Tom Petty was a massive fan of The Beatles rising up and had the chance to play in a band with George Harrison as an grownup. Earlier than they started collaborating on music, although, Petty mentioned they fashioned a near-instant friendship. He regarded to Harrison as a brother. He was significantly grateful for this relationship as a result of he mentioned that it got here at a time in his life when he most wanted a pal.
George Harrison invited Tom Petty to play within the Touring Wilburys
The Touring Wilburys had been a supergroup that got here collectively accidentally. Harrison wanted assist recording a tune, so he recruited ELO’s Jeff Lynne to assist him. They wanted a studio, and quick, so that they reached out to Bob Dylan, who had one in his storage. When he stopped by Petty’s home to retrieve his guitar, the Heartbreakers musician needed in. The group later recruited Roy Orbison, who initially simply needed to observe Harrison and Lynne’s recording session.
Petty, the youngest member of the band, couldn’t consider his luck at recording with a number of of his heroes.
“I was so excited, I couldn’t go to sleep,” he instructed Mass Live in 2007.
The Heartbreakers’ frontman was grateful for the opposite musician’s friendship
Earlier than cobbling collectively the Wilburys, Harrison and Petty had fashioned a straightforward friendship.
“Almost as soon as we met them, we spent more time with Tom and Jane Petty than with anyone but the Keltners,” Harrison’s spouse Olivia instructed Warren Zanes within the e-book Petty: The Biography. “They were family.”
For Petty, the friendship with Harrison couldn’t have come at a higher time. His marriage to his spouse Jane Benyo was rocky at finest, and relations with the Heartbreakers had grown tense.
“I think I needed a friend really badly,” Petty mentioned. “My friendship with the band was a different kind of friendship. And it was frayed. I’d become very lonely. George came along, and we got so close; it was like we had known each other in some other life or something. We were pals within minutes of meeting each other.”
Petty defined that Harrison made it clear that he needed the friendship to final.
“I remember him saying to me a couple days after we’d known each other — he’s hugging me, holding me, and saying, ‘Tommy, you’re in my life now whether you like it or not.’ It was like I’d been sent the very person I needed. He healed a lot of wounds.”
George Harrison helped Tom Petty together with his music
Even outdoors of the Wilburys, Harrison helped Petty together with his music. When Petty was engaged on “I Won’t Back Down,” one of the vital enduring songs of his profession, he had second ideas about releasing it.
“It was a little embarrassing,” he instructed Billboard in 2005. “I thought, ‘Should I put this out?’ It’s so damn literal, there’s nowhere to hide in this song. Jeff [Lynne] and Mike [Campbell] liked it.”
In the end, Harrison’s opinion helped change Petty’s thoughts.
“It was George Harrison that put it over the top,” he defined. “He played guitar and sang on it, and he took me aside and said, ‘This is really good, I really like this song.’ And then I thought, ‘Well, if all of them like it, then I’m going to put it out.’”
Tom Petty Mentioned George Harrison By no means Left With out Saying How A lot He Cherished Him