The artist Tom Petty was devastated to lose: “It ripped my heart out”
Not everyone can claim to have their heroes around forever. Even though a lot of fans try their best to learn from their idols, there’s always going to come a day when they aren’t around, and the rest of the music world is going to have to carry on without them. Tom Petty already had the good fortune of working with many of the greatest rock stars of all time, but when idols turn into friends, their deaths seem to be like a death in the family.
Looking at his professional friendships, though, most people would be jealous to see Petty’s resume. Outside of being one of the Traveling Wilburys, he was already close to Leon Russell before he even got started with the Heartbreakers, and most artists would consider it a badge of honour if they got a note from Johnny Cash as a birthday present.
But Petty never saw his idols the same way most people did. He knew that he was luckier than most when it came to his friends, but he always saw them as a person first rather than the storied history, which is probably why he was able to speak out of turn when he was producing something for Roger McGuinn or bold enough to take Del Shannon’s bassist, Howie Epstein, for the Heartbreakers when Ron Blair left in the early 1980s.
For someone who was born and raised in the classic rock tradition, though, all roads traced back to those members of Wilburys. Outside of Petty and Jeff Lynne being the new kids on the block, any supergroup that had Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Bob Dylan under one roof would have been any artist’s dream, but after Orbison’s death, there was little reason for them to carry on after one more album.
The heartland rocker may have been able to get over Orbison’s death, but it was a lot different once Harrison passed away in 2001. The former Beatle had seemed like the wise older brother figure for Petty ever since he began working with him, and even if they didn’t see each other as often in the late 1990s, Harrison had come to respect Petty as one of the few modern artists he liked that wasn’t superficial in any way, shape, or form.
Despite Petty overcoming his personal battles on Echo, he still wasn’t prepared for one of his best friends to lose his battle with cancer so soon, saying, “George devastated me. I didn’t think George could die. It so ripped my heart out that I still can’t think about it. I remember when Roy Orbison died, I thought at the time if anybody had been prepared to go, it was him because he was in such a good place mentally and spiritually. That makes you say a) I’m lucky to be here, and b) I better appreciate being here.”
Then again, Harrison’s final album, Brainwashed, gave us a better understanding of his mindset in those final years of his life. He knew that his time was short, but even if things were looking grim, songs like ‘Looking For My Life’ and ‘Brainwashed’ saw him tackle his own mortality with a lot of reverence, almost letting the rest of his audience know that things were going to be okay even after he was gone.
It may not have been any easier for Petty to move on after losing one of his best friends, but Harrison did manage to bow out on his own terms. His death was bound to do a number on Beatles fans all over the world, but if there was one thing that he reminded us at the start of his solo career, it was that all things pass away eventually.
