Singer Petty tries new solo record
By Bruce Britt
Spokane Chronicle - June 7, 1989
Sporting a day's stubble on his chin, Tom Petty strode into a conference room at his manager's West Hollywood, Calif., office and lit up a smoke.
Though the singer was an hour late for a scheduled interview, he offered no excuses, only a heartfelt apology.
It was an endearingly honest moment from a singer whose music is noted for its sincerity.
That same straightforward approach is abundant on Petty's first solo album, "Full Moon Fever." This memorable collection of folk-rock tunes has catapulted into the top-10 just a month after its release.
It looks to be his biggest hit since 1981's "Hard Promises," recorded with his band, the Heartbreakers.
In conjunction with the new album's release, MPI Home Entertainment has just released a compilation videocasette of Heartbreakers clips titled "A Bunch of Videos and Some Other Stuff."
What's more, Petty is about to tour with the Heartbreakers.
The Upstart Wilbury
By Stephen Ostick
Winnipeg Free Press - June 10, 1989
Good timing placed Tom Petty in illustrious musical company
"You know me," Tom Petty says with a chuckle over the phone. "Always on time."
And he is, calling from the Los Angeles home of Stan Lynch, drummer in his Heartbreakers band. But while Petty jokes about his punctuality, the fact is that if anybody in the music world has had good timing over the past year or so, Petty's the bloke.
Take the time George Harrison decided to drop by and pick up a guitar he'd left at Petty's Los Angeles home last spring.
The former Beatle described a project he was working on with a couple of friends, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. They had this silly idea to play under some country bumpkin pseudonym like, say, the Travelling Wilburys, and just have some fun recording each other's tunes.
Reviews: Growing Old Gracefully...Without Losing the Fire
Galway Advertiser - June 14, 1989
Rock and Roll isn't very old. Go back beyond the mid-50's and you enter a totally different world. And one of the problems it has yet to come to terms with is how an old Rocker can grow old gracefully, without losing the passion and power that inspires this kind of music. Four albums released recently highlight this problem - Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, Van Morrison's Avalon Sunset, Paul McCartney's Flowers in the Dirt , and Jackson Browne's World in Motion.
Elvis avoided solving the problem by turning into a rather pathetic "lounge lizard" and semi-recluse. The late Roy Orbison, by joining with the "Wilbury's", kept playing essentially the same kind of music he'd always played, a fact borne out by his posthumously released album, any song of which might have been released at any time over the last twenty years. All excellent, but not at all different from what he's always done. Bob Dylan, perhaps the only genius Rock has ever produced, has received almost consistently bad reviews for the last decade because people seem to resent the tact that he keeps moving on, trying new things - some successful, some unsuccessful. But even on his last two albums, which were slatted by the critics, there are songs which are as good or better than anything he did when the critics loved him. "Brownsville Girl" - the Dylan/Sam Shepherd collaboration, is one of the best things he's ever done, and the mysterious "Silveo" likewise.
Music consumed him 'like poison'
By Hillel Italie
Reading Eagle - June 14, 1989
Rocker Tom Petty remembers how obsession changed life
Rock 'n' roll has always meant the unexpected for Tom Petty, even when he was growing up in Gainesville, Fla.
"Rock 'n' roll came over me like a fever that I never got rid of," he recalled in a recent interview, "consumed me like a poison -- completely consumed me to where I can honestly say I didn't think of anything else. It was all I could do, think or anything.
"It made for a terrible home life. My family didn't understand; my father thought I was mental. I understand why because I was very obsessed with it. It was an alternative to working. I had no opportunity for anything in my life, with where I lived and what I was up against."
Records: Petty's 'Full Moon' shines
Review by Jim Higgins
The Milwaukee Sentinel - June 23, 1989
Tom Petty's fury is legendary. He's the rocker who punched out a wall and couldn't play guitar for a long time after that. In a fight with his record label, Petty once threatened to title an album "$8.98."
But it sounds like he was in a fairly mellow state of mind when he recorded "Full Moon Fever" (MCA) with producers and pals Jeff Lynne and Mike Campbell. Petty's rebellious soul and gritty rock 'n' roll heart are definitely in gear, but they're leavened pleasantly by many lighthearted lyrics and by Lynne's wall-of-fun production.
"I Won't Back Down," the record's first single and one of its more substantial tunes, embodies Petty's existential stance. He sounds like an angry teenager who would let the world pound him into the earth before he caves in. Come to think of it, that's the existential stance of rock 'n' roll itself.
While Petty's been guilty of echoing the Byrds for years, his cover of Gene Clark's "Feel a Whole Lot Better" is the only evidence a jury would ever need to convict him. He evokes the feeling of that classic band in a way that transcends mere mimicry.
Heartbreaker Stan Lynch goes 'legit' with Henley
By Bill DeYoung
Gainesville Sun - June 30, 1989
He's been one of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers for 13 years, but Stan Lynch feels like he's just starting to hit his creative peak.
Lynch, born in Ohio but raised from age 5 in Gainesville, co-wrote three songs on the new Don Henley album, "The End of the Innocence," released this week. He co-produced two of them, and played on sang on several more.
For the 34-year-old Lynch, who drummed with several of Gainesville's seminal late '60s bands (the most popular was the power trio Road Turkey) before joining Petty and his crew in Los Angeles, the Henley experience was a true, and most welcome, collaboration.
"It was more like being in a band than my band, especially for the last few years," he says. "My role is relegated to: I'm the drummer for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. That's what I do, and I'm not asked to do much more.
"So I never really got out of first gear. This doesn't really bother me -- it'd be like the center bitching about why he doesn't get to run the ball. My job is to be the drummer."
Editor's Note: This is a (Canadian) French article and my translation of it. If you actually know French and would like to improve it, please contact me.
Original French:
Musicalement vôtre
par Yvan Brunet
Le Franco-Albertain - June 30, 1989
Tom Petty <<Full Moon Fever>> MCA-6253
Avec <<Full Moon Fever>>, produit par Jeff Lynne (ELO), nous retrouvions Tom Petty (Traveling Wilburys) sans son ensemble, The Heartbreakers (sauf pour Mike Campbell à la guitare électrique). Les textes parfois froids et réalistes de Petty suivent la même thématique que ses albums précédents et les musiques présentent également certaines similitudes en ce qui concerne les arrangements. Avec <<Full Moon Fever>>, Petty's améliore tout en se gardant bien de succomber aux goûts du jour. A signaler ici: <<I Won't Back Down>>, <<A Face in The Crowd>> et <<Feel A Whole Lot Better>> (un ancien succés du groupe The Byrds). Pour qui a évolué avec la musique de Petty.
English Translation:
Musically Yours
By Yvam Brunet
Le Franco-Albertain - June 30, 1989
Tom Petty "Full Moon Fever" MCA-6253
With "Full Moon Fever," produced by Jeff Lynne (ELO), we find Tom Petty (Traveling Wilburys) without his group, the Heartbreakers (except Mike Campbell on electric guitar). The lines sometimes cold and realistic, Petty follows the same themes as his previous albums and there are also some similiarities regarding the arrangements of the music. With "Full Moon Fever," Petty is improving while taking care to not succumb to the tastes of the day. To note: "I Won't Back Down," "A Face in The Crowd," and "Feel A Whole Lot Better" (a former success for the Byrds). For that evolved with the music of Petty.
Tom Petty's still got rock 'n' roll fever
By Hillel Italie
The Deseret News - Saturday, July 8, 1989
NEW YORK -- Rock 'n' roll has always meant the unexpected for Tom Petty, even when he was growing up in Gainesville, Fla.
"Rock 'n' roll came over me like a fever I never got rid of," he recalled in a recent interview, "consumed me like a poison -- completely consumed me to where I can honestly say I didn't think of anything else. It was all I could do, think, or anything.
"It made for a terrible home life. My family didn't understand; my father thought I was mental. I understand hy because I was very obsessed with it."
Petty was a non-musical child who discovered a knack for guitar. A quiet, skinny kid who never dreamed of being famous. He was soon playing in local bands.
"You'd go and see some other kid whose hair was long and go, 'Wow, there's one like me!' You'd go over and talk and he'd say, 'I've got a drum set.' 'You do! Great!' That was my whole life. Still is, I'm afraid."
The Traveling Wilburys was a surprise, the result of a jam session with George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, the late Roy Orbison and Bob Dylan that grew into a best-selling album. Petty's new album, "Full Moon Fever," was an accident as well.
Veteran rocker has never sounded better
By Rick Mitchell
Houston Chronicle - Sunday, July 9, 1989
'I love what I'm doing,' Tom Petty says. And a hot solo LP and new Heartbreakers tour prove it.
Tom Petty has been running down a dream for most of his life. He may have finally caught up with it. After eight albums with his band, the Heartbreakers, Petty recently released his first solo album, "Full Moon Fever". Resting comfortably in the Top 5 after two months on the charts, the album is beginning to look like his biggest hit since 1978's triple-platinum "Damn the Torpedoes".
The ready reception for "Full Moon Fever" comes on the heels of the overwhelming success of the Traveling Wilburys, a deliberately low-key super-session that included Petty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lynne and the late Roy Orbison. Between working on his own album and playing with the Wilburys, Petty also found time to co-write Orbison's posthumous "comeback" hit, "You Got It".
These recording projects, along with the Heartbreakers' 1986/87 tour with Dylan, have brought Petty back from a mid-'80s creative and commercial slump to a position of increased stature. Although he has been regarded as a major artist from the first, Petty now is respected both by his peers and the public as one of rock's senior statesmen.
But Petty doesn't worry about growing old gracefully as a rocker.