Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of… | Little White Lies

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

20 Oct 2021 / Released: 20 Oct 2021

Words by Greg Wetherall

Directed by Mary Wharton

Starring Howie Epstein, Mike Campbell, and Tom Petty

Smiling male musician in denim jacket playing acoustic guitar on stage.
Smiling male musician in denim jacket playing acoustic guitar on stage.
4

Anticipation.

Found footage of the most precious kind.

4

Enjoyment.

Studio time with Petty for his favourite and fastest-selling album, enhanced by survivor accounts.

4

In Retrospect.

Cleaves close to a VH1 style, but a must for fans.

This new­ly unearthed chron­i­cle of the mak­ing of the Amer­i­can singer-songwriter’s favourite album is a gift for fans.

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

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