tom petty - highway companion

.:: Four years after he took Elvis Costello's advice and bit the music/radio biz hands that have simultaneously fed and frustrated him for decades on the scabrous The Last DJ, Tom Petty returned to the studio with more personally introspective matters on his mind. Reuniting with producer/Wilbury sideman Jeff Lynne sans Heartbreakers for his third solo release proper, the veteran doesn't so much retool his trademark sound here as allow it the freedom to roam.

The sonic landscape here is bluesier ("Saving Grace's opening shuffle, the haunting "Turn This Car Around") and more country-fried (the twangy energy of the blue collar lament "Big Weekend"), a return to familiar roots that produces subtly different results this time around. That sensibility now seasons songs as different as the stoned-elegant languor of "Night Driver" and the playful "Jack," where Petty and Lynn give a knowing nod and wink to the contemporary pop milieu. The stately, pop-perfect closer "Golden Rose" may lean on the Beatle-y side of their familiar sound, but it's a cliché the duo use both sparingly and shrewdly throughout, forging one of the veteran's most free-ranging and warmly satisfying efforts in a decade. --Jerry McCulley

In a career that has now reached its thirtieth year, Tom Petty has never made a bad album. Some flirt with greatness, others simply deliver the goods (his last release, 2002's The Last DJ, was actually one of his weaker efforts, weighed down by its grouchy theme), but the man's consistency is pretty astounding. Highway Companion not only keeps his winning streak intact, it even rates above average by these standards.

The album is Petty's third release under his own name, minus the Heartbreakers. Curiously, while his band is among rock's sturdiest units, his previous two solo albums, Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers, were arguably the best Tom Petty discs of all. Highway Companion doesn't reach the towering heights of those two knockouts, but it shares their combination of stylistic range and rock-solid songcraft.

Tom Petty was always slightly hard to peg. When he first emerged from the Florida swamps, it wasn't clear if he was a classic-rock stoner or an edgy New Waver (on his current tour, the opening acts include the Allman Brothers Band and the Strokes). Highway Companion comes out of the gate with this versatility intact -- the opening ZZ Top/John Lee Hooker boogie of "Saving Grace," the first single, is followed by the spare, delicate "Square One." His songs are filled with images of motion, travel and the road; the sharpest writing appears in the cryptic, evocative "Down South," describing a journey that includes plans to "see my daddy's mistress," "sell the family headstones" and "pretend I'm Samuel Clemens/Wear seersuckers and white linens."

The biggest surprise is Jeff Lynne's production. For once, the Electric Light Orchestrator (and Petty's one-time bandmate in the Traveling Wilburys) avoids his signature airless walls of sound and keeps things relatively simple and clean. The album runs out of gas a bit toward the end, with a few too many songs in a row stuck in a midtempo Neil Young-ish lope. But for most of the ride, Highway Companion is worth the trip. -- Alan Light


.:: Después del brillante embite contra la industria musical y radiofónica más comercialoide que Petty había realizado con el previo y estupendo “The Last DJ”, el rubio de Florida asentado en California abandona en los créditos a sus Heartbreakers (aunque Mike Campbell co-produce y toca varios instrumentos en el álbum) para grabar con producción de Jeff Lynne este “Highway Companion”, un disco de trayectos en carretera con transiciones vitales, memorias familiares, introspección, estampas de amores rotos, viajes sureños con citas a Mark Twain…a base de rock de raíces que tanto se inspira en el blues, el folk-rock, el country-rock o el pop, con remembranzas tanto de Bob Dylan como de los Byrds, Neil Young, Beatles, Bo Diddley, The Band o Roy Orbison.

Un artista crecido, nada nuevo en el oficio, y que ofrece una música acorde con su estado de madurez... Éstas son las conclusiones que se pueden sacar una vez que se escucha un disco como Highway Companion, que tiene un sonido apacible y crea atmósferas de melancolía a base de guitarras acústicas. Pese a ello, "Saving Grace", que abre el lp, lo hace con una cierta intensidad la cual se va incrementando hasta alcanzar un sonido más rockero.

Después de este comienzo de fuerte pegada comienzan a llegar los temas lentos con "Square One", que si se escucha estando bajo de ánimos hará que se caiga la lagrimilla. La delicada voz a que nos tiene acostumbrados Petty en los últimos tiempos contribuye a crear todas esas emociones. El comienzo de "Down South" arrastra con una pegadiza melodía con un ritmo poco temperamental, pero sin llegar a una triste lentitud. Otros temas, como "Big Weekend", rezuman aires de country sureño; es una canción que bien podría ser de carretera, recuerda a muchas de sus influencias y a su gusto por esta música tradicional... hace aquí uso de sonidos con slide para guitarra o la armónica.

La colaboración en el disco de algunos Heartbreakers hacen que no suene muy diferente a sus obras anteriores. Aunque no es una grabación altamente destacable dentro de su amplia discografía, merece más de una atenta escucha. Sólo para oídos exquisitos, es un buen acercamiento al músico

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