Heartbreak Hotel

Rip It Up, Issue 14, 1 August 1978, Page 11

Heartbreak Hotel

Duncan Campbell

For a time, it seemed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would become victims of the Label Syndrome, where people are classified by their looks or their clothes and duly pigeon-holed with a particular, and often very limited audience. This magazine has vigorously campaigned against labelling, especially when applied to the terms "Punk" and "New Wave”, which have successfully stifled too much fine music from reaching a mass audience. It was a combination of Petty’s image and the "New Wave” tag which nearly consigned him to the also-rans. So what went right? The answer lies in a large number of concert venues, and also in the UK. But we are getting a little ahead of

ourselves here. Historical information, please . . . For a start, Petty wore a leather jacket, and the cover of his debut album portrayed him with as cocky a sneer as you ever saw. So he was a punk. In addition, he came along about the same time as the New York New Wave, which included such bands as Television, Mink De Ville and Talking Heads. New Yorkers have often been thought of as a separate race from the rest of the Average Americans, and their music has been thought of in the same way. Strictly for the Big Apple and unpalatable elsewhere. Despite the fact that Petty has not even the remotest connection with such bands, he was lumped in with them as part of the weirdo scene that lovers of Fleetwood, Frampton and all could not understand or just wouldn’t listen to. Petty and the 'Breakers hail originally from

Gainesville, Florida. Not a ready source of indigenous music, so kids were exposed to just about everything that was new and imported, especially that four-piece Pommy band with the moptop haircuts. Petty remembers the Allman Brothers starting out in a band that imitated the Beatles. He also heard the Stones and the Kinks, along with homegrown talent like Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and Percy Sledge. "We simply liked the AM radio,” he says. That’s what we listened to. We didn’t have no money to buy records.” Petty played with a number of Florida bands, his first one of any significance being Mudcrutch, which recorded one single for MCA, then broke up.

Petty stayed with MCA as a solo artist, fooling around for a couple of years on a retainer, and achieving very little, until he ran into the Heartbreakers in 1976 in a recording studio. The band had been assembled by keyboards player Benmont Tench for a solo album he was working on. All were from Gainesville, and something just clicked between them and Petty. In they all went on Petty's solo recording deal, their first move being to scrap all the songs he'd written for his solo album, plus Tench’s efforts. New songs were written in 15 days. The resulting album was a triumph musically, if not commercially. It was true American Music not heard since those heady days of the Byrds at their peak. The fact that Roger McGuinn himself was sufficiently moved to record "American Girl” says it all. It

was filled with joyous, brain-bending music that just ripped the trousers off the bland, wholesome, don't-offend-the-public slush that pervaded the airwaves. It was the strongest debut record anyone could remember. It laid an egg as big as a Moa's. Just because of the stupid Label Syndrome. Lesser men might have been discouraged. Not Petty. The Heartbreakers set off on the backbreaking American gig circuit, determined to get someone to listen. Luckily, people did, and the reviews started to come in, hailing the Heartbreakers as the salvation of music that combines good times with good taste. The reaction was starting across the Atlantic too. British rock writers have always had the ability to look at music without the desperate need to associate it with their own culture and lifestyles. They took to Petty like a duck to water. "I think the press played an important part in keeping the band alive,” Petty says. "They were there from the beginning and it’s great they can use their influence in a positive way like that.” A British tour clinched everything. The album went top 20, the rave reviews flowed forth, and suddenly, interest back home in Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was revived. "Breakdown”, a classic AM single, was re-released, and this time it made the American Top 40, which requires a considerable amount of airplay. Suddenly, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were a headlining act. These days, Petty and his boys get mobbed by fans as fanatical as those who once followed the Bay City Rollers. Through a long and complex round of legal negotiations they now get all their dues from those who own and promote them, and not before time either. Petty played over 200 gigs during 1977, and refused to go back into the studio until the record company gave him the advance he felt was due. Now the wait for the second album is over, and it’s been well worth it. You're Gonna Get It may well.be the ultimate cruising album. Petty himself thinks the album is too short. Its entire playing time clocks in at less than half an hour, but it still works splendidly. Every song forms a picture in its own right, yet follows a pattern, with each number drifting in and out of the consciousness, like scenes flashing by on the side of a road. This album could have been written in the back of a car. The runaway American Dream, celebrated in Springsteen’s Born To Run, nurtured by Dylan and Kerouac, lives on in Tom Petty. Living for the moment, and nothing else. The influence of the Byrds and the British rock scene is much stronger here than on the first album. The vocal harmonies recall such bands as the Searchers, the guitar work Roger McGuinn in “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better”. Byrds freaks will buy this album for "Listen To Her Heart”. Other songs like "Magnolia” are pure magic, showing Petty to be a truly great rock'singer. Unlike its predecessor, this album does not derive its strength from individual songs. There are no weak links, and You're Gonna Get It stands as a whole project, as well as being a band album, with Petty giving everyone a chance to contribute. Denny Cordell once again produces, and the sound is sparkling clear; obtrusive even at low volume and devastating with the sound turned up. An album that will come into its own during the summer months; that every radio station worth its salt should play. A tribute to a man who refused to be beat by the Label Syndrome. Tom Petty is both a survivor and a realist. "Last year it wasn’t chic to want money,” he says, “I always thought that was bullshit. Money shit, give me all you’ve got. I can have fun with it.” A man with that attitude just has to have something going for him. Tom Petty has also put some much-needed fun back into music. How long since you’ve had some fun?