Rod's Ramblings
A podcast reminiscing about cultural events and how they affected this sixty something. Join me as we travel on a nostalgic journey through the cultural events that have shaped our lives. From classical composers, iconic music moments, rock stars and unforgettable TV shows. Let’s reminisce about how these events have influenced us all. Whether you’re a fellow baby boomer or just love a good story, Rod’s Ramblings offers a heartfelt, informative and entertaining look at the stories behind these great events. Cheers, Rod.
Rod's Ramblings
The Rewind Series - Tom Petty's Journey from Gainesville to Global Stardom
Exciting News! 🎧 I've uncovered the original audio files from the very first series of "Rod’s Ramblings" which was broadcast in 2022 and am thrilled to share them with you. Thus, I proudly present "The Rewind Series." Tom Petty's musical journey began in the bustling heart of Florida, a state known for its vibrant culture and powerful storms. As I reminisce about my visits to iconic landmarks like Walt Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center, I invite you to explore Gainesville, where Petty found solace in music amidst a turbulent household. Discover how early encounters with legends like Elvis Presley and bands such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones shaped his path, leading to the formation of his early band, Mudcrutch, and eventually the Heartbreakers. Through Petty's reflections, we see music as both refuge and passion, guiding him through life's storms.
Petty's creativity didn't stop there. His collaboration with Jeff Lynne led to hits like "Free Fallin'," and his time with the Traveling Wilburys, alongside legends George Harrison and Roy Orbison, speaks to his musical camaraderie. Join me and his daughter, Adria Petty, as we remember not just the musician, but the father and friend who left an indelible mark on our hearts. From MTV music videos to the Heartbreakers' 40th-anniversary tour, Petty's influence resonates, leaving behind a lasting legacy. Celebrate the life of a man whose music continues to inspire and move us all.
Hello there and welcome to Rod's Rumblings, a podcast reminiscing about cultural events and how they affected this 60-something. In this episode, we'll be crossing the pond to the USA and visiting one of my favourite places, florida. It was granted statehood on 3 March 1845 and is the third most densely populated state in the USA. Whenever I think of the Orange State, I think of amazing storms such as Hurricane Katrina, which caused over 1,800 fatalities and $125 billion worth of damage in August 2005, especially in the city of New Orleans and its surrounding areas. The state is the home of Walt Disney World, which the family and I have been lucky enough to visit on a couple of occasions, and the Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, which has been the scene of many Apollo mission launches.
Speaker 1:Florida has been the home of many great artists from the world of music, such as Jim Morrison of the Doors, who was born in Melbourne in 1943, ray Charles, who was born in Georgia but moved to Greenville, florida, when he was a baby, the Ormond Brothers, favourite artists of mine, who came from Jacksonville, and, in more recent times, ariana Grande, who was born in Boca Rata. It's an area of Florida that we're going to home in on. For the subject of today's podcast. It's the home of the largest and oldest university in Florida and has the dubious honour of having a strain of marijuana named after it. The strain is Gainesville Green, and the town of Gainesville is the birthplace of Tom Petty, leader of the Heartbreakers and member of the supergroup the Travelling Wilburys.
Speaker 1:Thomas Earl Petty was born on October 20, 1950, the oldest of two sons to Kitty and Earl Petty, a local tax office worker and travelling salesman. His brother, bruce, was seven years younger. Tom had a poor relationship with his father, who he described as a wild gambling drinker guy. Petty's father would regularly abuse Tom, his siblings and his mother. Tom became interested in music to escape from the mental and physical abuse that he was suffering. However, his father seemed to beat him more as a result of his love of the arts. In the following clip, petty talks about how music became his sanctuary.
Speaker 2:By looking back at it. At the time I don't think I knew anything other than I really liked this. It was as primal as that. You know I just Long before I even thought of playing anything or trying to perform music. I really loved to listen to it and I kind of escaped into that world of just listening very intently to these records.
Speaker 2:Looking back, I think it was probably a safe place mentally for a really abused child. You know that that was probably what was going on. But I kind of always thought I mean I can kind of trace back to the age of nine or ten, being really interested in the radio and the rock and rollers and thinking that was a pretty cool thing. But I didn't even dream that I would do that for a long time. So yeah, I think you know I have to go ahead and look at it in perspective. Looking back, I think that probably was part of it. You know that was something that was mine and it belonged to me and no one else really had anything to do with it. You know you didn't find other 10-year-olds that were really into records. They just weren't, you know.
Speaker 1:Petty's interest in rock and roll began when he was 10 years old and he was lucky enough to meet elvis presley. His uncle was working on the set of presley's film follow that dream and made arrangements for tom to visit the set and watch the filming. After filming had been completed, presley invited the young lad over and had a chat. Petty instantly became a fan and soon after traded in his sl. Lad over and had a chat. Petty instantly became a fan and soon after traded in his slingshot and bought a number of his hero's 45s. He would later describe meeting Elvis as being not quite like meeting Jesus, but close. His interest in music grew as he watched bands like the Beatles and the Stones on the Ed Sullivan Show. In the following clip, petty talks about his musical heroes.
Speaker 2:My picture of Elvis was the American dream. I mean, this was a kid from the South who had broken all the rules, you know, had become his own man and sort of looked like he did, you know, whatever he wanted, whether adults liked it or not. That was kind of the picture I had. But that didn't look like something you could be. To be Elvis no one's ever pulled that off. You'd have to be Elvis, you'd have to look like that. For one thing, orchestras would have to come out of the shrubbery and appear on the beach, you know, like that just doesn't happen. But the Beatles, you know that looked like something that could be done to me. Like these people look like they're self-contained, they're making music that they wrote themselves and the music's all there on the stage. They're playing it.
Speaker 2:And they look like they're really good friends and they're having a lot of fun and I'll bet they're not worried about Brad either. And of course they were so absolutely genius. You know like they were so good even in 64 that it seemed like really hard to ever reach that kind of musicianship. But then you saw the Stones come on there not much long after that and you went that I can do. I can do that. They were grittier, it was raw, they were playing blues in this really energetic, raw way. But it wasn't complicated. There wasn't a lot of beautiful harmony involved. This was our view of it was sort of my punk music. It was like that can be done.
Speaker 1:As Petty's love of music grew, he formed a band called the Sundowners, which went on to become the Epic and finally, mudcrutch. Mudcrutch were very popular locally and in 1975 released a single called Depot Street. Unfortunately, it failed to chart and the band folded. A few months later, petty formed the band that he is most famous for fronting the Heartbreakers. Members of Mudcrutch that joined Petty were Mike Campbell on guitar, ben Montench on keyboards, stan Lynch on drums and Ron Blair on bass. Each artist has subsequently achieved success in their own rights. Campbell worked with Don Henley composing and playing on the Boys of Summer, worked with Don Henley composing and playing on the Boys of Summer. He produced and played on Stevie Nicks' solo album and, along with Neil Finn of Crowded House, he joined Fleetwood Mac replacing Lindsey Buckingham on their world tour in 2018-2019. Campbell currently performs in his own band, the Dirty Knobs Outside of the Heartbreakers. Ben Montench has worked with many great artists such as Stevie Nicks, bob Dylan, johnny Cash, roy Orbison, alanis Morissette and the Arrhythmics. Stan Lynch left the band in 1994 and has since worked with the Eagles and the band and now teaches children drums a few times a week at a high school friend's music store in Gainesville. Week at a high school friend's music store in Gainesville. Ron Blair played bass in the Heartbreakers from 1976 to 1981 and again in 2002. When Mudcrutch reformed, blair was replaced by Hoey Epstein, who Petty famously stole from Del Shannon when Blair left the band in 1976.
Speaker 1:The band's debut album Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was released in 1976 on the Shelter Records label. It received little attention in the States, however, and following a tour in the UK and many positive reviews, the album peaked at number 55 in the US charts. Two tracks from the album Breakdown and American Girl, would go on to become two of the band's signature songs. In 1978, they recorded their follow-up album, you're Gonna Get it. Its reception wasn't as popular as their debut album. However, it did reach number 23 in the US charts and number 24 in the UK.
Speaker 1:Despite the success of the two albums, like many bands of the time, due to their contract, tom and the Boys weren't seeing any of the money. This coincided with Shelter Records being sold to the industry giant MCA, and Petty took this opportunity to end the band's contract. He did this by stating that, as the amount of money that the band were being paid for each sale would never equal the record company's advance. Therefore, he declared the band bankrupt. In addition to the file for bankruptcy, he withheld the release of their next album, incurring all of the recording costs himself. Mca Records agreed to the release from the Shelter Records contract and immediately re-signed him in a deal allegedly worth more than three million dollars. The third album, damn the Torpedoes, was subsequently released and went on to be certified double platinum and make Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers superstars.
Speaker 1:Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks were great friends for many years, with each playing on their respective albums. Whilst Nicks was working on her solo album, bella Donner, and Petty and the Boys were recording Hard Promises, nix asked Petty if he would write a song for inclusion on her album. The resultant song was Insider. However, petty was so pleased with it that he wanted to include it on his own album rather than giving it to Nix. As a result, he gave her a track that had already been written, called Stop Dragging my Heart Around. Nix released the song as a single, which peaked at number three in the US charts and, ironically, proved to be Nix's highest solo hit and also the heartbreaker's biggest hit.
Speaker 1:The Confederate flag was used in American Civil War as the battle flag of those states that were pro-slavery and in 2015, south Carolina lowered it from their government headquarters for the last time and had it removed. This caused a wide range of reactions in the rock community, some acts cheering the decision and some continuing to sell their Confederate flag merchandise. Petty had used the flag prominently on stage during his 1985 tour to promote his Southern Accents album. When he spoke to Rolling Stone magazine after the flag was taken down, he described how he regretted his actions. He said the Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the South.
Speaker 1:When I was growing up in Gainesville, I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the South had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant as to what it meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse and I saw it all the time in western movies. I just honestly didn't give it much thought, although I know that I should have. In 1985, I released an album called Southern Accents. It began as a concept record about the South, but the concept slipped away, probably about 70% or so into the album. I just let it go. But the confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour. I wish I'd given it more thought. It was a stupid thing to do. It happened because I had one song on the album called Rebels.
Speaker 1:It's spoken from the point of view of the character, who talks about the traditions that have been handed down from family to family for so long that he almost feels guilty about the war. He still blames the North for the discomfort of his life. So my thought was the best way to illustrate this character was to use the Confederate flag. I used it on stage during that song and I regretted it pretty quickly when we toured the album two years later. I noticed people in the audience wearing confederate flag bandanas and things like that.
Speaker 1:One night someone threw one on stage. I stopped everything and gave a speech about it. I said look, this was to illustrate a character speech about him. I said look, this was to illustrate a character. This is not who we are. Having gone through this, I would prefer it if no one would ever bring a confederate flag to our shows again, because this just isn't who we are.
Speaker 1:It got a mixed reaction. There were some boos and some cheers, but honestly it's a little amazing to me because I never saw one again after that speech in that one town. Fortunately that went away, but it left me feeling stupid that's the word I can use. I felt stupid. If I'd just been a little more observant about things going on around me, it wouldn't have happened. We did a live record called Pack Up the Plantation Live, and there was a picture inside of us playing in front of a flag. I went back and I had it removed from the record. It took a little time but it did get done. I feel bad about it. I've always regretted it. I would never do anything to hurt anyone.
Speaker 1:There have been a lot of cases of plagiarism in the music business. Led Zeppelin were famously sued for supposedly copying Stairway to Heaven from the American band Spirits Taurus. George Harrison's my Sweet Lord bore a strong resemblance to the chiffon's. He's so Fine. And Ed Sheeran is the latest star to defend his work with allegations that his hit Shape of you has infringed the copyright law. There have been three occasions where Tom Petty's work has been plagiarised. They are the riff in Red Hot Chili Peppers' Danny California, which was similar to Mary Jane's Last Dance, the Strokes breakthrough hit Last Night, which was allegedly stolen from Petty's American Girl, and the melody verse in Sam Smith's Stay With Me, which shares more than a few notes with. I Won't Back Down On the subject of Smith's work. Petty said I've never had any hard feelings towards Sam. All of my years of songwriting have shown me that these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out of the studio door, but in this case it got by. Sam's people were very understanding of our predicament. It was a musical accident. No more, no less.
Speaker 1:If you released a single in the 1980s, it had to have an accompanying video. One of Petty's single-stroke videos that I particularly like is Don't Come Around here, no More, which was co-written and produced with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics. The video has an Alice in Wonderland theme, with Stewart appearing as a sitar playing Caterpillar, petty dressed as the Mad Hatter actress, singer Louise Foley as Alice. Alice eats a cake given to her by Stuart and tumbles into a black and white patterned realm similar to the Mad Hatter's tea party. She experiences a number of bizarre events before finally being turned into a cake herself and eaten by the party guests. It ended with Petty swallowing Alice, hall burping and wiping his mouth with a napkin. In the following clip, petty explains how they were a couple of years behind the MTV video scene.
Speaker 2:Of all places. Los Angeles didn't get MTV right away. They didn't have it on the cable company out there.
Speaker 3:That sounds ludicrous.
Speaker 2:Isn't that ridiculous, but it's true.
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it was on for a couple years before, so we'd never seen it and we'd always done, um, what we call promo clips, where you'd lip sync your song on film and it'd be sent out to, usually everywhere you couldn't get to or you didn't want to get.
Speaker 2:You know there'd be like shows you didn't want to go on and you'd seen them in tape and they'd sort of act like you were on the program but really it was just a film of you doing your song. So we got fed up with that and we thought it'd be so great to do on what we didn't sing at all, you know, and so we went out to the desert and we made this one for um. You got lucky and I think it was probably the first kind of narrative video and uh, and we, you know it got sent to mtv and was a huge success and we'd be in airports and it was where we first noticed that we were being recognized by people that weren't young, you know. Like we got in on the video thing and suddenly that was kind of what was going on.
Speaker 1:Petty's solo album Fall Me In Fever came about as a result of a collaboration with Jeff Lynn, George Harrison and Roy Orbison well before they became the Travelling Wilburys. The opening track from the album is Free Falling, which was co-written by Petty and Lynn and is Petty's highest and longest charting single, peaking at number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1990. Petty and the Heartbreakers performed it at the February 2008 Super Bowl halftime show and has been featured in films such as Jelly Maguire. Been featured in films such as Jerry Maguire. Petty and Lynn were writing partners for the whole of the Full Moon Fever album and would forge a friendship that would last many years, but rumour has it that the two met accidentally as Petty pulled up at a set of traffic lights in Los Angeles. In the following clip, Petty answers that rumour.
Speaker 2:In a sense. Yeah, I had met him about two weeks earlier when I was in England playing with Bob Dylan. We were in London for a week and Jeff Lynn and George Harrison would come over to the shows almost every day and hang out, and that's where we met, and so we had, we had a really pretty good time hanging around the shows. And then a few weeks later, the tour was over. I was back in LA and I was driving down to the store listening actually listening to the record they had given me. They'd given me a cassette of the george harrison album they'd just done and I was thinking, you know, I love the sound of this thing. And I look to my left and he's there's jeff lynn and so I pulled him over and told him how much I liked the record. And then he came over to my house and you know why don't we try writing one and we wrote Free Falling.
Speaker 1:In 1988, petty, george Harrison, bob Dylan, roy Orbison and Jeff Lynn formed the Travelling Wilburys. The band's first song, handle With Care, was intended to be a b-side to one of Harrison's singles. However, the group thought that it was so good that it should be retained and form the basis for a whole album. They would go on to produce two albums, volume 1 and Volume 3, which was so named as a result of a series of bootlegged albums which were sold as Travelling Wilburys Volume 2. In the following clip, petty talks about working with the Wilburys.
Speaker 2:Geoff really, really, you know, was into Roy Orbison, so he went to the trouble of finding Roy Orbison and talking him into doing a record. And so the day I met Roy, we wrote that song. You Got it Anything you Want, you know. And so the day I met Roy, we wrote that song you Got it Anything you Want, you know. And I was just kind of in awe of him, you know, and I couldn't believe we were writing a song and everything. And it was soon after that that the idea, I think Jeff and George had always had the idea of the Traveling Wilburys but really didn't know who to have in it. But we were all kind of in that circle socially, if you can believe that. I mean, we were really just hanging out and we really really liked each other's company and it just became a group.
Speaker 2:And then, of course, you know, roy died at the, you know, sort of pinnacle of our success. And ever since there's been this great debate about who would replace Roy. But I don't think anyone ever would. You know, it was more about your friends and who you got along with. You know, roy happened to be a great singer, you know. But we loved him, we loved his sense of humor and we loved having him around. So I you know, but we loved him, we loved his sense of humour and we loved having him around. So I don't know, I don't. That was just such a great time. It was one of those things that could never have been planned or put together. You know, we really did love each other and we loved what we were doing, and I think it shows in that music.
Speaker 1:From those early days in Gainesville when Petty formed the Heartbreakers from the Remnant and Mudcrutch. The band would go on to make 13 albums and a colossal 68 singles. In 2017, they celebrated their history with a 40th anniversary tour, culminating with three nights at the Hollywood Bowl. Petty, campbell and Tench were reunited with bass player Ron Blair, and they were accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston and drummer Steve Ferone.
Speaker 1:Sadly, on 2nd October, a week after the band's final performance, petty was found dead as a result of an accidental overdose of drugs which he had been taking to deal with emphysema, knee issues and a fractured hip. His family issued a statement saying that Petty's coronary heart disease had been a persistent problem throughout the tour. It's understood that Petty suffered a hairline fracture in his left hip and, although he was advised to finish the tour early, he refused, saying that he'd do it in a chair if he had to. Petty's death was a shock to his family, his friends, and tributes flowed in from the world of rock music. To finish this podcast, I've chosen a tribute from his friend and collaborator, stevie Nicks.
Speaker 3:The loss of Tom Petty has just about broken my heart. His daughter, adria Petty, is here today. She came in yesterday to be with me. Adria, where are you? He was not only um a good man to go down the river with. As johnny cass said, he was a great father and he was a great friend. He was one of my best friends.
Speaker 1:My heart will never get over this I hope you've enjoyed my rumble through the history of Tom Petty and look forward to speaking to you again in the next episode of Rod's Ramblings. But until then, cheers and take care.
