RIP Tom Petty

Last week at the Hollywood Bowl ...

 

Damn. Last week.

 

This really, really hurts.

Tom Petty's music provided the soundtrack to many people's lives. For many, many others, at least one song etched itself into their life stories.

Back when I was in one of the darkest periods of my life, after I lost my last newspaper gig, "Even The Losers" was one of the songs that provided badly needed comfort. When I had a chance to sing the song at karaoke, it was a few minutes of catharsis.

As a diehard Stevie Nicks fan, I owe so much of what she became on her own to Tom Petty. From the first hit single off her solo debut Bella Donna, to other musical collaborations, to a deep friendship that led Petty to name her an honorary Heartbreaker, to someone with enough standing to tell her to wake up and start writing when she was in one of her darkest periods, he played a vital role in who she is as a solo artist and who she is as a person. It's a debt I feel every day.

"No, you don't have to live like a refugee." You don't have to die like one, either.

RIP.

 

Great, great song...so many classic semi-obscurities on that album: that one, "Shadow of a Doubt", "Century City", "What Are You Doin' in my Life?"

 

This one is hard for me. Maybe because 'You Got Lucky' was the first song that I really remember liking when I was 7 or 8, thanks to MTV. Maybe it's because he's supplied the soundtrack to my life in a lot of ways. It's hard for me not to hear a deeper cut from Into the Great Wide Open and not think of sitting in my sister's room playing Nintendo and wearing out the cassette, or hear something from Wildflowers and think of sitting in my girlfriend's dorm room, or knowing the pain that is on Echo as my first marriage fell apart.

There have been other celebrity deaths where it felt like a piece of my childhood died. This feels more than that. TP was right, we did get lucky, although it was when we found him, not the other way around.

 

Here's the thing about Petty.
He wasn't the greatest singer in the world.
He wasn't the greatest guitar player in the world.
He wasn't the greatest lyricist in the world.
But everybody loved him and loved his work.
His music resonates with so many people.
I don't know of one person that can say they didn't like Petty. That's why he was a part of so many different projects. He was the consummate musician.
Didn't matter if it was a Wilbury jam session........or a R&R HOF song with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"........to inducting ELO into the R&R HOF, to burning the candle at both ends with Mudcrutch.
Everybody loved him, loved his music and will be mourning for a long long time.

 

One of my local radio stations -- which has a 96-minute, no commercials block of music every late afternoon -- played Petty for all 96 minutes yesterday. Pretty cool.

 

For those with Sirius/XM - 31 is the Tom Petty channel.

 

Haven't seen a quote from Stevie Nicks yet. Until then ...

Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks: Remembering their decades-long friendship

 

LA Times:

Tom Petty, Heartbreakers frontman and beloved rock figure, dies at 66

Less than 48 hours after capping the 40th anniversary tour with the finale at the Bowl, Petty spoke to The Times at his home in Malibu, about the band's long journey together and what most resonated with him four decades down the line.

“The thing about the Heartbreakers is: It’s still holy to me," Petty said. "There’s a holiness there. If that were to go away, I don’t think I would be interested in it, and I don’t think they would be. We’re a real rock ’n’ roll band — always have been. And to us, in the era we came up in, it was a religion in a way. It was more than commerce — it wasn’t about that.

“It was about something much greater: It was about moving people, and changing the world, and I really believed in rock ’n’ roll. I still do. I believed in it in its purest sense, its purest form. And I watched it commit suicide; I watched it really kill itself over money. That was painful, and I saw that coming, a long time before it happened. I wasn’t surprised in the least. I could see what they were doing wrong.

“But I think we still feel we’re on a mission for good. I’m so touched by … this year has been a wonderful year for us," he said, adding with a laugh, "This has been that big slap on the back we never got. And it’s really felt good."

 

What happened to our own Tom Petty on the board? Figured he was a big fan, just wondered what his thoughts were. RIP.