The musician Tom Petty called “one of the best” he ever met
The art of making a good Tom Petty record didn’t come from having the most technical guitar players in the world or anything.
All of the heartland rocker’s best moments were always the subtle intricacies going on between the band members, and even if they didn’t have to make the greatest guitar solo committed to tape, they were still sounding better than 90% of the bands on the radio at the time. But even before Petty had his band fully figured out, it’s not like he had to look very far if he wanted to work with some of the best musicians that he could find.
The session scene had become one of the biggest selling points when Petty went solo after Mudcrutch, but he realised that he needed a real band behind him if he wanted his group to work. But turning in time with someone like Donald ‘Duck’ Dunn was going to be far too tempting for anyone to pass up, especially given Petty’s history with the American South.
Every single member of Booker T and the MGs was gifted beyond compare, and while ‘Green Onions’ is what they’re going to be remembered for until the end of time, the fact that they made some of the greatest soul music ever made is their real claim to fame. Dunn may not have said much from behind the bass, but when looking through the rest of Petty’s debut album with the Heartbreakers, there’s a reason why a song like ‘Hometown Blues’ has a much better groove than anything else on the record.
That’s not to say that Ron Blair is even doing a bad job behind the scenes. If anything, a song like ‘American Girl’ would have never worked were it not for his massive high bassline coming in on the chorus, but when you look at the way that Dunn nailed down a groove, Petty was far more interested in making the kind of music that could make every single space between the notes seem important the way that the MGs did on their records.
And when reminiscing on that album, Petty still felt that Dunn was one of the finest musicians to ever be featured on one of his records, saying, “Duck put the bass part in and kind of made the whole thing come together. And we became friends forever right then. He is one of my great idols. He’s one of the best musicians I’ve ever met. And I loved Booker T and all that stuff. So that’s how that one was done.”
But even if Petty couldn’t resist working with Dunn on his debut, the real highlight of his involvement with The Heartbreakers was on the track ‘A Woman In Love (It’s Not Me)’ from Hard Promises. Blair was already having trouble working with the sleazy side of the business, but when you listen to the space that’s in Dunn’s bass line on the track, he makes every line coming out of Petty’s mouth sound like one of the most dramatic lines that anyone has ever written about heartache.
Sure, there are more artists that Petty has worked with that have been more famous, from Johnny Cash to George Harrison, but Dunn was always one of the few who understood the raw mechanics of what a song needed. His ear for knowing the right bassline is half the reason why Howie Epstein became so important to Petty later on, since he practically picked up where Dunn left off on some tracks by providing that one magical hook or a subtle background harmony that tied the whole thing together.
Other musicians might be looking for their opportunity to leave their stamp on whatever music they’re making, but the reason why Dunn and Petty got on so well is probably because of how both of them knew their place in their bands. They weren’t going to grandstand when a couple of decent chords were all you needed, and whenever working on a tune, it didn’t take long for them to start speaking the same language.
