The American rock anthem that England got to first: “Going mad for it”
It doesn’t take much for rock and roll to work in some patriotism now and again.
Despite all of the great rock and roll bands that came from all different parts of the world, there’s a reason why people always go back to the likes of Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley as the ones who truly started everything for the genre. This was the style of music that America helped pioneer, but sometimes the greatest acts in history don’t have to live there to understand what the music is all about.
Granted, even the early rock and rollers didn’t quite know what their music was about back in the day. All of the greatest acts of the time came from blues, and while Berry did help capture a bit more magic when he started working on tunes like ‘Johnny B Goode’, it was only a matter of time before bands like The Beatles and The Rolling Stones lobbed the ball back once the 1960s officially began.
The British invasion cast a massive shadow over the 1960s, and even if some of the greatest bands in America were still viable, they brought a certain darkness with them. The Beach Boys’ story does have Brian Wilson’s magic all over it, but it’s hard to think of the end of the 1960s without looking at his sharp downfall or bands like The Doors showing everyone the darker side of what rock and roll was supposed to be. Things had become much more serious, but as the 1970s opened up, Tom Petty was the perfect rock star at the wrong time.
Caught in the midst of the punk movement, Petty seemed to be taking his cues from all of the greatest rock and roll stars of days gone by. Not everyone was going to admit that Elvis Presley was one of their favourite artists of all time or be dissecting songs by The Byrds or The Beatles in the age of Sex Pistols and Ramones, but everyone was willing to take a shot with someone who could write tunes like ‘Breakdown’.
But even when Petty was signed on as a solo artist and left Mudcrutch in the dust, the Heartbreakers were exactly what he needed. He had already been friends with Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell forever, but when they started playing, they had their own formula for perfect heartland rock. You couldn’t paint a better picture of teenage romanticism than ‘American Girl’, which happened to be recorded on the Fourth of July. Everything lined up perfectly for a giant smash, so how the hell did England snatch up everything before the US could?
Yep, you heard that right. Petty is the poster-boy for what Americana rock should be, and yet he remembered the band’s debut album and single not doing anything until they went overseas, saying, “The album came out and pretty much did nothing. Then like a bolt of lightning it comes out in England and it’s an enormous success right out of the box and they’re writing full page reviews. Just going mad for it.”
But you have to remember where rock and roll was at the time. The biggest genre in the world at the time was this new disco craze that was about to start up, and for a bunch of rock fans recovering from the likes of Sex Pistols and The Clash, having someone coming from overseas singing about the romanticism of American rock and roll was exactly what they needed.
Petty seemed to see the whole thing as a blessing, too, considering they went back home as a nobody again. Even Ron Blair would say later that he remembered going to certain markets and getting boxes of their debut album returned to them because no one wanted to buy anything from them. I feel the need to remind you that this is, indeed, the same guy that would one day write tunes like ‘Free Fallin’ and make an entire album dedicated to the American South.
England was definitely ahead of the game, but it didn’t take long before Petty started to become a greater tour de force whenever he played. He was bound to become a star based on his songs alone, and becoming one of the biggest sensations in a country where all his heroes came from was practically an added bonus.
