I was listening to The Live Anthology from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers while doing the hobby geek thing of soldering my strat project, when the song “Crawling Back to You” reminded me of Springsteen’s “Spirits in the Night.” (Incidentally, I just heard Springsteen is being honored with DeNiro and someone else at the Kennedy Center tonight.)
“Spirits in the Night is on the ’73 release Greetings from Asbury Park, still one of my preferred Springsteen releases. The Petty & the Heartbreakers Anthology is my new fave of the moment because the audio quality is very good, the song selections entertain and reveal the band’s influences and plain old sense of fun (“Goldfinger is really nice,) it communicates the joy they took in performing and showcases the major talent on all instruments contributing to that musical synergy thing. I mean, you can listen to a track over and over, each time focusing on a different instrument and hearing the care they took to make things work. And by the way, when I say “instruments,” I’m including Petty’s voice and delivery. There are times I think Petty is what Bob Dylan wanted to be from time to time — able to control the voice and rock hard, to handle blues, country and rock without hesitation.
This concludes my Sunday morning babbling.
