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Sat 9 August 2025 17:30, UK
Tom Petty always liked being in a band rather than on his own. It’s fun to soak up the attention, but even if he had session players, nothing beat what the Heartbreakers could do together. But some of the heartland rocker’s favourite albums he made didn’t even have all of his band behind him.
Considering his role as the lead singer, though, Petty rarely showed the same kind of toxic frontman traits that everyone else did. There’s no shortage of frontman who have fallen victim to Lead Singer Disease more than once, but Petty was a bandleader before anything else, and even if he had a few dustups with drummer Stan Lynch now and again, there was no reason to think that he would have any issues when everyone was on the same page before the song even started.
That also extended to how he approached music in his earliest years. Elvis Presley was a pipe dream idea for him, but when he saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show, he knew that was something that seemed possible. Those guys looked like they were having fun, and when he put together the band Mudcrutch, he figured he would try his hand at putting a southern spin on those British Invasion songs he loved so much.
While the band itself died before they even had a proper record out, that kind of camaraderie never left Petty’s mind. He loved the Heartbreakers like brothers, but after coming off a rough patch in the early 2000s and rebounding on albums like Highway Companion, he figured it was time for him to give the band another shot. And when he teamed up with Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh again, it was like they never left the rehearsal rooms in 1972.
Mudcrutch was always going to be a side project for Petty, but he always felt that it gave him the rush he had when aspiring to be The Beatles, saying, “That record was one of the most pure records I’ve ever been involved with. I really liked that record, and I love being with those people—a very happy bunch of people and old, old friends. There’s nothing like being friends and being in a band, that’s the most attractive part of it to me.”
But of all the songs on the record, the riskiest chances they took were when Petty relinquished his vocal duties to the rest of the band. Everyone had become used to Benmont Tench as the one breaking out those classic keyboard lines, but hearing him sing tracks like ‘This Is A Good Street’ gave the album some character, alongside Leadon taking the reins on tunes like ‘Queen of the Go-Go Girls’.
Since the band also had a country twang to them, the more interesting detours on the record are incredibly fun. Opening up with the bluegrass staple ‘Shady Grove’ helped endear them to the country crowd, and using the interlude ‘June Apple’ is a lovely piece of traditional guitar playing, complete with harmonies that could have given the Allman Brothers a run for their money back in the day.
It may have been released in 2008, but Mudcrutch feels more like a snapshot in time than a proper band. This was the kind of group that emerged from the alternate timeline when the Heartbreakers never got together, but even Petty never wrote classics like ‘Refugee’, he still had a decent group to fall back on.
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