The album Tom Petty he called one of his best works
Tom Petty always felt most comfortable when in a band environment. Although his name may have been on the marquee whenever The Heartbreakers pulled into various cities worldwide, Petty was always adamant about the power behind the group, insisting that the songs worked because of musicians like Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. Outside of his main outfit and solo career, though, Petty thought one of the band’s side projects was among their finest work.
When the 1980s came to a close, there was already a bit of tension in The Heartbreakers. After Petty cut his first solo album with Jeff Lynne, Tench remembered feeling sidelined and not having anything to do. Once Petty went out on tour to support the album, the group often felt like they were in a glorified cover band, playing songs that most of them had to learn on the road.
Although Petty would bring Lynne in to create the next album, Into the Great Wide Open, their collaborations with Rick Rubin brought things back to basics regarding the band’s old chemistry. While being billed as a Tom Petty solo effort, Petty thought his next album, Wildflowers, was one of the best albums he had ever made, citing the band being responsible for making the songs jump on tracks like ‘To Find a Friend’ and ‘You Wreck Me’.
While Petty was still riding high from his career renaissance in the mid-1990s, one of his idols was also due for a resurgence. At the same time Petty was finalising the mixes of Wildflowers, Rubin had signed Johnny Cash to his label. Though the country legend had had more than a few missteps throughout the 1980s, American Recordings became the springboard for the back half of his career, painting ‘The Man in Black’ as a gothic storyteller.
Looking to make the most out of the material, Rubin brought Petty into Cash’s recording sessions when putting together the sequel album, Unchained. Although Petty was supposed to play bass, it didn’t take long until the rest of the band came down, with Tench adding various organ parts while Campbell played achingly beautiful lead guitar parts.
When talking about the sessions later, Rubin recalled how much Petty loved working on the final record, telling Runnin’ Down a Dream, “The album won the country Grammy of the Year, and Tom thinks it’s one of the best Heartbreakers albums just because they were so in the moment and they were such inspired sessions. Everything happened very easily, and there was very little pressure because it was all on Johnny.”
Petty would also remember how easy it was to work with Cash in the studio, explaining, “We have always been drawn to all forms of American music, so when working with Cash, it wasn’t hard to put on that hat, so to speak”. Although Cash would get a second wind from the sessions, that wouldn’t be the last time the Heartbreakers worked with him.
After working on country renditions of rock songs like Soundgarden’s ‘Rusty Cage’, Cash would eventually cover Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’, which Petty would call one of his favourite renditions of one his songs he had ever heard. Even during his final hours in the studio, The Heartbreakers would still be there for the country legend, with Campbell playing the acoustic guitar on his jaw-dropping cover of Nine Inch Nails’ ‘Hurt’. Petty had never been far from traditional country music, but his work on Unchained yielded some of the most organic playing he laid down in the studio.
