The album that gave Tom Petty “the greatest night” of his life
Tom Petty wasn’t the kind of artist who wanted to become one of the biggest artists in the world.
He would have been happy to have made a living being a great songwriter, but after years of making so many fantastic songs, there comes a point when even the most talented artists in the world end up seeking you out. And while he was already catching the ears of people like Leon Russell when he first got a recording contract, it took him a while before he got to see everyone as equals.
Becoming a member of the Traveling Wilburys isn’t something that happens on a whim, and George Harrison knew for a fact that Petty wasn’t full of shit after spending a lot more time with him behind the scenes. But even if Petty had been in heaven working with a member of The Beatles, he was always going back to the greatest American artists that he heard, like Johnny Cash.
Petty wasn’t going to describe himself as a country artist by any means, but he was never that far away from the genre, either. It wasn’t out of the question for him to throw in the odd Hank Williams tune during a soundcheck, and even when making his best records, a tune like ‘Louisiana Rain’ stands out as one of the greatest country tunes that he had ever penned up until that point.
But working with ‘The Man in Black’ was bound to be a little bit daunting. The Heartbreakers had already supported Bob Dylan for a few years, but putting their music up against a musical legend was going to be hard to achieve. Once Cash saw what the band had to offer on Unchained, though, Petty remembered having the time of his life when he called his other idol, Carl Perkins, to a few of the sessions.
Here were two of the greatest icons in modern American music in the same room, and all of the laughs that they were sharing behind the scenes were enough to last a lifetime, with Petty recalling, “[Carl] dropped in and we had the best night of my life, I think. One of them, anyway. We just never laughed so hard. You know when you laugh to where your gut just hurts? The music was all so good, and so effortless. I was really pleased later when I read the liner notes to Unearthed, where [Cash] mentioned that night, and said it was one of the greatest nights of his life [too].”
Because when looking at those sessions, it was about more than living up to a legend at that point. Petty had grown accustomed to working with Cash at that point, and while he considers the album Unchained to be one of the finest records that he and the Heartbreakers were ever involved with, it was almost as important to see ‘The Man in Black’ as a friend rather than one of the greatest country stars of all time.
And, really, Cash’s wisdom was probably as educational to Petty as the Wilburys were to him. No one had been able to make music that touched people as deeply as he could, and when he eventually did his own version of a song like ‘I Won’t Back Down’, Petty had to admit that he would much rather listen to Cash doing one of his songs than listening to any of his own records.
There might have been a few records that didn’t work out here and there, but the reason why Unchained stands as one of the band’s best is because of how much fun they were having. And given that Cash eventually called Petty a “good man to ride the river with,” the magic that he got from the rest of the band wasn’t lost on him whenever he started strumming away on one of those tunes.
