The day has arrived. Make that...the day before the day has arrived. Though maybe I left mentally a few days ago, I'm actually leaving for vacation tomorrow.
Tom Petty's Highway Companion has no direct relation to the trip TheWife™ and I have so been looking forward to. Well, except for this: it has stood out far above all of the music I've listened to over the past week. A week, I must add, that's been full of late nights scrambling through the CD collection to flush out which recordings must make their way to the iPod. Hours and hours and hours of music and this little, almost unassuming record takes the day.
There was a recent interview with Petty where he mentioned that he almost felt like Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers were somewhat underappreciated in the world of rock. He didn't mean this in an "Oh, Poor Me!" way. In fact, the idea was that he'd become consistent enough to be overlooked. I have to agree. I mean, I saw him on an awards show not too long ago and was sort of taken aback at the quite lengthy list of hits he'd produced with his band, solo, and in other collaborations. Sure enough, I had sort of taken him for granted. The hits moved back in time all the way back to my first Petty album: Damn The Torpedoes (which has a funny/pathetic story attached to it in my mind. Ah, my young and irresponsible phase). Somehow, I had taken Petty for granted.
Honestly, I wasn't particularly looking forward to Highway Companion. The Jeff Lynne alarm bells were going off. Turns out that there was no need for concern. Lynne gets out of the way and allows Petty to make one fantastic record. Sparse in instrumentation (just Petty, Mike Campbell, and Lynne), direct in theme (except for "Ankle Deep"), and intense in focus. It's the kind of record that isn't made often today (folks like The White Stripes excepted). With so much "air" in the music, the rolling arpeggios of Petty's Rickenbacker and Campbell's sharp leads are that much more effective.
Article comments
1 - DJRadiohead
A marvelous record it is (my review is still in draft mode) and some wonderful observations about it.
Enjoy that vacation.
2 - Tom
It's funny that you mention "Saving Grace" sounding like another song. You say Isaacs' "Baby Did a Bad Thing," my wife says George Thorogood's "One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer," and I swear it's an homage to Canned Heat's "On The Road Again." I just went and gave all four a listen and sure enough, all of them (roughly) fit!
3 - El Bicho
chris isaac?
who dat? ;-)
4 - DJRadiohead
I had been saying "On the Road Again" myself, Tom. It's a great opener.
5 - Tom Johnson
As they say, great minds think alike . . .
Say, anyone think maybe TP heard all four of these songs in close succession and suddenly realized he himself undermined the case against the Chili Peppers' "Dani California" lifting from "Mary Jane's Last Dance" (which, from what I remember, borrows pretty heavily from a Jayhawks song, too)?
6 - Timmy
There are two, maybe three keepers on the album. The rest are makeovers of old Lynne-produced Petty tunes. And not to turn this into a Lynne praise or criticism thread, but if I'm paying Jeff Lynne to produce my record, I want it to sound like Jeff Lynne produced my album. Even most of Lynne's signature harmonizing is absent here. Petty peaked when Rick Rubin gave him "Wildflowers" (top 5 rock album of all time). It's been downhill ever since.
7 - Vern Halen
I think the best stuff on this album is the stuff that sounds like it was produced by...Rick Rubin. Jeff Lynne? No thanks, usually.
Yeah, all those old blues licks sound the same nowadays. it's TP's drumming of all things that saves the day on this recording - 60's garage thrash at its finest.
I think this album will be remembered as one the better TP efforts from his later years.