When you begin to talk about Tom Petty and how he fits into our cultural landscape, you've got to go back a bit. Because Tom Petty has been around, and because he is so easy to take for granted. Start reeling off the names of the American rock 'n' roll heroes--the real-deal guys, starting with Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley--and it may take you a while to get to the lanky Floridian with the corn-silk hair.
Because people always liked Tom Petty--the expansive jangle and grace of his singles. But they didn't necessarily consider him an important artist. He wasn't Bruce Springsteen singing about the socio-economic consequences inherent in the paradigm shift from industrial to service economies; he's not Bob Dylan muttering mad prayers. He worked a vein of mainstream pop, singing mostly about girls.
But you can make a case for Petty and his Heartbreakers as the pre-eminent American rock 'n' roll band of our or any time. They're the American equivalent of the Rolling Stones--if you don't like T.P. you don't like rock 'n' roll.
To understand and fully appreciate Tom Petty, you must understand that rock 'n' roll--as opposed to the corporatized "rock"--is essentially a Southern thing and always has been.
Whether it's Jersey boy Springsteen affecting the beaten vowels of the sharecropper or Britishers Mick and Keef droppin' their g's or Dylan--the boy from the North Country--trying to sound like Blind Willie McTell, the inflections of rock 'n' roll have always been Southern.
While rock 'n' roll might belong to anyone who wants it bad enough, you have to acknowledge that it started here, below America's belt. It was Elvis and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins and Ike Turner and Sam Phillips and Dewey Phillips and all those wild Burnett boys who started the grass fire that would consume the world.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were always a Southern band, not just a band from the South. When they first surfaced as a national act in 1976, it was easy to see them as a "new wave" act, with their economical singles and emotional urgency. At the time, songs such as the Byrds-like "American Girl" and the Stones-ish "Breakdown" seemed more a reaction to the bloated, faceless corporate competence of bands like Journey and Styx than a continuation and advancement of the mainstream pop tradition. No wonder the Heartbreakers were booked with bands like the Ramones and Blondie. No wonder that high-school punk rockers were working out versions of "I Need to Know" and "Refugee."
Beneath Petty's most obvious influences--both his ringing Rickenbacker 12-string and his nasal upper register are ringers for the Byrds' Roger McGuinn--lurked the bluesy grit and clean, muscular lines of the Allmans and Lynyrd Skynyrd.
Just listen to Petty and the Heartbreakers cover Charlie Rich's rockabilly classic "Lonely Weekends" or Jimmy Reed's "Big Boss Man." That music fits them as well as their own songs. Petty's Southerness never prevented him from incorporating other styles into his music. He was basically a rock 'n' roll fundamentalist who turned to the Byrds (and through them to their antecedents, Dylan and Nashville) for melodic elegance and to the Stones for power.
And for more than that, Petty and band were amazingly consistent, both in commercial stature and artistic quality. Even now, none of the early songs sound anachronistic. His name may not be the first that comes to mind when starting to talk about the bona fide, first-tier rock 'n' roll pantheon; perhaps it shouldn't be too far down the list.
Petty has outdone most of his influences. His legacy is likely to outlast that of the Byrds, or the Allman Brothers, or Lynyrd Skynyrd. He was always there, grinning, his horsey face amused by fashion, ready to play but never to back down.
Editorial on 10/07/2017