After Tom Petty’s death, I did a countdown of my favorite Petty albums. 2006’s Highway Companion came in at #4.
Revisiting that list now, I was surprised at how high I placed this album. It certainly had no chance of cracking the top three (Damn the Torpedoes, Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers) but four is still a pretty lofty position given Petty’s legendary status.
When Tom Petty died three years ago at just 66, he seemed to have a lot more in the tank. In the ’10s, he had already released two strong albums with the Heartbreakers (Mojo and Hypnotic Eye) and one with his old band, Mudcrutch.
In a career that spanned 40 years, Petty released some incredible albums, and the greatest of them all was arguably 1994’s Wildflowers. That sprawling set skipped between genres, from country grunge to acoustic folk, and found Petty at his most emotionally raw and creatively open.
It’s been almost three years since the sad passing of rock legend Tom Petty. And it’s been 26 years since the release of his solo album Wildflowers, perhaps the best work of the man’s storied career.
Petty’s family plans to release a retrospective collection, perhaps as soon as this year, celebrating that great album. The release will include demos and early recordings pulled from the Wildflowers sessions.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ sophomore album, You’re Gonna Get It!, was released in 1978, between the band’s 1976 debut album and 1979’s classic Damn the Torpedoes.
As such, it suffers a bit from middle child syndrome, and was received rather tepidly by critics. It produced two singles, ‘Listen to Her Heart‘ and ‘I Need to Know.’
My #8 album of 1991 belongs to the late, great Tom Petty, recording as he so often did, with The Heartbreakers.
Into the Great Wide Open was the follow-up to 1989’s Full Moon Fever, and can’t help but pale in comparison to that all-time classic. But this is still a very good collection in the same smart Byrds-ian pop-rock vein as its predecessor.
Meet Me In Montauk 