Rock legend’s music gets loving tribute by 22 country stars, 7 years after his untimely death
Tom Petty is gone, but his impressive catalog of music endures.
The Florida-born singer and guitarist, who died in October 2017 at age 66, created songs that were fiery, passionate, psychedelic, tough and tender — sometimes all at once. He influenced generations of rock fans and countless other musicians, some of whom have earned fame in very different genres.
Case in point: More than 20 country artists — including George Strait, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, Marty Stuart and Wynonna Judd — have joined to pay tribute to Petty via a new album, “Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty.”
The record, set for release on May 31, comes from Big Machine Records in partnership with the Tom Petty Estate. To preview the album, a cover of “American Girl” by Dierks Bentley was released on Friday, Feb. 23. (Listen to Bentley’s rendition in the video below.)
“Petty’s Southern roots shined through across his songwriting and storytelling,” Bentley said via a press release. “He might not have ever been considered as country but you can’t go into a bar in Nashville without hearing this song. It is one of the greatest songs in a life’s work of great American songs. The spirit of this woman, the idea of such relentless hope — and disappointment — ignites such a spark. (Producer) Jon Randall and I were driven to make that feeling of American roots stand tall.”
Bentley’s version of “American Girl” has instrumentation that features fiddle, mandolin and banjo, along with guitar, drums and bass.
Alabama native Jamey Johnson is included in the “Petty Country” project, covering “I Forgive It All.” The star-studded album also features Chris Stapleton, Luke Combs, Midland, Lady A, Rhiannon Giddens, Eli Young Band, Justin Moore Steve Earle, Lainey Wilson and more.
Here’s the full track listing for “Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty”:
- “I Should Have Known It” – Chris Stapleton
- “Wildflowers” – Thomas Rhett
- “Runnin’ Down a Dream” – Luke Combs
- “Southern Accents” – Dolly Parton
- “Here Comes My Girl” – Justin Moore
- “American Girl” – Dierks Bentley
- “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” – Lady A
- “I Forgive It All” – Jamey Johnson
- “I Won’t Back Down” – Brothers Osborne
- “Refugee” – Wynonna Judd & Lainey Wilson
- “Angel Dream #2″ – Willie Nelson and Lukas Nelson
- “Learning to Fly” – Eli Young Band
- “Breakdown” – Ryan Hurd featuring Carly Pearce
- “Yer So Bad” – Steve Earle
- “Ways to Be Wicked” – Margo Price and Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers
- “Mary Jane’s Last Dance” – Midland
- “Free Fallin’” – The Cadillac Three featuring Breland
- “I Need To Know” – Marty Stuart And His Fabulous Superlatives
- “Don’t Come Around Here No More” – Rhiannon Giddens featuring Benmont Tench of the Heartbreakers
- “You Wreck Me” – George Strait
Petty, a three-time Grammy winner, was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 with his band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He and the band also have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Petty released more than 20 studio albums from 1976 to 2016 — with the Heartbreakers, as solo artist, as a member of the Traveling Wilburys supergroup and with a Gainesville band called Mudcrutch.
“Usually backed by the Heartbreakers, Petty broke through in the 1970s and went on to sell more than 80 million records,” the Associated Press said in its 2017 obituary. “The Gainesville, Florida, native with the shaggy blond hair and gaunt features was loved for his melodic hard rock, nasally vocals and down-to-earth style. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Petty and the Heartbreakers in 2002, praised them as ‘durable, resourceful, hard-working, likeable and unpretentious.’
“Petty’s albums included ‘Damn the Torpedoes,’ ‘Hard Promises’ and ‘Full Moon Fever’ although his first No. 1 did not come until 2014 and ‘Hypnotic Eye’,” the obituary continued. “As a songwriter, he focused often on daily struggles and the will to overcome them, most memorably on ‘Refugee,’ “Even the Losers’ and ‘I Won’t Back Down.’”
Petty’s family revealed that his death on Oct. 2, 2017, was the result of an accidental drug overdose that caused cardiac arrest. A coroner’s report confirmed that Petty had a variety of medications in his system, including fentanyl and oxycodone, when he died at UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles.
A statement from the artist’s family said Petty suffered from emphysema, a fractured hip and knee problems that caused him pain, but he was still committed to touring.
“We knew before the report was shared with us that he was prescribed various pain medications for a multitude of issues including Fentanyl patches and we feel confident that this was, as the coroner found, an unfortunate accident,” the family statement said. “As a family we recognize this report may spark a further discussion on the opioid crisis and we feel that it is a healthy and necessary discussion and we hope in some way this report can save lives. Many people who overdose begin with a legitimate injury or simply do not understand the potency and deadly nature of these medications.”
Shortly before his death, Petty had finished a tour with the Heartbreakers that he said might be his last.
Petty had a history of performances in Alabama that included a 2013 set at Hangout Fest in Gulf Shores and a 2002 show at Oak Mountain Amphitheatre in Pelham. AL.com’s review of the Pelham concert called it “an exquisite example of a rocker aging gracefully” and “a back-to-basics concert that proved just how splendid the basics can be.”
Petty also visited Alabama in 1995 for shows at the Von Braun Center in Huntsville and Coleman Coliseum in Tuscaloosa. In a 2020 interview with Matt Wake of AL.com, Patterson Hood of the Drive-By Truckers recalled one of Petty’s earliest shows in Alabama, in 1983 at Flowers Hall in Florence.
According to Hood (who was working as a roadie for Petty at the time) a fight broke out in the crowd and Petty “cussed out the audience and stormed offstage.” He returned to finish an hourlong set, and despite his anger and frustration, Petty turned in a great show, Hood said. “It was great in a punk rock way.”