Marty Stuart on Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers:

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers had its roots in the Gainesville, FL music scene in the 60's consisting of a few small bands competing for gigs at local U of F fraternity houses and other local venues. Tom competed against another band made up of the Jourard brothers, who later rounded out Martha & the Motels. Jeff Jourard was certainly the superior guitarist to the player in Tom's band. In fact Tom asked Jeff to go on tour with his band once everyone moved to California to replace his original guitarist, who was leaving the band, but later returned. So unless you are counting the time when Jeff Jourard played with the Heartbreakers, than I can't see where they were the "greatest band" ever. Tom was surely a great song writer, but his band IMHO are light weights compared to another Florida band, the Allman Brothers, coming out of Ormond Beach FL. If you include Steven Stills also from Gainesville, then you begin to see what Tom and his band were competing against...some of the greatest musicians up and including now. Enjoy the music!!

@jaym759: "Lightweights"---that adjective better characterizes The Heartbreakers than did my use of "unsubstantial."

Another band whose talents don’t rise to the level of the songwriting---imo---are The Attractions. The only Costello album I like enough to own is King Of America, produced by T Bone Burnett, who has great taste in musicians.

The musicians heard on King Of America include the great Earl Palmer, Ray Brown, James Burton, Jerry Scheff, Ron Tutt, Jo-El Sonnier, Mitchell Froom, T-Bone Wolk, Jim Keltner, and David Hildago. Damn!

With a single post you've thrown into doubt every post you've made about music.  I actually thought you knew something.  But to slight the Attractions clearly shows your TIN drum EAR.  They were (and as the Imposters) still are a great band.  Additionally, during his Hall Of Fame acceptance speech Mr. Costello called Bruce Thomas the greatest rock and roll drummer.  So there!  Take it back or I will be forced to write an angry op-ed letter to the New York Times.

BTW, the Attraction also played on "King Of America".

Ha! Yeah, but The Attractions are on only a coupla songs, which I skip. ;-) Just kidding. I loved Costello’s debut (I got the UK Stiff Records import before it was released stateside), not knowing at the time the band was comprised of members of Clover, from my neck-o-the-woods (well, Marin County).

When the follow-up came out, I didn’t care for it at all. The playing on the debut was much more soulful, with a fairly deep pocket; on the follow-up the playing sounds rushed (English drummers are well-known to play at the front edge of the pocket. Ringo was an exception, as was the studio drummer who played on the early Kinks albums.), and "clacky". Plus, I didn’t like the production, the sound of the recordings. Too glassy-sounding, not organic enough for me. Too bad he didn’t have Dave Edmunds produce him instead of Nick Lowe (don’t care for his production style. Edmunds is far more to my liking).

If Costello likes the drumming of Pete Thomas, well, we just have different tastes, and will have to agree to disagree. Pete tensions his drum heads far too tight for me---the drums don’t "breathe". Very shallow tone, no depth. But hey, he’s done alright for himself, hasn’t he? ;-) I felt the exact same way when I heard The Red Hot Cilli Peppers’ drummer on one of the Dixie Chicks albums---he’s playing a piccolo snare drum, the sound of which I despise. Ruined the album for me! And then there is The Attractions bassist (don’t recall his name): he plays a Rickenbacker! How "girly" is that? ;-) Real men play Fenders.

But what really makes The Attractions unlistenable is the cheesy sound of Steve Nieve’s organ. He needs to get himself a Hammond and Leslie! He sounds far too "white" for me, in both tone and style.

As for Costello himself: he’s a mighty fine songwriter, but his vibrato is WAY outta control. Far too much of it; Elvis, baby, just sing the note---stop trying so hard to prove you’re a "good" singer.

onhwy61: Was your Tom Petty and Attractions post written at Desolation Row?