The album Tom Petty called “the best time of (his) life”
By the end of the 1980s, Tom Petty had lived enough for any musician’s lifetime. Although he may have started the decade as one of the biggest names in music, everything started to crumble halfway through, having to deal with the death of his mother, an unknown assailant burning his house down, and breaking his hand while making the album Southern Accents. Life may not have been easy then, but Petty’s luck was about to turn around.
After the tour for Southern Accents, Petty started to hang out with George Harrison, who was just starting to get back into music with the release of Cloud Nine. Produced by ELO frontman Jeff Lynne, the album welcomed ‘The Quiet Beatle’ back into the music world with hit singles like ‘This Is Love’ and ‘Got My Mind Set On You’.
Although Petty was happy to watch from the sidelines, he was called into the studio when Harrison needed help putting together a B-side for one of his upcoming singles. Working out of Bob Dylan’s home studio, the impromptu supergroup eventually got Roy Orbison to stop by the studio to sing a verse of the song, forming what would be known as The Traveling Wilburys.
When Harrison’s label thought the track was too good to be released as a B-side, the group elected to make a handful of tunes to put together an album. Taking advice from a handful of his favourite writers, the sessions would inform Petty when putting together his next album, the solo release Full Moon Fever.
Featuring production by Lynne and recorded at guitarist Mike Campbell’s home studio, Petty would talk about writing one song a day with Lynne, wanting to get everything down on tape before Lynne returned to England. While the label initially thought the record was inconsistent with Petty’s image, Full Moon Fever would give him the best hits of his career, with ‘Free Fallin’ and ‘I Won’t Back Down’ becoming rock radio staples.
Looking back on the time the group spent together, Petty would consider the album one of the highlights of his personal life, telling Paul Zollo, “That period of our life, speaking for me and Jeff, that was the best time of my life. The Wilburys, Full Moon Fever…The music was coming with very little effort. Deep, deep friendships, and a lot of laughs.”
While it may have been one of the most creatively fulfilling records Petty would ever make, it didn’t sit well with the other members of The Heartbreakers. Feeling that they had been put on the sidelines, keyboardist Benmont Tench recalled feeling pissed off when he heard the album for the first time, recalling in Runnin’ Down a Dream, “I would get a call from them to come down and say, ‘can you come in and go *ding-ding-ding-ding*’, and the feel of the record was so weird that I couldn’t even do that well.”
Even though the Heartbreakers would get used to Lynne’s production style on their next album, Into the Great Wide Open, Full Moon Fever would always be Petty’s brainchild. Rough times may have lied ahead, but songs like ‘Runnin’ Down a Dream’ are the closest fans will get to seeing the authentic version of Petty.
