedoes as every record since the ’80s, there wouldn’t be a reason. I try to look at it this way: “Let’s go where the wind takes us.” We’re gonna be somewhere different each year — each couple of years. We’re gonna hear things differently; we’re gonna be in a different place.

I don’t see why you have to stop. The whole idea of being an artist is to grow. You keep having something to say — and you have fun. That’s a real important ingredient. If you’re having fun, stuff will happen. It’s like Davy Crockett’s motto: “Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.”

The shame about modern entertainment is that it has been boiled down to soundbites — but there are people who want to know more than that. Me, I’m working on music for a whole other crowd. (laughs) I’m doing it a whole different way — and I don’t see any reason to change that.