Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty
opens with
Chris Stapleton
stomping through "I Should Have Known It," a song buried on
Mojo
, a blues album
Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers
released late in their career. By beginning this tribute album with such a deep cut, the team behind
Petty Country
-- it's executive produced by
George Drakoulias
,
Randall Poster
, and
Scott Borchetta
with the cooperation of a
Petty
estate supervised by his daughter
Adria
-- signal that the record is coming from a place of deep knowledge and love. The rest of this hefty tribute -- it spans 20 songs, running a full 76 minutes -- proves this to be true, alternating between imaginative reinterpretations and faithful renditions of familiar hits, offering a testament to the resilience of the songbook of
.
Justin Moore
boasts his way through "Here Comes My Girl,"
Brothers Osborne
deliver "I Won't Back Down" with resolve,
Midland
replicates the after-hours ramble of "Mary Jane's Last Dance,"
Dolly Parton
retains the bittersweetness of "Southern Accents," and
Luke Combs
sings "Runnin' Down a Dream" from his gut. The real fun in
lies in the cuts where the musicians get a little loose, whether it's
Marty Stuart and His Fabulous Superlatives
barreling through "I Need to Know,"
Steve Earle
steering "Yer So Bad" away from rockabilly toward hillbilly, or
Rhiannon Giddens
leaning into the unsettling undertones of "Don't Come Around Here No More" with the assistance of
Benmont Tench
's longtime keyboardist. He's not the only
Heartbreaker
here, either. Guitarist
Mike Campbell
tears through "Ways to Be Wicked" -- a tune he and
gave to
Lone Justice
back in 1985 -- with
Margo Price
in what perhaps is the quintessential moment on
: it's pitched precisely between rock and country, the past and the present, a song that sounds simultaneously eternal and fresh. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine