Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
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Tom Petty hoists an Ibanez Rocket Roll in the late Seventies
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Musical artists who are huge in the heartlands tend not to do well with the critics. And vice versa. Critical faves rarely get their names and logos plastered on the bumpers and back windows of pickup trucks.
Tom Petty was the rare exception to that rule. When he left this life on October 2, felled by a heart attack at age 66, he left behind a body of work that distilled the raunchy, realist essence of rock itself—the urgent jangle and crackle of cranked-up guitars, the rebellious outsider attitude, the terse, laconic songcraft that encapsulated our dreams, despair, rage and moments of transcendent love. The music he made with his longtime band the Heartbreakers, with the rock superstar aggregate the Traveling Wilburys, on his own and with his reconstituted teenage bar band Mudcrutch, was universal in its appeal.
Everyone felt a kinship with Petty—alt rockers, metalheads, pop divas, rock icons, country artists, countless rank-and-file fans and, yes, rock critics. We all somehow felt like Petty was our guy—the one who spoke for us. That’s what it’s like when rock music is genuine.
“We were lucky,” Petty told me in 2002, referring to himself and the Heartbreakers. “We came up at a time where I always felt like I had some kind of relationship with the audience and the fans. They watched me grow up, and we have all been through different things together. And there was that third dimension of, ‘Well, I’m kinda interested in what’s on this guy’s mind right now. ’Cause I see him as my friend or someone that I know.’ I mean I felt like that about the Beatles and the Who. I was curious, ‘What’s Pete Townshend going to think