Thursday 5th October

It’s not often you are really shocked by yet another death reported on the news.  Bowie was a big shock, but then I knew he had been ill.  Leonard Cohen was poorly too.  George Michael was a shock – and for the same reason as Tom Petty.  They were both so young.  And yet I was never such a great fan of George Michael.  Tom Petty was different – from the first time I heard him I was hooked.

It happened like this.  I bought a double Cassette, in 1976 I think.  It must have been one of the first I bought as they hadn’t been out that long.  I had recently bought a double deck cassette player which could copy tapes too, and I was busy most evenings copying lots of my Vinyl onto Cassette and then selling the vinyl in order to buy even more records.  Don’t worry – it’s a disease – there is no cure, but the patient is looking remarkably well despite this terminal illness.

For some reason I bought a compilation, or what was then called a sampler.  It was called FM.  It was based on a film I think and contained a lot of new music from America which hadn’t quite crossed the Atlantic yet.  Linda Ronstadt was on it, and Boston and Steely Dan, and of course a complete unknown to me – Tom Petty.  The song was American Girl.  It sounded quite like the Byrds, a long time favourite of mine who had dissolved a few years earlier.  In fact Tom loved the Byrds too, and recorded a few songs later with Roger McGuinn.  But the vocals were what hooked me.  Tom has one of those distinctive Rock voices.  A bit ascerbic like Dylan, but with an underlying warmth too.

Anyway, I was constantly rewinding this tape to hear Tom sing again, and I read in City Limits that Tom was playing at Hammersmith Odeon in a few days time.  I immediately bought a ticket.  Now I had never before, and never since done that – bought a ticket to see someone on the strength of one song.

Well, he was brilliant.  So polished, even though the band had only one record out.  Every song sounded as if I knew it already, and by the chorus I was singing along.

I have since then bought almost every Tom Petty record, both with the Heartbreakers and solo.  All are excellent, and his song-writing has got better if anything.  He has toured with Dylan and joined him in The Travelling Wilbury’s in the late Eighties.  What a talent.