{"id":131912,"date":"2017-10-03T08:16:01","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T12:16:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=131912"},"modified":"2017-10-03T08:16:44","modified_gmt":"2017-10-03T12:16:44","slug":"r-i-p-tom-petty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=131912","title":{"rendered":"R.I.P. Tom Petty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=131916\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-131916\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TP-BG14-1920x1200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1561\" height=\"975\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-131916\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TP-BG14-1920x1200.jpg 1561w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TP-BG14-1920x1200-100x62.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TP-BG14-1920x1200-200x125.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TP-BG14-1920x1200-768x480.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/TP-BG14-1920x1200-400x250.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1561px) 100vw, 1561px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\n&#8220;She&#8217;s a good girl, loves her mama<br \/>\nLoves Jesus and America too<br \/>\nShe&#8217;s a good girl, crazy &#8217;bout Elvis<br \/>\nLoves horses and her boyfriend too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qzZiDGmr9F8\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 1961, when Tom Petty was 11 years old, he got a brief glimpse of Elvis which changed his life. He talked about it constantly, always using the same almost religious language to describe the brief encounter. Elvis was down in Gainesville shooting <i>Follow That Dream<\/i> (my pal has referred to this as &#8220;Elvis&#8217; Occupy Wall Street movie&#8221;: accurate). Petty&#8217;s dad owned a film developing business and had a job somehow on the film.<\/p>\n<p>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?attachment_id=131917\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-131917\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Follow-That-Dream-Poster-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"455\" height=\"447\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-131917\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Follow-That-Dream-Poster-2.jpg 455w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Follow-That-Dream-Poster-2-100x98.jpg 100w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Follow-That-Dream-Poster-2-200x196.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Follow-That-Dream-Poster-2-400x393.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 455px) 100vw, 455px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\nPetty knew OF Elvis, but only that he &#8220;wiggled.&#8221; Elvis&#8217; rise to fame in 1956 hadn&#8217;t made that much of an impression since Petty had been so young. Petty&#8217;s uncle took Tom down to the location. There were mobs of girls hanging around waiting for Elvis. Finally, a long line of white Cadillacs pulled up, and Elvis and all of his &#8220;boys&#8221; piled out. The girls went crazy, breaking through the barriers, etc. It was scary. Tom Petty was in the crowd, a child surrounded by screaming females, watching Elvis get out of the car.<\/p>\n<p>Petty recalled: (and listen to this language! True Believer!)<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;He stepped out radiant as an angel. He seemed to glow and walk above the ground. It was like nothing I&#8217;d ever seen in my life. At 50 yards, we were stunned by what this guy looked like. And he came walking right towards us. Elvis&#8217; hair was so impossibly black that it glistened a deep blue when the sunlight hit it. We were speechless. I thought at the time, &#8216;That is one hell of a job to have. That&#8217;s a great gig &#8211; Elvis Presley.'&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Unfortunately the link no longer exists on Rolling Stone, but a while back Petty did one of their Playlist things, and he listed his top 10 Elvis songs, with little comments about each one. <\/p>\n<p>His comment on &#8220;Mean Woman Blues&#8221; was great. He said that the line from the song &#8220;She kissed so hard, she bruised my lips&#8221; was really shocking to him as a grade school kid. He had no idea kisses could ever be like that. He couldn&#8217;t get the image out of his head. Even MORE shocking was that it was the GIRL kissing that hard &#8230; to a 10 year old that was pretty intense stuff. Who needs sex ed when you have Elvis?<\/p>\n<p>Another one of his favorite Elvis songs was &#8220;Santa Claus is Back in Town&#8221; &#8211; which &#8211; if you are not familiar with it &#8211; may sound like a weird choice. (Is it possible that there are those not familiar with it? Go listen to it immediately.)<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rqVMfTz_HDU\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Petty&#8217;s brief comment on it was so funny:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;&#8216;Santa Claus is coming down your chimney tonight&#8217; sounds absolutely filthy when Elvis sings it. It might be his best blues vocal ever.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I love Ron Rosenbaum&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/observer.com\/2000\/07\/tom-petty-and-tom-frank-two-geniuses-of-pop-culture\/\" target=\"blank\">essay on Tom Petty<\/a> (from a while back but it makes a good tribute). He also references the encounter with Elvis and how essential it was, not just to Tom Petty, but &#8211; now &#8211; to our understanding of who Tom Petty was.<\/p>\n<p>I posted these thoughts on Facebook and Twitter today, about the instantly legendary performance of &#8220;While My Guitar Gently Weeps&#8221; for the Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame, by Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, Steve Winwood, George Harrison&#8217;s son &#8230; and an absolutely epic guitar solo by Prince. <\/p>\n<p>Tom Petty is basically the conductor in this famous performance. I&#8217;ve read comments about it along the lines of: &#8220;Petty seems irritated at Prince&#8217;s scene-stealing &#8230; &#8221; You know a comment like that is from a non-artist. <\/p>\n<p>He doesn&#8217;t seem irritated at all. There are moments of connection w\/Prince during that EPIC solo &#8230; smiles, glances, etc. These are the glances of 2 professionals creating something together. Prince takes over, but Petty holds down the fort, also a necessary job. When Prince moves up to the stratosphere, he needs those down on earth to keep it going &#8211; so he can go where he needs to go. <\/p>\n<p>You think Tom Petty was &#8230; well &#8230; PETTY about being in the presence of something so extraordinary? LOOK at him. He&#8217;s digging it. But he&#8217;s not an audience member. He&#8217;s got to be so in tune with Prince that he knows when Prince is close to wrapping it up. When Prince comes back down &#8230; the song must move to its conclusion. Petty&#8217;s in charge of that. And so he never takes his eyes off Prince. <\/p>\n<p>Petty&#8217;s role here is &#8220;support staff.&#8221; Yes, Petty is a huge star. But he&#8217;s also a musician and he knows his job. He knows he&#8217;s not Prince. Come on. <\/p>\n<p>I love how &#8211; in the midst of all the craziness on that stage &#8211; Petty knows when it&#8217;s time to move the group into the ending. His arm goes up. A signal. I&#8217;m always amazed by that since I am not a musician. He knows &#8211; can FEEL &#8211; when it&#8217;s time to put his arm up. <\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s something beautifully humble about him in this performance. He sets the stage, he establishes the well-known song &#8230; But what he is REALLY doing is creating space for what comes next. What comes next is Prince. And Prince will need a TON of space. Petty knows that so he goes about creating it. It&#8217;s world-class what Petty does in that performance. He is the net underneath Prince. <\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s a lot more to say about Tom Petty &#8211; I&#8217;ve always loved him &#8211; but this performance &#8211; his clear and steady maintaining of the song while Prince goes apeshit, his almost ESP-level of concentration on Prince so he can anticipate what&#8217;s happening but also just stay in tune with it &#8230; and then &#8230; his arm raising up &#8211; time to get back to what we established, time to wrap it up &#8211; is what I thought of this morning.<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6SFNW5F8K9Y\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;She&#8217;s a good girl, loves her mama Loves Jesus and America too She&#8217;s a good girl, crazy &#8217;bout Elvis Loves horses and her boyfriend too.&#8221; In 1961, when Tom Petty was 11 years old, he got a brief glimpse of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=131912\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17,23],"tags":[2095,2453],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131912"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=131912"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131912\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":131923,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/131912\/revisions\/131923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=131912"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=131912"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=131912"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}