Marty Stuart on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers:

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. 

@onhwy61: The Blasters---now we’re talkin’! I saw them live many times, including in the mid-80’s when they backed Big Joe Turner on his last appearance in L.A., at Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd.. Little Richard’s tenor sax man Lee Allen was in the band then, as was of course Blasters lead guitarist and songwriter Dave Alvin. The last time I saw them was in 2003, at an outdoor Rockabilly festival held in SoCal , complete with a Vintage Car show. Lots of pompadours (on the guys), short bangs (on the gals)---Rockabilly chicks are SO hot ;-) , tats, piercings, and cuffed jeans were plentiful amongst the audience members. I performed on a smaller stage in an instrumental trio at that show prior to The Blasters set.

And Los Lobos: Also in the mid-80’s I went to see Peter Case’s pre-solo career group The Plimsouls at a tiny "club" on Ventura Blvd. named The Garage (it was an actual garage, a converted car repair shop). My gal and I got there in time to hear the opening act---whose name was unfamiliar to me---start their set. As soon as they did. she and I looked at each other in utter disbelief, our mouths agape. They were INCREDIBLE! It was of course Los Lobos, of whom I became an instant fan. By the way, their upcoming new album---due out shortly---is a tribute to THEIR roots. Can’t wait to hear it!

Speaking of a roots-tribute album: The Band’s 1973 album Moondog Matinee is comprised of recordings of songs they had performed in their early-60’s live shows, when they were named The Hawks. An "oldies" album unlike any you’ve heard before or since. Even after becoming The Band, they continued to perform Little Richard’s "Slippin’ And Slidin’’’ and Marvin Gaye’s "Baby Don’t Do It" (an incredible version opens their great live album Rock Of Ages) in their live shows. Can you picture Tom Petty singing either of those songs? ;-)

But hey, a favorite artist of mine---Lucinda Williams---thinks highly enough of Petty to record an album of his songs.