Tom Petty: Back Home Again
By Bill DeYoung
Gainesville Sun - Friday, October 29, 1993
It was just about 20 years ago that Tom Petty said goodbye to the old hometown. Along with the four other guys in the band Mudcrutch, he threw his gear in a van and left Gainesville forever. His goal was to become rich and famous.
Oddly enough, that's exactly what happened.
What a long strange trip it's been for Tom Petty, the skinny, scruffy blond kid from the northeast section of town. He's 43 now, an internationally recognized rock star who counts Bob Dylan and two ex-Beatles among his best friends.
Still, he remains closest to the Heartbreakers, most of whom he's known and played with since his nightclubbing days in Florida.
Music: Tom Petty looks back at Heartbreakers' past, days in Gainesville
By Bill DeYoung
Lakeland Ledger - Friday, October 29, 1993
It was just about 20 years ago that Tom Petty said goodbye to the old hometown. Along with the four other guys in the band Mudcrutch, he threw his hear in a van and left Gainesville forever. His goal was to become rich and famous.
Oddly enough, that's exactly what happened.
What a long strange trip it's been for the skinny, scruffy blond kid from the northeast section of town. He's 43 now, an internationally recognized rock star who counts Bob Dylan and two ex-Beatles among his best friends.
Still, he remains closest to the Heartbreakers, most of whom he's known and played with since his nightclubbing days in Florida.
For Tom Petty, this is a year for looking back. Out next week is his first-ever greatest hits album, including his best-loved tracks with the Heartbreakers, songs from his hugely successful solo album, "Full Moon Fever," and two new Heartbreakers numbers recorded just for the occasion. A boxed-set anthology is in the works.
Gators have a Petty Party: Petty, Heartbreakers wow crowd
By James Hellegaard
Gainesville Sun - November 5, 1993
One of Gainesville's own came home Thursday night. And oh, what a welcome he received.
With a near-capacity O'Connell Center crowd responding to every song like a game-winning touchdown, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers presented an inspiring two-hour concert that had their fans dancing and shimmying with joyous abandon.
Playing a variety of songs from their 17-year recording career, including a half-dozen songs that have yet to be released, Petty and his favorite bandmates reveled in the warm reception. The more than 9,000 fans sounded like a crowd twice that size, excited by the music of their hometown boys and keyed up about the show being broadcast live to a radio audience of almost 5 million listeners.
Revolutions: Petty cashes in
By Dave Molter
Washington Observer-Reporter - Monday, December 13, 1993
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers | Greatest Hits | ★★★
The title of this release says it all. Since 1979, when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers broke through with "Damn the Torpedoes" the band has turned out some mighty fine rock. This 18-track compilation is indispensable to serious Pettyphiles.
All the band's hits are here: "Breakdown"; "Listen to Her Heart," (with the great line, "You think you're gonna take her away, with your money and your cocaine."); "Refugee"; "Don't Do Me Like That"; "Even the Losers"; "Free Fallin'"; and more. There are also two new tracks, "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and "Something in the Air," a remake of the 1969 release that made Thunderclap Newman a one-hit wonder.
Editor’s Note: This is an Italian article and my translation of it. If you actually know Italian and would like to improve it, please contact me.
Original Italian:
Kim Basinger " cadavere " in videoclip
Corriere Della Sera - December 17, 1993
la rockstar Tom Petty ha completato il nuovo videoclip per il suo singolo " Mary Jane' s last dance " : protagonista e' Kim Basinger che interpreta la parte di un cadavere
LOS ANGELES . Con umorismo nero la rockstar Tom Petty ha completato il nuovo videoclip per il suo singolo "Mary Jane' s last dance", tratto dalla raccolta "Greatest Hits", che in USA ha gia' superato il milione di copie vendute. Coprotagonista e' Kim Basinger che interpreta la parte di un cadavere. Su un tavolo di obitorio Petty trova il corpo di Kim: invaghito, se lo porta a casa (simile a quella di Norman Bates in "Psycho" di Hitchcock) e, dopo averlo vestito e truccato, si abbandona con esso in un valzer.
English Translation:
Kim Basinger plays corpse in videoclip
Corriere Della Sera - December 17, 1993
Rock star Tom Petty has completed the new video for his single, "Mary Jane's Last Dance;" the protagonist, Kim Basinger, plays the part of a corpse.
LOS ANGELES -- With black humor, rock star Tom Petty has completed the new video for his single "Mary Jane's Last Dance," from the "Greatest Hits" collection, which in the U.S. has already sold over a million copies. Co-star Kim Basinger plays the part of a corpse. Petty finds the body of Basinger on a morgue table; infatuated, he takes her home (similiar to Norman Bates in Hitchcock's "Psycho") and after dressing and making her up, he walzes with her.
Scene Around: Last dance
By Bill DeYoung
Gainesville Sun - December 17, 1993
Have you caught a glimpse of "Mary Jane's Last Dance," the video for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' new song? That makes the Mad Hatter stuff in "Don't Come Around Here No More" look like a romp through the daisies with Clifford the Big Red Dog.
The film (there is no lip-synching) takes place in a morgue, among dead bodies on steel tables; Petty slips out the door with a body bag containing -- are you ready -- Kim Basinger! He drives her home, dresses her up and sweetly romances her with dinner and dancing.
She's dead the whole time, mind you, her head flopping lifelessly from side to side. It does add a somber new dimension to the song lyrics, which seems to be about a small-town girl who runs into trouble in the big city. Brilliant metaphor or twisted nonsense? You decide!
"Mary Jane," directed by New Zealander Keir McFarlane, premiered on MTV on Wednesday. The Heartbreakers do not appear in the clip.
Is this possible this is the same Kim Basinger who refused to do "Boxing Helena" because it would've been too weird for her image?
Tom Petty ponders 'growing up' in public
By Kira L. Billik
Santa Cruz Sentinel - December 26, 1993
Tom Petty says his new greatest hits collection, which includes music from his 18-years with the Heartbreakers and some solo material, traces not only musical development, but personal growth.
"I've certainly seen a lot more of life—you take in so much information that your head hurts sometimes," the reserved, Gainesville, Fla.-born Petty said in an interview from Los Angeles.
"But I think that's probably the biggest influence on work. You have to live life in order to write songs. You can't close yourself off. I don't have the patience anymore to sit and sweat writing songs."
Greatest Hits -- Tom Petty and the Heart Breakers (MCA)
Review by Chris Hoyt
The Gateway - January 11, 1994
Tom Petty. Relic of the seventies. Embodiment of all things Californian. Freak. Damn cool musician. Now he and the Heartbreakers have put out their first greatest hits album. What a piece!
Containing fully eighteen (18) almost exclusively incredible tracks, the album spans the years from 1976 right up to 1993 -- Tom and Mike Campbell produced two more songs for this album, "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and "Something In The Air" (how these two qualify as 'greatest hits,' never having been released before, I'm not sure.) The resulting mix illustrates very well the transitions and phases the band has gone through, from the early ... uh ... stuff right up to the acoustic years of Full Moon Fever and Into the Great Wide Open and beyond, right back to plugged.
What's Hot, What's Not
By Steven H. Scheuer
Eugene Register-Guard - January 23, 1994
TOM PETTY: GOING HOME (9 p.m., Disney)
An insightful look at both the ups and downs of the career of rocker Tom Petty. In the kid-'70s, Petty and The Heartbreakers first caught the attention of record producer Denny Cordell, who recalls Petty's true rock 'n' roll style standing out among the influx of disco. Petty and band members reminisce about starting out together, their initial success in London and eventual recognition and success in the United States. Along the way there were battles with recording labels, as well as personal tragedies that took their toll. Highlights include studio segments; a duo with Stevie Nicks; and Petty and George Harrison talking about The Traveling Wilburys. There is particularly interesting footage of Petty and Harrison working with fellow original Wilburys, Bob Dylan and Roy Orbison.