While Tom Petty is mostly remembered for his rousing Americana, much of his legend is also perched upon his character. He was the ultimate musical everyman, a traveller on the strange path called rock ‘n’ roll, who had many tales to tell.
Perhaps best of all, though, he gave a voice to the little man in a way that is similar to Bruce Springsteen, but distinct from the New Jersey native due to his upbringing in the Southern state of Florida, adding a different type of soul to proceedings. If Springsteen is the Union leader of the blue-collar workers of the industrial East Coast, Petty is the almost mythical working-class outlaw of the Sunshine State.
Inspired by the classic rock tastemakers of the 1960s, who defiantly showed his generation that they didn’t have to lead a dull life working humdrum jobs like their parents did, Petty, a naturally inquisitive mind with an appetite for adventure, was always magnetised by artists who played with danger, and were more than plainly musicians. Whether it be his early hero, Elvis Presley, or later pioneers such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, across his life, he would gush about the bold efforts of such revered names.
While he would affirm the importance of first hearing Presley as a child, as well as the moment years later when The Beatles spearheaded The British Invasion with their consequential performance on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, one of the bands who instilled a rebellious, punk-adjacent spirit into his person and music were The Rolling Stones.
The band have never really been described as punk or even proto-punk like their cult contemporaries such as The Fugs, The Stooges and The Velvet Underground. However, there’s no doubt that their frenetic take on rock ‘n’ roll and blue – in tandem with their transgressive actions – was something of a precursor to the nihilistic, stripped-back rock ‘n’ roll that would eventually become known as punk due to the efforts of the Sex Pistols.
When speaking to Q with Tom Power in 2014, Petty explained how he initially loved The Beatles, but as time wore on he became enamoured with the punk spirit of their unruly peers, The Rolling Stones. There was something about their simplistic but energetic style that appealed to him; as he knew that the songwriting talent of The Beatles’ John Lennon and Paul McCartney was of an ornate, rare quality that could never be replicated.
Petty explained: “You saw the Stones come out not long after [The Beatles] and said, ‘Now that I could do.’ They were playing blues in this really energetic, raw way, but it wasn’t complicated. There wasn’t a lot of harmony involved. It was sort of my punk music. It was like, ‘That could be done.’ And apparently, tens of thousands of American musicians had the same thought at the same time.”
