Next October will mark the 10-year anniversary of Tom Petty’s death, just one week after the conclusion of his 40th anniversary tour with the Heartbreakers. Throughout that time, members of his band have played together on special occasions, but never the full lineup, and never billing themselves as the Heartbreakers. That changes Wednesday night when founding members Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch, and Ron Blair will perform with Chris Stapleton to open the Americana Awards before receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award.
At the end of the show, they’ll be joined by latter-day Heartbreakers Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston. The reunion performance comes at the same time the Tom Petty estate rolled out plans for a new box set, Origins 1971-1978, chronicling the formative years of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The box set — available as a four-disc or five-LP set, each one with a bonus Blu-ray and DVD — is packed with previously unreleased material, and contains collaborations with Al Kooper, Leon Russell, Jim Gordon, and Emory Gordy.
It comes out November 6, but you can hear a preview of the unreleased track “Parade Out Loons” right now. There’s also a video for the song starring Young Sheldon actor Iain Armitage. The box set begins with No Sleep Til L.A., which cobbles together the material Petty recorded, with and without his early band Mudcrutch, after moving from his hometown of Gainesville, Florida, to Los Angeles in 1971.
Seven of the tracks have never appeared on an official release. The package wraps up with a DVD of the band’s appearance on The Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978. It was an experience so powerful that five decades later we could still remember every chord, every song, every solo.” The vinyl edition of Origins 1971-1978 comes with an 88-page fanzine containing liner notes by Bud Scoppa and longtime Rolling Stone writer David Fricke.
One year after Petty’s death, Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell predicted that the group would play again at some point. Nobody can fill those shoes. I can’t fill them and I don’t know anybody else that I would want to fill them.” At the time, he was more intrigued by the idea of the Heartbreakers backing another musician in the studio.
But that’s just pie-in-the-sky talk. But it definitely would have to be all new material. It wouldn’t be going out and doing Heartbreakers songs without Tom.
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