You never forget your first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers concert. Mine was July 25, 1979. The setlist from that show lives to this day online and, improbably, there is even a clean audio recording of that show on YouTube- obviously recorded by a crew member directly from the board. Here it is (audio only) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMwTrvXIeto
Of course, these days there is already footage of the show you’ve just gone to on YouTube by the time you get home – from a thousand shaky phonecams, but the proceedings are well documented – you’ll never forget because it will always be there.
I bring this up because Petty’s entire career was constantly filmed, taped, recorded – it’s all there. Look no further than the 4-hour (and excellent) documentary Runnin’ Down a Dream by director Peter Bogdanovich. You wonder if these guys ever even took a leak without someone filming it for posterity.
But now comes a new doc which is notable for never-before-seen 16mm black and white footage of Petty’s recording of his seminal solo album Wildflowers. It’s called Somewhere You Feel Free and its World Premiere at this year’s SXSW was met with near unanimous acclaim – the detractors’ main complaint is that the film is too “inside baseball” for anyone who isn’t already a devoted Petty fan. Fair enough – at least it’s new footage.
The director, Mary Wharton, says the film intentionally doesn’t include anything that wasn’t from that period in ’94 when Petty felt he was making the best album of his career.
Wharton said she didn’t want to include soundbites from an older Petty reflecting back-she wanted the 44 year-old road dog who was wise, but still young enough to be in the moment, digging what was happening creatively, it’s mostly in-studio footage and some interviews from the time. Read reviews here. It appears the producers have not yet secured a distributor and/or release date. I’ll put it here when the info is available.
Meantime, as Petty fans will know, Warner Records released a box-set called Wildflowers & All The Rest, which was a reissue including 70 tracks of never-before-heard alternate recordings and demos from Petty’s Wildflowers sessions spread out over 9LPs.
And now, 16 of those alternate version recordings are getting a stand-alone release as Finding Wildflowers (Alternate Versions), due out April 16 on Warner Records. The album will arrive on limited edition gold vinyl, in addition to black vinyl, CD, and digital formats (for the first time) a few weeks after the initial April release on May 7th.
See what I mean about so, so much of Petty’s career having been archived? I guess it is one very small consolation for us having lost him too soon.
And finally this: Gibson guitars have announced a new Petty model. The company collaborated with the surviving family to create the SJ-200 Wildflower acoustic guitar, inspired by the guitar Gibson made for Tom around 1996. You’ll recognize it right away.
Petty’s daughter, Adria Petty, said that now, “others can make what my Dad called ‘the big jangle’, a reference to that gorgeous, big, SJ-200 acoustic sound he loved.
We hope fans and members of the music community alike enjoy this beautiful instrument as much as we do. It is a beautiful tribute to him.”
Here’s a promotional video featuring George Drakoulias (longtime Tom Petty producer) and Alan (Bugs) Weidel (Tom Petty guitar tech and longtime friend)
You can get specs and more detailed information here
