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Tom Petty has been gone six years now. How can that be?? His death felt personal to me. I saw him in concert for the first time, only months before he died. Tom Petty was an every-man, someone you related to in his songs. His lyrics were what you thought about, he just said them first.

Thankfully, he left us a deep musical library, and his vault hopefully keeps supplying us with unreleased songs. My feeling is that we need his music more than ever.

I happened on this documentary one night recently on Prime, Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free, about the making of his Wildflowers solo album. This album was deeply personal to Petty, as his marriage was falling apart and he needed a break from the Heartbreakers. He sought out Rick Rubin to help produce the sessions that spanned 18 months. Petty also realized it was time to replace drummer Stan Lynch, which was a painful and difficult split.

The documentary consists of footage from the recording sessions, interviews with Petty at the time, live performances and archive film. There are also new interviews with the band, Rubin, Petty’s daughter Adria.

Wildflowers was Petty’s second solo album, although he used Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, and occasionally other Heartbreakers, but Petty was clear he wanted something different from the sound of recent years. Rubin had a different approach than Jeff Lynne, who had worked closely with Petty on the past few albums.

These are not my words, but I couldn’t say it better: “Lyrically mature and musically simple, the record is as deep and personal as it gets from Petty. It ranges from the soft, sweet acoustic to raucous garage rock and all points in between, giving the album a feel that is hard and near impossible to match.” Heath Bartlett wrote that on Allmusic.com as part of user review.

“I didn’t edit myself, I just let it come out,” Petty said about the deluge of songs that were written. He thought about a double album, but Rubin indicated the record company discouraged it. Deciding what not to include took a substantial amount of time. He felt that the rest of the songs still needed to be heard, even the darker ones.

“I broke through to something else. My personal life came crashing down, and it derailed me for a while. But I was at the top of my game during that record,” Petty told Rolling Stone.

Wildflowers was released in 1994 and was the fastest selling album of his career. In 2004, Wildflowers & the Rest was released with the additional songs that had been left out. It was an immediate success, selling the entire inventory. The five CD set contains all the songs recorded during those sessions, demos, live tracks and alternate versions of Wildflower songs.

If you want the definitive documentary about Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Runnin’ Down a Dream, is it.

Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free is both joyous and sad. I miss the dude, but this film really gave me a good feeling. Tom Petty had worked through his struggles and was in a good place. That’s how I like to remember him.

5/5