Tom Pet­ty, Some­where You Feel Free: The Mak­ing of Wildflowers

Tom Pet­ty has always seemed to imbue the sound of Cen­tral Amer­i­ca in the sort of way a Wrigley’s chew­ing gum ad or a pair of Levi’s 501s might con­jure images of stars and stripes. It might seem an obvi­ous thing to say of the author of ​‘Amer­i­can Girl’, but some­thing in the fab­ric of his music sign­posts its geo­graph­i­cal ori­gins in a way only a few oth­ers share – per­haps Bruce Spring­steen being one of them – in the clas­sic rock canon.

Unlike the Boss, how­ev­er, Pet­ty chose ear­ly on in his career to steer down bold col­lab­o­ra­tive high­ways that extend­ed beyond his pri­ma­ry back­ers, the Heart­break­ers. His sec­ond musi­cal decade was kick-start­ed by par­tic­i­pa­tion in coun­try rock super­group the Trav­el­ing Wilburys along­side Bob Dylan, George Har­ri­son, Roy Orbi­son, and Jeff Lynne. The super­star col­lec­tive burned intense­ly for a brief peri­od, mak­ing two albums in quick suc­ces­sion in 1988 and 1990. Between these two book­ends, Pet­ty still found time to squeeze in a smash hit debut solo album, ​‘Full Moon Fever’, fea­tur­ing sig­na­ture tunes ​‘Free Fallin’’, ​‘I Won’t Back Down’ and ​‘Run­nin’ Down a Dream’.

By the time 1993 rolled into view, the Trav­el­ing Wilburys had reced­ed to the rear-view mir­ror and Pet­ty had resumed life in ‘…and the Heart­break­ers’ mode, but the song­writer was itch­ing to free him­self of the demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­sures of group life once more. With thoughts of a sec­ond solo album brew­ing, he enlist­ed his long time fil­mo­g­ra­ph­er Mar­tyn Atkins to chart the ride. The album would become ​‘Wild­flow­ers’ and, until ear­ly 2020, the 16mm film shot by Atkins between 1993 and 1995 lay dor­mant, gath­er­ing dust. Its dis­cov­ery is a gift beyond the grave for fans of the dear­ly depart­ed Pet­ty, who passed away in 2017 from mixed drug tox­i­c­i­ty aris­ing from pre­scribed medication.

The unearthed mate­r­i­al forms the base for Mary Wharton’s arrest­ing album doc­u­men­tary, Tom Pet­ty, Some­where You Feel Free: The Mak­ing of Wild­flow­ers. With the help of Heart­break­ers Mike Camp­bell, Ben­mont Tench, Steve Fer­rone and pro­duc­er Rick Rubin, present-day rec­ol­lec­tions offer a sup­ple­ment to the archive footage and Whar­ton ensures Petty’s voice and voiceover takes cen­tre stage. ​“At this time in my life, I feel much more com­fort­able being myself… I think I’m a soul singer. Because you have to con­nect with your soul,” the man him­self con­fides over grainy tour bus visuals.

The real­i­ty is that ​‘Wild­flow­ers’ was made in a state of emo­tion­al tur­bu­lence. The tracks telegraphed dete­ri­o­rat­ing mar­i­tal rela­tions with wife Jane Benyo. Even if his con­scious mind refused to accept it, the lyric sheets to ​‘Crawl­ing Back to You’, ​‘Don’t Fade on Me’, ​‘Only a Bro­ken Heart’ and more bear tes­ta­ment to this sad truth. In ret­ro­spect, the album plays like Blood on the Tracks before the decree nisi was draft­ed, let alone its ink dried. It’s a pre-break up, break up album.

As you might expect, it is the stu­dio footage that is the most vis­cer­al here. Ear­ly on, Pet­ty is shown with Tele­cast­er-in-tow etch­ing out a ten­ta­tive, uncer­tain ​‘Climb That Hill’. Lat­er, a more com­plete band ver­sion peels off the screen and speak­ers, scorch­ing it’s dog-eared, woozy blues with steely-eyed intent. Away from the per­for­mances, a grey-haired Rubin – trade­mark beard in place – recounts how he man­aged to per­suade Pet­ty to ditch Jeff Lynne and have him on knob twid­dling duties instead. Pet­ty and Benyo’s daugh­ter, Adria, also pro­vides illu­mi­nat­ing tit­bits, such as how Eddie Ved­der and Kurt Cobain were viewed as kin­dred spir­its by the then 40-year-old rock­er. Pet­ty him­self is a delight too — full of warmth, wry humour, and, rather obvi­ous­ly, tal­ent to spare.

This doc­u­men­tary func­tions as a neat com­pan­ion for admir­ers of the orig­i­nal release, but it’s a per­fect fit for the expand­ed ​‘Wild­flow­ers & All the Rest’, a col­lec­tion released in 2020 that show­cased ​‘Wild­flow­ers’ as Pet­ty (and Rubin) orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed: a dou­ble album. Whar­ton cut her teeth on VH1 Leg­ends and it shows, as this feels not dis­sim­i­lar to the VH1 Clas­sic Album/​Behind the Music doc­u­men­taries of yes­ter­year. But that is no slight on this fan-pleas­ing, visu­al and audio ram­ble through Tom Petty’s ​‘Wild­flow­ers’. It’s a film that sim­ply enhances the feel­ing that Amer­i­ca has been pre­ma­ture­ly deprived of one of its finest musi­cal ambas­sadors. Irre­spec­tive of loca­tion, how­ev­er, we’re all poor­er with­out him.

Tom Pet­ty, Some­where You Feel Free: The Mak­ing of Wild­flow­ers is in cin­e­mas 20 Octo­ber for a one-night glob­al cel­e­bra­tion via Trafal­gar Releas­ing. For more info vis­it tom​pet​ty​film​.com