The drummer Tom Petty said was “as good as they come”
Tom Petty seemed to have some kind of allure that meant wherever he went, good musicians followed him around. Maybe this was the case, or maybe it was the fact that Petty himself was so good that he only worked with people of a similar calibre. Whatever the reason is, when you look through Tom Petty’s discography and live performances, you find a trail of legends in its wake.
One of Petty’s greatest live performance collaborations was during George Harrison’s indictment into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On stage, he performed a rendition of ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ with Jeff Lynne and Prince. Petty nails the vocals, and the performance famously houses Prince’s world-renowned guitar solo that was entirely improvised.
“You see me nodding at him, to say, ‘go on, go on’,” said Tom Petty, recounting the performance and Prince’s famous guitar solo, “I remember I leaned out at him at one point and gave him a ‘This is going great!’ kind of look. He just burned it up. You could feel the electricity of ‘something really big’s going down here’.”
It was only fitting that the tribute towards Harrison was so special, given that Petty and he worked together on numerous occasions, not least in The Traveling Wilburys. Petty had the pleasure of working with a number of different members of The Beatles, and each time he did, he was reminded why they were so often referred to as one of the greatest bands of all time.
During a tumultuous time with some of his fellow Heartbreakers, Petty enlisted the help of none other than Ringo Starr to assist with the rhythm section on his music. Starr lent his hand to the tracks ‘To Find a Friend’ and ‘Hung Up and Overdue’, and you can tell that it’s him playing. There is a mid-tempo groove to both of these songs, which is inescapable as a gorgeous piece of Ringo Starr musicianship.
The drummer often finds himself at the butt of the joke when compared to other Beatles members. You can see why, as he wasn’t much of a songwriter, those duties were reserved for his counterparts George Harrison, Paul McCartney and John Lennon; however, he was still an important part of the band.
When The Beatles originally took over the States and were skyrocketed to fame, it was because they had an infectious swing to them which the entire world could get behind. This is how Starr played; he had a swing to his percussion style, which made it easy for people to move to and listen to over and over again. Simply put, without Ringo Starr, the Beatles wouldn’t have been the band that they were.
Petty recognised just how good Starr was, and while settling the feud between some of his fellow band members meant they only played together on a few tracks, he was grateful for the collaboration. “Well, it’s a luxury to have musicians of that calibre,” Petty said, “And Ringo can really just play perfect time all day long. Yeah, God, that’s as good as they come, isn’t it? I’ve always been fortunate to have really, really good musicians. I don’t know why, but I’ve been very fortunate in that I really have the best musicians around”.
