Saturday, October 7, 2017

Tom Petty, 1950-2017, R.I.P.


Today's post will probably be fairly light, text-wise. (I say that now, as I begin writing it, but I have been known to get carried away, right?)

I'm not sure when I first became aware of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, which was then comprised of Petty, Mike Campbell, Ron Blair, Stan Lynch (no relation to Yours Truly), and Benmont Tench. It was fairly early, perhaps as early as the release of their very first LP. I can tell you that I sang "Breakdown" from that debut album in my own late 1970s, early 1980s band, Viper, along with "Refugee" from their third LP, "Damn the Torpedoes."

Usually, whenever I sang a cover tune, I tried to sing it as closely as possible to the original singer's performance. (Whenever I couldn't copy someone's style -- for example, I couldn't imitate Mick Jagger's voice when I sang a Rolling Stones tune -- I'd just sing it like "me.") This was the case when I sang "Breakdown" and "Refugee." I even managed Petty's odd, pseudo Desi Arnaz sound when singing the first verse of the former! After seeing my band play both Tom Petty songs, people from the audience would walk up to me and tell me I sounded exactly like Petty during those two numbers... and then went on to request that I not do that.

Okay, so maybe he didn't have the best voice in the business, but he had a style all his own, and I loved it. And I sure wasn't alone in that department.

Interesting. This is Tom Petty's yearbook photo, from the 1968 Gainesville,
Florida, Hurricane. Wikipedia says Petty dropped out of high school at the
age of seventeen. Hm. I suppose it was a last-minute thing...

Tom with a very young Stevie Nicks!

An early shot of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

Petty as a member of The Traveling Wilburys, flanked by Bob Dylan, Jeff Lynne, Roy
Orbison, and George Harrison. With all that vocal talent surrounding him, I always found it
odd that Tom ended up sounding more like Dylan than anyone else on their first LP.

Later in life. Not that my opinion matters, but I never warmed up to his bearded look.

And now, two Tom Petty songs, one that I performed, and one that I wish I'd performed!



Thanks for your time.

16 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I have always enjoyed Petty's music. I never did see him perform. I guess my favorite songs have always been Free Fallin" and Runnin' Down a Dream. The classic rock station around here plays his stuff. I don't remember ever seeing him with a beard. strange.

      rip Tom Petty

      Another musician crosses to the other side, so sad and unexpected.

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    2. Yes, it certainly was. You never know who's going to die.

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  2. Funny how they requested you not do it. He was sure unique indeed and did things his way. Way to be.

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  3. It was so sad to hear Tom Petty died...that was a shocker. So many have died I. Their late 60s and early 70s which is sad because I consider this too young. I have to say I loved the Travelling Wilburys but totally forgot Bob Dylan was in it. I actually like hi. With his beard because ..sorry...he was one ugly dude and the beard made him look better. I know...shallow

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  4. I liked Tom Petty's sound.

    Love,
    Janie

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  5. Very saddening. Liked many of his songs, I won't back down among them.

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    Replies
    1. He had a lot of songs to choose from when it came to naming favorites, didn't he?

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  6. I actually think it's pretty cool that you were able to sound like him. When I was in the band where my husband and I met, I was often told I sounded like Pat Benatar, which I thought was a huge compliment, though I wouldn't have minded sounding like Chrissie Hynde either.

    Tom Petty really was a talented musician, and I liked his own stuff as much as I liked the Traveling Wilburys. Such distinct styles, since the Wilburys' stuff sounded so heavily of Jeff Lynne's writing influence. Nice writeup of a great artist!

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    Replies
    1. Pat Benatar? She hit the big time at the same time as I was performing as a lead singer. I was in one band -- one that never made it out of the cellar -- where the lead guitarist, Bill, wanted his girlfriend to sing with us. She was okay, as I recall, but they broke up and she left. Bill's next girlfriend and I were sitting together while the band rehearsed one of the few songs I didn't sing, and as she and I sang along off-mike, I noticed that she had an extremely good voice! I talked the guys into letting her sing, and she and I did a couple of duets. She used to sing some Pat Benatar songs (I'll bet you wondered why I was telling all this!) and as good as she was, I found it easier to hit the really high notes than she did!

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    2. That's great! "Heartbreaker" was my favorite of hers to sing because it had just enough hard edge to it. When I auditioned for the band (where I met my husband, Tim, who was their sound tech), he was the only one who didn't vote for me. As he told me much later in our relationship, he liked my voice but couldn't understand why they'd want someone who sang in a lower range than most of the guys in the band. When I was younger, I always wanted to be Karen Carpenter (yes, dating myself horribly) and tried so hard to sound like her because it was so refreshing to have a popular female singer who wasn't a soprano.

      Fun fact (your "Bill's girlfriend" story reminded me): when Tim and I first started our relationship a couple months after I joined the band, the drummer took us both aside and had "the talk" with us about how couples break up and cause the band to break up, etc., and we still laugh about that because we're still here, thirty years later, and that particular band broke up less than two years later, before we even got married. Another fun fact: hubby's next band had Pat Monahan as the lead singer before he was famous. He was just a kid (19 or 20, dating the girl who is now known as his first/ex wife) who wasn't even old enough to legally get in the bars they played in. Friends get a kick out of the fact that he's in some of our wedding video/pictures.

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    3. He was obviously wrong in your case, but your drummer made a good point that relationships among band members often disrupt the band itself.

      I love Karen Carpenter's voice, and was very sad when she died.

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