Long After Dark

Tom Petty, who died earlier this week at the age of 66 of cardiac arrest, was probably rock's own greatest fan.  He met Elvis Presley as a boy on the set of the Elvis movie Follow That Dream when his uncle, a crewman on that movie, invited young Tom to watch the filming.  Petty got into Elvis's music and developed an interest in rock and roll.  He was further inspired to become rock and roller when he saw the Beatles on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and soon took inspiration from Bob Dylan's raw voice and songwriting abilities and the Byrds' fusion of Dylan's folk and the Beatles' rock.  Petty - who also dug the Rolling Stones - became one of the prime movers of post-punk rock, leading his own band the Heartbreakers and delivering a sound that spoke to Middle America with its jangling guitars and steady rhythms while adding a New Wave edge that made his music sound as modern as it was a throwback to the sixties music he loved.

Petty's love for that music led him to work with his heroes.  After several collaborations with Dylan, he would join him in the Traveling Wilburys with rock and roll founding father Roy Orbison and former Beatle George Harrison (not to mention Electric Light Orchestra leader Jeff Lynne, whom PBS's Petty obituary did not mention in referring to the Wilburys).  The Traveling Wilburys were both a supergroup and a men's club of comrades who gave each other support on their own records.  (Petty also collaborated with Roger McGuinn on one of the former Byrd's solo albums.)  Petty's own records, from his and the Heartbreakers' 1979 album Damn The Torpedoes and 1982's Long After Dark to  The Last DJ from 2002, as well as solo albums like 1989's Full Moon Fever, produced a string of classic songs - "Refugee," "Don't Do Me Like That," "You Got Lucky," "I Won't Back Down," "You Don't Know How It Feels" – that had a lot of grit and a lot of heart even as songs from other "artists" in popular music increasingly displayed neither.  Petty not only savored his famous associations, he savored rock and roll and was passionately committed to keep it strong and vibrant even as the recording "industry" seemed to work against it - consider the title song from The Last DJ and its biting commentary against Big Radio for neutering rock radio's spirit.  (And it's gotten worse since then.)

The world not only lost a rock fan in Tom Petty as well as a great artist, it lost an advocate for the music.  Petty did not suffer fools in popular music gladly; he famously lamented that twenty-first-century rock and roll was populated by too many bands made up of guys that "you joined a rock and roll band to get away from."  A great loss, indeed,  RIP. :-(