Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers
Classic Albums: Damn The Torpedoes
Eagle Rock DVD
www.eaglerockent.com
By George W. Harris

My friend Kevin got me hooked on these TV broadcasts on how certain classic albums were put together. Eagle Rock has put out an incisive dvd that features the show about Tom Petty’s Damn The Torpedoes, and includes an extra 40+ minutes of bonus material to boot.

The premise of these shows is pure genius in its simplicity: gather together the musicians and produces who are still alive (and coherent enough) to recreate the genesis, mood and implications of their most important artistic creation.

When their third record was about to be made in 1979, the musical world was beholden to the Philistine sounds of Disco, and TPATH were beholden to a miasma of legal issues in which the future of the band was at stake. Under these circumstances, the band of Floridian childhood friends detail how they gave it all they got to play their mix of “blues and Beatles.” Mike Campbell discusses his famed 12 stringed Rickenbacker like a college professor, while the avuncular Benmont Tench keeps the music and band in its perspective. A Jeremiah Jones-ish Petty is his usual laid back but musically convicted self as he and his buddies reflect on the early days at the Whiskey A Go Go to how their music was made more anthematic by the various legal trials. There is always growth in persecution, as many a pilgrim could note; these guys stayed true to their calling, and this dvd is a testament to tenacity. Admiral Farragut would be proud