![]() My dad must have thought, ‘Maybe he should be studying me!’” “He thought he was a rap guy or a Slayer producer, but here Rick was at the Bob show and studying Neil. “Rick was in the corner with a Walkman listening to every Neil Young album, and I think my dad really took notice of that,” she says. Rubin and Petty would have seemed to be on different ends of the musical spectrum, but according to Adria, who was on the flight as well, they made an initial connection there, starting with the fact that both had attended the recent Bob Dylan 30th anniversary concert in New York. with Rubin, then best known for cofounding Def Jam in the Eighties and producing the Beastie Boys and hard-rock acts. That year, Petty found himself on the same private Warner jet from New York to L.A. Around the same time, Petty had also left his longtime label, MCA, for a new deal with Warner Bros. His marriage to his first wife, Jane, was collapsing Heartbreakers bassist Howie Epstein was battling drug addiction and tension had developed between Petty and drummer Stan Lynch. ![]() Rubin and Petty in the studio during the ‘Wildflowers’ sessions, 1993 Mark Seligerīefore Petty began working on Wildflowers in 1992, he had reason to feel stressed. ![]() It was this huge collaboration…a deliberate and very painstaking process to make these pure, simple recordings.” “I always thought they got together and maybe he had a certain amount of songs and presented them to Rick,” she says. His daughter Adria Petty (who curated the collection along with Dana Petty, Campbell, Tench, and Adria’s sister Annakim Violette) says the set “helps you understand the magic of how my dad did something” in a way nothing else can. Akin to multi-disc sets accorded to classics like the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Wildflowers & All the Rest allows listeners to see how one of Petty’s landmark records came together, nearly step by step. “And it felt good to do what he wanted and to follow through on his original idea.”ĭeluxe configurations go even further: Separate discs are devoted to Petty’s homemade demos, live recordings of the Wildflowers songs, and alternate takes from the studio sessions. “I know he really wanted it to be finished,” says Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell. As he had planned, it augments the original album with the excised songs, some in alternate versions from the ones heard on She’s the One. ![]() But on October 16th, three years after his passing, Petty’s wish will be fulfilled with a multidisc set, Wildflowers & All the Rest. ![]() In October 2017, he died from an accidental overdose of prescribed medications, including fentanyl. Petty would never live to see his dream project through. “It was a period when song after song was coming, which doesn’t always happen 20 years after your first release.” “He would always say, ‘That’s the best record we ever made,’” says Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench. With the help of producer Rick Rubin, the album became one of Petty’s most beloved albums, selling more than 3 million copies at the time, as well as one of his most sonically expansive works. Little from his musical past tugged at him more than Wildflowers, the 1994 solo album that contained some of his most intimate, relaxed, and revealing songs, from “You Don’t Know How It Feels” to the wispy title folk song. Home after a tour with the Heartbreakers, he had his wife, Dana, call up his rarely seen 2002 “Fun in the Desert” video, in which he tooled around a barren landscape on a mini-motorcycle, then asked her to track down a high school girlfriend on social media. During the last week of his life, Tom Petty grew unusually wistful. ![]()
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