(Credits: Far Out / Ирина Лепнёва)
Tue 2 September 2025 19:00, UK
As a music lover, very little comes close to losing a Beatle, but arguably worse than that was when Tom Petty had to face losing George Harrison.
For Petty, Harrison wasn’t just a musical genius and a close friend. He was a genuine hero, someone who was a pivotal figure in his own world as much as a creative mentor. The Beatles were a definitive presence for Petty before he even met them, and so you can only imagine how he must have felt not only at crossing paths later, but being in a supergroup with Harrison himself.
The Traveling Wilburys were lightning in a bottle, a one-time-only thing that only happened because of some sort of divine intervention. Well, divine intervention in the form of Harrison, who once planted the seed for some sort of otherworldly musical collaboration during the creation of Cloud Nine. Just two months in, Harrison turned to Jeff Lynne and spoke his dream into existence. “We should have a group, me and you,” he said.
Soon enough, Petty, Harrison and Lynne joined forces with Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison to focus on the parts of their stories they knew well – traditional rock ‘n’ roll. From there, everything more or less fell into place, and their jam sessions became prophecies for new standards of genius-driven rock. But believe it or not, Petty’s love for Harrison didn’t solely stem from his time in the Traveling Wilburys, nor did it come from being a musical lover observing from afar.
Petty had met Harrison for the first time somewhere in the 1970s, but his favourite meeting with his hero came later in the 1980s during a birthday party when Harrison brought out a cake for him. He hadn’t entirely remembered their first meeting, but that was neither here nor there, not when celebrations ensued with Petty central to a group party that included Harrison, along with Lynne, Dylan, and Roger McGuinn and Mike Campbell.
“I reminded him that we’d met, and there was some kind of weird click,” Petty recalled fondly to Rolling Stone in 2002. “It felt like we had known each other all our lives, and in a very personal way. We wound up just hanging a lot. I have a great photo somewhere, it was my birthday, and George brought a little cake to my dressing room.”
“[It was] all of my favourite people right there, and it was all so sweet,” he continued. “I think Ringo was there as well. That night there was a surprise hurricane in London, and my life never felt the same again after that hurricane.”
Harrison ended up staying with Petty for a while in LA, which was a strange development considering it was completely impromptu, and Petty had been looking around for Harrison’s number afterwards so that they could connect. But again, divine intervention in the form of Harrison brought him to Petty’s doorstep, and thus ensued a musical camaraderie that spanned several years.
But one of Petty’s favourite things, weirdly, wasn’t his musical abilities. There was that, too, of course. But he also had a charm about him, a humbleness that thought of others in any situation he found himself in. The kind of expected consideration or sensitivity that had Campbell once saying, “George was the only kind of friend I knew who would bring you a gift every time he saw you.”
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