"Even Walls Fall Down"

So, as everyone in America knows, Tom Petty died.  I usually roll with celebrity deaths without much thought.  I mean, it's always sad but I'm living real life here.  But Tom Petty makes some music that I really like and have for years. Musical preferences and songs and verses and styles that stand out to people are a personal thing and I admit that Tom Petty was one of my first victims back in the file sharing frenzy days of Napster and CD burning in the early 2000's.  Sorry, man, but those songs were so good and being able to have them available to me in my car or on my cd Walkman or just while surfing the Internet on dial-up at the kitchen table or playing in my dorm room really meant a lot.  And don't worry...I have since purchased lots of Tom Petty music the legit way.  I am pretty sure my gateway song was "Free Falling" as it was for many young people I'm sure.

I went into a Wikipedia/Rolling Stone list/old interview black hole last night and, thought again about how I admire so many musicians of the past.  Also, when you start to research you can see how all music is connected and it goes way back to so many common roots.  Tom Petty came from a regular background with the usual 1950's and 60's upbringing where he spent his days not really fitting in because he wasn't like a "regular boy" of the times who liked sports and boy exploits and he endured physical and verbal abuse from his father simply because of this.

Not surprisingly, he felt like music was a possibility after meeting Elvis and becoming a fan and especially after seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.  That was a famous moment in America but I didn't realize how many musicians met a turning point on that night.

If you read about the early lives of Elvis and the Beatles you can see the patterns emerge.  Elvis grew up poor as could be.  His parents couldn't afford a proper burial for his stillborn twin brother and his unmarked grave still hasn't been found.  They lost their two bedroom house and had to move around with relatives and no one liked Elvis's musical style or his voice.  He was teased at school for playing trashy music and sounding like a hillbilly and no one wanted to hear his style that was heavily influenced by traditional African American music.  When he tried to record music he was told he sounded too black until one forward thinking producer thought that since white people seemed to like going to African American clubs to listen to singers on secretive "white only" nights maybe having a white guy who could sing like that might be a good way to make money.  Once Elvis was on the radio his idea proved correct.  I was really interested to read that one of Elvis's most admired singers was a Grammy winning gospel singer named Jake Hess who was born to a sharecropper family as the last of twelve kids and his parents couldn't even get around to picking a name for him so his birth certificate says "ManChild Hess".  His earliest exposure to music was from his father who was...a shapenote singer!  Shapenote singing refers to the Sacred Harp, the traditional music I often refer to and which I only learned about because Bruce Springsteen used it in the background of one of his newer songs "Death to My Hometown".  So many roots...so many connections...

And then the Beatles...just read this article to get an idea of the huge influence they had which I think everyone knows already.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/10-musicians-who-saw-the-beatles-standing-there/

The major theme in the mini-interviews of each of these musicians is that they saw someone not much different than them...and if those skinny guys from the middle of nowhere with absentee fathers who grew up in crummy apartments with public toilets could do it why couldn't they?  It's just interesting how one person defying the odds can inspire so many people-and not just through music. What might we not have if Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel and Gene Simmons hadn't seen that TV show and said, "I know I can do it too! There is a way out of this life!"  I can't think of anyone from my generation (I'm thnking about the 90's and 2000's here) who made a difference like that.  There were some pretty popular groups and singers (if you can all Britney Spears a singer-I really don't think so) but they were mostly following in the footsteps.

It's kind of surprising that Tom Petty died so suddenly.  I don't know about the early days (there are references to Marijuana in his music but I think that is the least of the substances used by many famous people) but in a recent interview he said he maintained his energy and kept his voice fit for touring and performing in his 60's by staying in good shape, eating a good diet, staying away from drinking smoking and avoiding staying up all night at bars.  He also avoided a lot of extra talking while touring and before performing to protect his voice.  I remember reading an article about Bruce Springsteen using a low and quiet voice while on tour also to save his voice for the concert.  Well, what do you know...there is a secret to maintaining youthful energy-kind of-but it still won't protect you from a sudden heart attack.

I think I am going to plug my phone in to the computer and add some more Tom Petty song from my library to it.  There is only so much space on there so I can't have every song by ever artist on there.  I could, but then my phone would be all Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks and a capella Sacred Harp singing with some Lorie Line Christmas Piano music thrown in.  I promise, I do like current music too!   I have to leave some room and when you buy boxed sets they can really take up space!  Tom Petty's music has a very optimistic sound to it and it can usually put a person in a good mood.  Below is a verse from a more recent discovery that isn't played on the radio.

"I don't believe the good times are over, I don't believe the thrill is all gone, real love is a man's salvation, the weak ones fall the strong carry one." -Straight Into Darkness