Marty Stuart on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers:

@roxy54:

Thanks for your kind words. In retrospect, I believe I presented the differences in too much of a black-and-white fashion.  After all, every songwriter has to have a "journalistic" eye for detail as well as a sense of how the present moment relates to larger themes. This doesn't mean I've changed my mind about my basic premise, though. 

@bdp24:

Thanks for the positive affirmation. Although I personally prefer the Band's music to T. Petty's, I've never really thought very deeply about why that might be. I'd tend to agree that The Band's traditional influences were much more evident-- whether this means that T. Petty lacked such a foundation, I cannot say. T. Petty pretty much sounds to me like a Rock guy, through and through, whereas The Band sound like many older styles mixed up and fltered through a Country/Blues/Jazz sensibility. They sound like they have very deep roots that go way back before Rock-- perhaps this is my way of expressing something akin to your comments about T. Petty being "less substantial".  

Like anyone else, I have my prejudices and they no doubt prevent me from appreciating aspects of T. Petty that might be obvious to his fans. I've never owned any T. Petty albums but The Band's "brown album" has been a steady companion since the mid 70's, so I'm far from objective!

Agree @stuartk. It just occurred to me that another element to remember is that The Band are actually from a generation before Petty and his guys---The Band of the 50’s, Petty of the 60’s. That was one reason Petty seemed out of place to me in The Travelling Wilburys; Tom seemed like a kid in a group of adults.

By the time of Petty’s debut, I had already followed the musical path back to the origins of what lead to Rock ’n’ Roll: The Carter Family in Hillbilly---onward to Hank Williams and the other late-40’s/early-50’s Hillbilly singers (including Lefty Frizzell, whose "Long Black Veil" The Band included on Music From Big Pink), and the Jump Blues of the 40’s and early-50’s (Joe Turner, Louis Jordan, Big Jay McNeely), from which Elvis "borrowed" much of his early sound and style.

And you’re right---The Band’s music reveals all those influences, and more. Petty & THB sound like they had heard nothing before The British Invasion---very shallow roots. I don’t know what it was like in Florida (Petty’s stomping grounds), but in the Bay Area (mine), Roots music was what all serious musicians were diving into.

Jerry Garcia was playing Bluegrass in Palo Alto (just a few miles north on the El Camino Real from my hometown of Cupertino) before forming a Rock band, his future-buddy David Grisman doing the same in Mill Valley (across the bay from San Francisco). In the early-70’s we had Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks, Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen, Asleep At The Wheel, The Electric Flag (with Mike Bloomfield), Charlie Musselwhite (with the great Robben Ford on guitar. He later worked with Joni Mitchell, Miles Davis, and George Harrison, and was in The Yellowjackets. Damn!), Maria Muldaur, and so many more superior artists.

After hearing all them live in clubs and on record (plus all the bands and artists Bill Graham brought into The Fillmore Auditorium and Winterland---Albert King and other such masters), Petty seemed like a light-weight! Yet, to me, Twilley doesn’t. He has a distinct-1950’s influence evident in his music that is absent in Petty’s. Perhaps it’s just that I’m more fond of 50’s music, Petty of 60’s.

@bdp24:

Wow-- you were certainly in the right place at the right time!

I grew up in NY state and Woodstock was close by, but I was just a little too young (in jr. H. S.) at the time. 

The father of one of my classmates was an MD and he had the disctinction of treating Henmdrix for something (don't recall what) before his performance.

You make an excellent point about the generation gap-- that explains  a lot. 

Can't say I'm a big Tom Petty fan, but the man and the band are extremely well respected by other musicians.  They have contributed to a wide range of other artists' recordings.  Additionally, longevity (or should I say survival) at the top of the rock heap is not to be underrated.  Petty and the Heartbreakers did that for three decades.  I prefer the Blasters, Little Feat, Parliment/Funkadelics or Los Lobos, but that's just my personal taste.

One thing that caught me interest in Petty as a person was the whole "Southern Accents" record and tour.  It was a quasi-concept album about Petty's vision of the South.  The tour prominently featured the Confederate battle flag and people coming to his concerts wore it, displayed it and waved it too.  Petty later came to regret his use of the flag and then actually asked his fans to not bring it to his concerts.  Here's a link to an article about this.

... and of course, there have always been players who've had a more scholarly/musicological bent--  Bloomfield and Garcia, for example. 

I've seen R. Ford a half dozen times. The only time I saw J. Mitchell was when I lived in Santa Barbara-- I saw the show with Metheny, Brecker, et al that was released as "Shadows and Light". Never saw Albert but saw Freddie and BB. Saw the Dead just a few times-- '73, '74, '77, '78 and a couple times in the eighties in Maine (don't recall the years). I was fortunate that Santa Barbara in the mid-70's was a paradise for live music. Everything from Leo Kotke to Ravi Shankar to Otis Rush to Oregon to Les McCann, Return to Forever, Bonnie Raitt, Santana, Bill Evans (the piano player), Jean Luc Ponty, Pat Metheny, Emmy Lou Harris. . . the list goes on and on. 

I'm not familiar with D. Twilley's music. I was born in '56 and when I think of "50's music" I tend to think of Sha Na Na type stuff.