Sunday 17th July

I first heard Tom Petty on a double cassette I bought in 1978.  It was titled FM and highlighted lots of new bands and artists featuring on the new (in America) FM waveband (I think it might have been a soundtrack from a film, but I never heard of that either). FM?  I had no idea what FM radio meant; we still had Medium, Short and Long Wave over here.  But I bought the cassette anyway, and it was brilliant.  Great singers like Bob Seger and Linda Ronstadt and Boz Scaggs, and bands like Steely Dan and Steve Miller Band.  Sadly the cassette doesn’t play anymore and it isn’t available on any format nowadays.  Anyway I played the thing to death and grew to love most of the Artists.  Including Tom Petty.  But the only song on that cassette by Tom was “Breakdown”.  Then I noticed that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were playing at Hammersmith Odeon and I went to see them.

And they were brilliant, I was blown away by them; every song was original and different, great melodies and a really rocking band, and I had only heard the one song before I saw them.  But best of all was Tom’s voice, a Southern drawl with almost a sneer in his voice (a bit like Dylan but better in some ways), it was just perfect for these classic American Rock and Roll songs.  So, after the concert I went out and bought the only two albums that he had made so far and heard again the songs like American Girl and Luna and Magnolia.  I bought most of The Heartbreaker records over the years and a couple when Tom went solo.  He wrote almost all the songs himself, or collaborated with Mike Campbell (guitarist) and Benmont Tench (keyboards).  He has sold over 80 million records, was a Travelling Wilbury, has reformed The Heartbreakers and is still recording new material, but I still like the early stuff, especially American Girl and Breakdown.