Buried Treasure: Remembering Tom Petty
Photo by Richard E. Aaron
There are very few artists I can’t remember “discovering,” and Tom Petty is one of them. He and his voice have always been a part of my life. Every October, the month of his birth and death, I find myself thinking about him again. He’s my mom’s favorite artist, so it’s no surprise that many of my childhood car rides were filled with his gravelly voice, strange stories, and the sound effects of Tom Petty’s Buried Treasure on SiriusXM.
Born in Gainesville, Florida, Tom Petty devoted himself to music early on. He dropped out of school at 17 to pursue it full-time and later moved to Los Angeles, where he formed Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Their first single came out in 1976, but success didn’t come right away. I was surprised to learn that one of my favorite songs, “American Girl,” didn’t even chart until it was re-released in the 1990s. His real breakthrough came in 1981, when he teamed up with Stevie Nicks on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” which reached no. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. “Free Fallin’” followed in 1989, and by the early 1990s, Petty had become a household name with “Into the Great Wide Open” and Greatest Hits, the latter going twelve-times platinum and staying on the charts for more than six years.
Despite his success, Petty struggled personally, including with a heroin addiction he overcame in the early 2000s. Even so, his later years were marked by numerous accomplishments. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002, performed at the Super Bowl halftime show in 2008, and in 2014 released his first charting No. 1 album, Hypnotic Eye. In 2017, just a week after finishing his 40th anniversary tour, he died from an accidental overdose. He would have turned 75 on October 20 of this year.
My mom, like so many fans, never got to see him live. It was always “next time,” until there wasn’t one. But in May of my senior year of high school, she and I saw Stevie Nicks perform at a music festival. Before her set, a few of Tom Petty’s songs played through the speakers, and we were thrilled just to hear them in a concert setting. Then Stevie began talking about Tom, and suddenly she started singing “Free Fallin’” as photos of the two of them appeared behind her. In the short video I took (I tried to just be in the moment, but couldn’t resist), you can hear my mom and me singing along, loud and emotional.
Still, it wasn’t the same as seeing him live, and I wish I could give my mom the feeling of watching her favorite artist in person, as I have. But sharing even a small glimpse of what it might have been like to see Tom perform—a moment filled with his spirit and her joy—felt incredibly special.
If you haven’t listened to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers yet, pause whatever you’re doing and queue up some of my favorites that haven’t been mentioned: “Mary Jane’s Last Dance,” “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” “Don’t Do Me Like That,” and “Yer So Bad.” You’ll thank me later.
