Okay, 2017 has been one hell of a year for music fans, but this past week has been just too much for anybody.

Like most others, I woke up Monday morning to hear of the mass-slayings in Nevada. Something like that takes significant reflection before it can even sink in, and as the horror really started to reveal itself, the news of Tom Petty’s death came over the wire, made worse by the fact that the announcement was premature. All of this combined to leave me dumbfounded.

For the past forty years, it felt as though a week could not pass without hearing a Tom Petty song in some context. He was one of the most popular performers in America, defining the very term ‘pop music’ for many. The trick is that he did so while maintaining dignity and respectability. He never sold out. He stayed cool under any circumstance, and his public persona was one of bemusement, as though he genuinely enjoyed every aspect of his life. That alone could ascribe him as a contemporary hero of mine, even if I rarely played his music (I didn’t need to, as the radio certainly had him well covered for the past few decades).

One of the underlying sadnesses of his passing was that it felt so untimely. Not this guy. Not now. Because of the sickening story that had still been unfolding from Las Vegas, Petty’s death got less coverage than it otherwise should have. For the first time in forty years, Petty was getting less airplay than he deserved. This show is our very small attempt to correct that slight, and to pay homage to another one of the greats that we lost in this miserable year for music history. We lost Tom. We have his music to sustain us while history rolls on. I will be grateful for that, and look forward to hearing “Free Fallin’” for another thirty years.

Featured tracks include;

American Girl

Breakdown

I Need to Know

Listen To Her Heart

Refugee

Here Comes My Girl

The Waiting

You Got Lucky

Free Fallin’

End of the Line