The band that forced Tom Petty to move to California: “We got reactionary to it”
Becoming a rock and roll star requires more than just a dream; it often feels like a spiritual calling that compels musicians to create their unique sound, rather than simply a hobby that grew out of control. While Tom Petty was content playing music in his native Gainesville, he credits the Allman Brothers Band with helping him realise that his true calling lay in California. Their influence guided him to pursue his musical destiny on the West Coast, where he would eventually achieve legendary status.
Because when listening to his music, you’d swear that Petty was born and raised in Los Angeles and felt that warm sun on his face every morning. From the acoustic beauty of ‘Wildflowers’ to the chime of ‘The Waiting’, every track he put out felt like a long-lost Byrds tune that somehow got resurrected for the modern age, but in Florida, something different was happening.
As soon as Petty put together Mudcrutch, he started looking at what the Allman Brothers Band was doing on the circuit. While they were still a Beatles cover act throughout the first half of their career, Petty got a front-row seat when they started shifting into the jam band they turned into, going on long solos and extending four-minute songs to 23 minutes on records like Live at Fillmore East.
But that wasn’t how Petty viewed music. Looking at the bands that he idolised growing up, he had a lot of respect for the two-minute pop song. No matter how short or disposable it felt at the time, there was a certain magic in being able to have a limited timeframe and still write something that could resonate with people around the world.
So when the entire scene started shifting to people in flannel shirts who wanted to jam, Petty knew he wanted out, telling Rolling Stone, “We got reactionary to it. Everybody tried to be the Allman Brothers all of a sudden. We said, ‘We’re gonna write shorter songs.’ We even went up to Macon, Georgia, to Capricorn Records, and brought a tape we’d made. They told us it was too English. That confirmed to me that we’re gonna have to go to Los Angeles.”
While there were still non-conformist acts rising out of the California scene like Crosby, Stills, and Nash and Joni Mitchell, they could still get their point across fairly quickly without having to jam. Even though the Allman Brothers Band, along with fellow Florida natives Lynyrd Skynyrd,’ put Southern rock on the map, that was never how Petty saw himself. He could respect his country roots, but that didn’t mean he had to live vicariously through them either.
In fact, Petty wasn’t even the only one who decided life was better outside of Florida. A few years before the heartland rocker arrived in LA, Don Felder had also emerged from the South to become a member of the Eagles, all while still having a firm grasp on every lick Duane Allman ever played.
But Petty’s decision to leave his home wasn’t a case of him leaving his roots in the dust. He was still proud of where he came from as evidenced by songs like ‘Southern Accents’, but sometimes people’s dreams are bigger than the places they were born into.
