Tom Petty at the Palladium, New York, Nov. 11, 1979.
(Richard E. Aaron/Redferns/Getty Images)
Tom Petty at the Palladium, New York, Nov. 11, 1979.
(Richard E. Aaron/Redferns/Getty Images)
MUSICREDEF PICKS
Special Edition: He Was an American Boy, Raised on Promises...
Matty Karas, curator October 3, 2017
QUOTABLES!
quote of the day
There will always be one song: 'American Girl.' And not only that, there will always be one line in that one song: 'Raised on promises' ... In that line resides the promise of America, and rock and roll, and the intercontinental railway, the interstate highway system, and Microsoft and Apple and Google and even Facebook.
music
rant n' rave
rantnrave://

New waver, Heartbreaker, Wilbury, free fallin' solo star, classic-rock elder statesman. So much more. TOM PETTY transcended genre and generation to become one of the great American rock and rollers. He was 66. He had time left. Was it the good Lord's attempt to give him back some of that time or some cosmic joke on all of us that the man who once sang "You can stand me up at the gates of hell but I won't back down" essentially had to die twice Monday? The LAPD mistakenly announced his death in the afternoon, shortly after news of his sudden hospitalization broke, causing round one of worldwide mourning. Then the police admitted the error, obituaries were unpublished and confusion reigned until long after dark, when Petty's death was announced by his family, this time for real. In between, a lot of people, old, young, rock, pop, white, black, English, Japanese, Swedish, listened to a lot of ringing open chords and stories of men and women in love, out of love, always searching for something more, something indefinably, indescribably American. A little Southern, a little Western, a little Great Wide Open. "AMERICAN GIRL." "LISTEN TO HER HEART." "REFUGEE." "DON'T COME AROUND HERE NO MORE." "RUNNIN' DOWN A DREAM." "WILDFLOWERS." Your 10 favorite songs that I'm leaving out. How many classic rockers crossed as many borders of fandom as he did? How many are as universal? I love this, from VULTURE's JEN CHANEY: "[B]ecause his career was so long, it felt like the sound of him was always around, and because his songs were written with such specificity, they felt extraordinarily personal. Those two things make going through his discography... like flipping through an old photo album." There were letdowns and difficulties along the way. But he never stopped swingin'. Below are interviews and essays covering Petty and the HEARTBREAKERS, from 1976, when he was a local GAINESVILLE, FLA., rock and roll throwback calling himself Tommy Petty, through September 2017, when the Heartbreakers were still runnin' down that dream at the HOLLYWOOD BOWL. That was last week, by the way. RIP to a life cut way too short. (We'll continue collecting stories and remembrances over the coming days in our MusicSET "Remembering Tom Petty: He Was an American Boy.")

Matty Karas, curator

October 3, 2017