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Tom Petty in bad shape


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Every once in a while, I realize I missed out on an artist in their heyday and try to listen to a bunch of their stuff.  I did that about 10 years ago with Tom Petty.  I ended up buying 2 or 3 of his CD's and over the next few years I ended up with literally everything he ever did including all the box sets and DVD's.  I also read the two biographies.  He never put out  a dud album and his band has always played for the song.  He had some demons and the occasional bad personal relationship, but he seemed to have integrity too.

Great musical legacy - terrible loss.

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23 hours ago, Caddie said:

yup. there was a lot!  Like Air Supply,  the group that made elevator music come out of its cult-like status and into our frozen foods aisle.

rarensch

caddie

Don't forget this one, with the 'doo doo doo doo doo-doo-doo doo doo' lyrics and Disco beat:  ;)

Petty never did Disco, did he?

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2 hours ago, Tortious said:

That is going to be the mother of all guitar auctions if they sell off his stuff.

ok, I'll start the bidding.  $tree fiddy wun.  Fo duh ho bunch, everything, even the picks & capos.  How bout the stage rug.  No shipping.  I'll come over to pick it all up.  is credit card ok?  Howz bout a check.  Pay to the order of.....Charlie T Wilbury Jr

rarensch

caddie

 

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I first became aware of Tom Petty as a young teen in the 70's via an ad for either his first or second album in the pages of Crawdaddy Magazine...maybe with this picture:

220px-Tom_Petty_and_the_Heartbreakers_19

I remember thinking he looked like some kind of space alien. I didn't know what punk rock was at the time, but I'd heard the term and figured this had to be it. Once his songs hit the radio, I remember liking everything I heard, but I didn't get any of his albums until much, much later. I remember loving this bit on SNL:

I think the first Petty album I got was Echo. Not many rockers who started out in the 70's were still putting out great albums in the late 90's. It was so great I realized I had to go back. Only then did I realize how consistently great he was. 

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On ‎10‎/‎3‎/‎2017 at 12:48 AM, Caddie said:

yup. there was a lot!  Like Air Supply,  the group that made elevator music come out of its cult-like status and into our frozen foods aisle.

rarensch

caddie

 
C'mon, shit exists in all eras. That said, a lot of my fave stuff is late 70s;
 
1976 -
Frampton Comes Alive!
Dreamboat Annie
Sad Wings of Destiny
Jailbreak, Johnny the Fox
Presence, The Song Remains The Same
2112
Ramones
High Voltage, Dirty Deeds
Rocks
Rising
Wired
Technical Ecstasy
Songs in the Key of Life
All the World's a Stage
Virgin Killer
Hardcore Jollies
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Rock and Roll Over
Tejas
A Day at the Races
Robin Trower Live      -
 
1977 -
Animals
Cheap Trick
Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group Live
Sin After Sin
Lights Out
Love Gun
Motörhead
Enigmatic Ocean
A Farewell to Kings
Bad Reputation
Aja
In Color
Alive II
Street Survivors
News of the World
Rocket to Russia
Draw the Line
Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols
Elegant Gypsy
 
1978 -
Infinity
Stained Class
Van Halen
Casino
Long Live Rock 'n' Roll
You're Gonna Get It!
Powerage
Live and Dangerous
The Cars
Some Girls
Obsession
Tokyo Tapes
Never Say Die!
Killing Machine
If You Want Blood You've Got It
Hemispheres
Live! Bootleg
Outlandos d'Amour
 
1979 -
Look Sharp!
Lovedrive
Strangers in the Night
Sheik Yerbouti
Van Halen II
Overkill
Evolution
Black Rose: A Rock Legend
Candy-O
Highway to Hell
In Through the Out Door
Unleashed in the East
Street Machine
Reggatta de Blanc
Damn the Torpedoes
Harder ... Faster
Night in the Ruts
Live Rust
The Wall
Degüello
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 Tom Petty is an Icon. An unbelievable talent and mind, and a crusader for Artist's rights.

My Father took a few days to be taken off life support when he had an accident and a traumatic brain injury last year. He was an Icon in his own right, and it was the worst time of my life- to know that he was slipping away and that there was a fair amount of jumping the gun to compound it. Our family held on for a slow eternity. But there's an upside - He was so healthy at 74 that he was able to save several lives with his organ donations. So he's still walking around somewhere. That's a big deal to me.

My heart goes out to the Petty family and children, and I hope that he is with a lot of old friends.

:)

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Pretty cool article/interview on Reverb. https://reverb.com/news/tom-petty-describes-the-allure-of-the-12-string-in-previously-unpublished-interview

I liked this section.

Quote

 

It makes this clear sound with plenty of bass on it. If you roll that little knob around on the back so that it’s full enough, it’s a beautiful sound.

We pause once more for a further dive into Rickenbacker eccentricity. Tom’s “little knob” reference is to Rick’s infamous fifth knob. It first appeared in 1961 on the company’s new 460 guitar and was quickly added to other models in the line. On a two-pickup guitar with one or other of the pickups selected, it was intended to blend in tone from the unselected pickup. With both pickups selected, it set the balance between them, or on a guitar fitted with Rickenbacker’s stereo Rick-o-Sound circuitry, the balance between left and right. Perhaps understandably, some players found all this rather baffling.

Did you find that fifth knob useful?

George Harrison used to tell me that it didn’t do anything [laughs]. I said, "Yes, it does!" He’d say, "No, I couldn’t ever get mine to do anything." And I said, "Well, yours is broken, then, because it does!" It adds bottom in or out, simple as that. If you’re in the middle position, with both pickups on, you can bring in bottom or roll it off. Do it carefully enough, and you can get a really nice sound.

Did you talk to George much about 12-strings?

I used to play his Beatles one when I was at his house, and that was a beautiful-sounding guitar.

Did you play the "Hard Day’s Night" chord on it?

Course! I had to play all those songs.

George loved that guitar, didn’t he?

He did. He even used it when we were doing The Traveling Wilburys.

Did you get him to show you some of the Beatles things, or are you pretty adept at them?

No. From time to time, if he was in the right mood, I’d say, "Hey, teach me how to play this." The Beatles things are deceptively simple, you know? They’re very simple little things, but there’s the right thing, you know.

Did he show you the opening "Hard Day’s Night" chord? Everyone seems to have their own version of that.

I remember [laughs] we were having a discussion about that chord, and this other guitar player, Gary Moore, was over. He played the chord, and George played it, and he said, "No, that’s not right, it’s like this." And George is like, "No, it’s like this." And Gary asked if he was sure. And George goes, "Yes, I’m sure."

 

Must have been quite an interesting crew to be around.

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On 10/5/2017 at 8:34 AM, MCChris said:

No, but he linked up with Jeff Lynne, which is even worse.

Which is the reason I couldn’t stomach Full Moon Fever at the time. I hated Jeff Lynne’s production....it just sounded sooooo different, and not in a good way, compared to the gritty rockin’ albums that preceded it.

I can appreciate the songs now and Campbell's Solo on the outro of RDAD is KILLIN’!

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1 hour ago, Jakeboy said:

Which is the reason I couldn’t stomach Full Moon Fever at the time. I hated Jeff Lynne’s production....it just sounded sooooo different, and not in a good way, compared to the gritty rockin’ albums that preceded it.

I can appreciate the songs now and Campbell's Solo on the outro of RDAD is KILLIN’!

This^!!!!

I can't think of a single album that Jeff Lynne touched that didn't have an overly compressed sound.  Gawdawful.    That sound trumped whatever merits what could be mined from Lynne's pop sensibilities.  

 

 

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5 hours ago, BubbaVO said:

This^!!!!

I can't think of a single album that Jeff Lynne touched that didn't have an overly compressed sound.  Gawdawful.    That sound trumped whatever merits what could be mined from Lynne's pop sensibilities.  

 

 

It is too easy to add too much compression......with just a couple years experience mixing and engineering music, there is a fine line ‘tween just right and too much. 

George Martin used a lot  of compression on Beatles LPs, and he had a sound.....He even felt he used too much ... I just hated the way Lynne made the Heartbreakers sound.....he took the grit away. Smoothed it right up.

Too smooth, IMHO. But I can really appreciate the songwriting now on FMF, at least. 

At the time, it was too radical of a departure for me to handle, but I am weird like that.....sometime it takes a few decades before the light bulb pops on! Lol

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In the 70’s I couldn’t stand ELO. Now I think it is some of the best pop music of the decade. Jeff Lynne has a signature sound. I happen to like it. His production style may not sound pristine on an audiophile sound system, but it can make a cheap car or portable system sound pretty damn good.

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 I made it a point in  February to start a pilgrimage to get from Minnesota to the Wrigley Field show in Chicago. Turned out to be one of the coolest road trips ever. It  back then was one of the highlights of the year as it was the first time I've ever seen TP live.    Also, the concert was on my daughter's birthday so I got the Wrigley Field shirt with the date on it that was made for that one show only. 

 

 

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17 hours ago, Jakeboy said:

It is too easy to add too much compression......with just a couple years experience mixing and engineering music, there is a fine line ‘tween just right and too much. 

George Martin used a lot  of compression on Beatles LPs, and he had a sound.....He even felt he used too much ... I just hated the way Lynne made the Heartbreakers sound.....he took the grit away. Smoothed it right up.

Too smooth, IMHO. But I can really appreciate the songwriting now on FMF, at least. 

At the time, it was too radical of a departure for me to handle, but I am weird like that.....sometime it takes a few decades before the light bulb pops on! Lol

To me an artist like Petty was fully aware of Jeff Lynne's production style.  Clearly, he wanted to try that out and explore something new.  In that regard, I'm OK to go on the ride with him.   If Tom Petty was a new artist, it would give a different impression of who he was.  This way, I saw it as artist experimentation.

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