Such had been the case when Petty, Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Petty’s fellow Wilbury, producer Jeff Lynne, had recorded his first solo set, 1989’s Full Moon Fever. Petty’s decision to produce his first Warner full-length as a solo rather than band album was motivated by the desire for a looser framework less tethered to his then six-piece band. That private drama fueled a prolific burst of songwriting marked by a dark tonal shift. His marriage of 18 years was unraveling, held together only by fraying threads of concern for his daughters and guilt over his career’s impact on his family. But his platinum albums, ticket sales and radio hits had come at a personal cost. Dylan, Harrison, Lynne and Orbison in the Traveling Wilburys, and leading his own best-of-breed Heartbreakers. Now in his early 40s, he was rock royalty himself, standing beside Messrs. There were flashes of rock energy in the reliably fine musicianship and familiar sparks of sardonic humor, but Wildflowers’ most distinctive songs revealed glimpses of defeat and exhaustion new to his work.Īs sessions began in 1992, Petty was no longer the scrappy outsider and rock classicist who led his Gainesville, Fla., bandmates to L.A.’s promised land in the mid-’70s. Records contract, the 1994 set offered 15 songs as varied and nuanced as any he would write, unified by an underlying sense of loss. His 10th album and first under a new Warner Bros. Wildflowers is Tom Petty’s finest hour as a recording artist and darkest as a songwriter.

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