ow old?! Actor Al Molinaro ("Happy Days") is 87. Drummer Mick
Fleetwood...
how old?!

Actor Al Molinaro ("Happy Days") is 87. Drummer Mick Fleetwood of
Fleetwood Mac is 64. Guitarist Jeff Beck is 62. Actress Nancy Allen
is 56. Actor Joe Penny ("Jake and the Fatman") is 50. Bassist Curt
Smith of Tears for Fears is 45. Actress Danielle Spencer ("What's
Happening") is 41. Actress Sherry Stringfield ("ER") is 39.

— Associated Press
*********************************************************************
State firm to distribute Sony songs
Posted: June 23, 2006
Musicnotes Inc. in Madison has reached an agreement to distribute
the Sony/ATV Music Publishing catalog in digital sheet music form.

Advertisement

Among the artists whose music will be available on the
Musicnotes.com Web site will be the Beatles, Beck, Sarah McLachlan,
Richie Sambora, Gretchen Wilson, Stevie Nicks, Oasis, KT Tunstall
and Fall Out Boy.

"The addition of Sony/ATV's song catalog to our site is wonderful
news for our customers," said Kathleen Marsh, Musicnotes chief
executive officer. "These songs represent some of the best-known and
adored works of all time, and we are extremely excited to work with
Sony/ATV in allowing musicians to learn to play these works using
our market-leading format."

The agreement also means that Musicnotes will offer guitarists a
wide selection of interactive lessons for Sony/ATV's songs in
Musicnotes' popular Guitar Guru Sessions format.

*********************************************************************
MUSIC REVIEW
Petty delivers the hits and more
By Jonathan Perry, Globe Correspondent | June 23, 2006

MANSFIELD -- Somewhere along the line when we all weren't looking --
maybe we were paying attention to flashy stadium superstars or
frothing over indie-rockers with cool haircuts -- Tom Petty became a
rock 'n' roll institution. And yet somehow, that description seems
too ossified, too staid for a twinkle-eyed rascal like Petty. Or
maybe, it doesn't seem applicable to a rock dreamer who still so
obviously, so fervently, believes in the dream.

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year, Petty and his brilliant band the Heartbreakers are celebrating
their 30th anniversary as one of the finest, most enduring outfits
in rock 'n' roll. Already in possession of a treasure chest filled
with pop jewels about American girls and free-falling refugees,
Petty didn't need a two-hour, 21-song set of classics to stump for
the rich legacy to which he keeps adding pearls.

That he gleefully threw that chest wide open because that's what he
still lives to do (digging into time-tripping cover s of Them's
``Mystic Eyes" and the Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac chestnut ``Oh
Well") is what makes Petty an artist, not a nostalgia act. Even the
sold-out audience that packed the Tweeter Center didn't seem
prepared for the sustained sizzle and lavish surprises in store when
Petty and Co. blasted into ``Listen to Her Heart," his clipped sneer
in place, the band roaring like a locomotive.

Like the ``co-captain" Petty introduced him as, Heartbreakers lead
guitarist Mike Campbell has always been the band's not-so secret
weapon. His bag of riffs and solos lent sinewy crunch to ``Mary
Jane's Last Dance," soared regally on ``Runnin' Down a Dream," and
wept slide-soaked tears on ``I Won't Back Down" and the new ``Saving
Grace," from Petty's forthcoming ``Highway Companion."

It's a tall order to expect a new song to stand amid the canon that
was on display Wednesday. Then again, all of these songs were new
once, and ``Saving Grace," a John Lee Hooker-esque snake-charmer
with a boogie beat, fit right in. The fact that it was nestled near
a heady cover of ``I'm a Man," the Bo Diddley blues tune dressed up
in Yardbirds finery, didn't hurt.

Halfway through the show, Stevie Nicks, who's been touring with the
band, took the stage for a sublime duet with Petty on the lovely
breakup ballad ``Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and then stuck
around for another world-weary duet with him on ``The Insider." The
jubilant encore-closer, ``American Girl," had Petty and Nicks
championing the dreams of a young woman striving, much like Petty
himself, toward tomorrow.

Early arrivals caught Trey Anastasio's superb 60-minute opening set
that fused sun-dappled space jams with metallic funk and jazz-rock
textures.

© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.
*********************************************************************

Concert review: Petty delivers, with help from friend


Stevie Nicks, Tom Petty at the Tweeter Center. (Staff photo by Keith
Nordstrom)
BY LAUREN CARTER / SUN CHRONICLE STAFF
MANSFIELD - Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performance at the
Tweeter Center Wednesday night seemed to be part celebration and
part send-off.

Celebration, because this year marks the band's 30th anniversary, a
testament to their unusual staying power in a day and age where
marketing plans often overshadow musical prowess.

And sendoff because Petty has hinted that this summer's cross-
country jaunt, dubbed the Highway Companion Tour, could be the
group's last major tour, ever.

Whatever the case, Wednesday night's set featured two hours of
unapologetically straight-laced rock `n roll, including a string of
radio hits, lesser-known samplings of some of Petty's solo work, and
a Fleetwood Mac connection — a special appearance by longtime
friend, sometimes musical partner and Mac member Stevie Nicks.

Petty and Co. blasted off with 1978's "Listen To Her Heart" and
never looked back, offering up everything from 1979's "Refugee" to
1994's melodically droning "You Don't Know How It Feels," to "Saving
Grace," a new cut off Petty's forthcoming album, uncoincidentally
called "Highway Companion."

Though the album release is just around the corner, it was
refreshing to see Petty NOT inundate the audience with truckloads of
unfamiliar material in the name of promotion.

A mid-set appearance by Nicks featured a performance of their 1981
duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," a rocked-out rendition of "I
Need To Know" with Nicks on lead vocals, and later, a beautiful
version of the pair's lesser-known duet, also from 1981, "Insider."

Nicks then stayed onstage and performed backup vocal duty on an
acoustic "Learning To Fly" and a nicely zoned-out "Don't Come Around
Here No More," among other songs.

No Petty set would be complete without "Free Fallin,'" but it was
nice to see the band end with a little song off their 1976 self-
titled debut album called "American Girl."

If this is how Petty and the Heartbreakers are going out, they're
doing it with a bang.

Lauren Carter can be reached at 508-236-0339 or
lcarter@...
*******************************************************************
NICKS DONATES iPODS TO TROOPS


Singer STEVE NICKS is doing her part to support US troops by
donating hundreds of iPods to soldiers wounded in Iraq. The former
FLEETWOOD MAC star regularly visits soldiers at the National Naval
Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. She explains, "I refuse to be
pulled into the politics of war. But once these soldiers sign up, go
to war and come back to a hospital, I will do whatever it takes to
make them better." Nicks has provided iPods loaded with her music,
along with fellow artists AEROSMITH and ELVIS PRESLEY. She has also
sent baby clothes to war widows, joined bedside vigils and with the
United Service Organization (USO), hopes to provide every returning
soldier with a music player. She adds, "Any one of them could be my
own child. You can't help falling in love with every one of them."
23/06/2006 03:38
*********************************************************************
Tom Petty:still a heartbreaker
BY IRA ROBBINS
Special to Newsday

June 23, 2006


Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ended Tuesday's show at the
beginning, with "American Girl," the enduring contribution to skinny
tie new wave music from their 1976 debut album. Some rockers of such
vintage might be self-conscious about the connotations of a three-
decade career, but Petty - who, at 55, still has his blond locks and
his svelte figure - was never an icon of youth or rebellion. His
values skirt such elements in tuneful electric pop that,
since "American Girl" at least, have rarely been tied to a big idea
or a particular era.

Free of such encumbrance, his achievement and endurance are markers
of a well-built machine, not a fading legacy. The few new songs in a
carefully constructed two-hour set were ladled gently into a parade
of hits, some of them featuring old duet partner Stevie Nicks, who
thoughtfully brought along enough gear for two costume changes.

Petty has never been the most forceful front man, but his top-notch
band, led by guitarist Mike Campbell, buoys the laconic rocker to
effortless agreeability. At only a couple of points, including a
note-for-note reproduction of the Yardbirds' 1965 take on "I'm a
Man" and the three songs leading up to the encore - "Don't Come
Around Here No More," "Refugee" and "Runnin' Down a Dream" - were
any fires set onstage. Campbell, sporting dreadlocks and facial
hair, looked positively delighted to get excited; otherwise, Petty
set the energy level on moderate, rendering sturdy tunes relieved of
such traditional rock elements as sex, sweat and rebellion.

In their own way, Petty's songs reveal a deeply felt American
sensibility. Without making any overt statements, he endorses
freedom, perseverance, courage and recreational sedation. Starting
with "Listen to Her Heart" and "You Don't Know How It Feels" (the
drug references in both, as well as in the subsequent "Mary Jane's
Last Dance," might explain a surprising amount of unimpeded pot-
smoking in the audience), Petty and the five Heartbreakers made it
look and sound easy, with measured rhythms, gentle singing and a
solid beat provided by Steve Ferrone.

With the homogenization of rock into safe, predictable
entertainment, Petty is nothing if not a reliable crowd-pleaser, and
he delivered it all: hits, covers, new tunes, genial remarks, the
works. If the shapeless boogie of "Saving Grace" and the acoustic
plainness of "Square One" offered a discouraging preview of his
impending "Highway Companion" album, a pair of borrowed tunes ("I'm
a Man" and the pre-Nicks Fleetwood Mac guitar rave-up "Oh Well")
brought the past convincingly to life. Nicks joined in on their 1981
hit "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" as well as "I Need to Know"
and "American Girl"; Petty's thoroughgoing retrospective even had
room for the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care," during which
Heartbreaker Scott Thurston gamely attempted the late Roy Orbison's
part.

Trey Anastasio, the guitarist-singer late of Phish, opened the
evening with an extremely long hour of cotton-wrapped rhythms,
shapeless songs and aimless jams that was greeted by some of the
most arrhythmic crowd dancing this side of "Barney and Friends."

TOM PETTY AND THE HEARTBREAKERS. Thirty years of hits and no fouls.
Seen at Madison Square Garden Tuesday.
********************************************************************

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Petty teaches Hub to fly
By Christopher John Treacy
Friday, June 23, 2006

Tom Petty is an underrated American treasure.

But he explained to the lucky crowd at the Tweeter Center in
Mansfield Wednesday night that he'd discovered his American
influences by a circuitous route, admitting that he learned about
the blues from British bands such as the Yardbirds and early
Fleetwood Mac. He then paid tribute to both by playing "I'm a Man"
and "Oh Well," respectively.

And then he invited Fleetwood Mac's Stevie Nicks, a longtime
friend and collaborator, onto the stage.



Nicks, a recurring guest on the tour, looked radiant and was in
flexible voice. She led Petty and his Heartbreakers through their
1981 hit duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and took charge on a
ferocious "I Need to Know." Later, she returned to raise goose
pimples singing harmony on "The Insider," a song written for her by
Petty.

Folks who insist that Tom Petty, 55, isn't aging well just
aren't listening. Although loose-sounding when speaking, his
performance was impressively coherent. Sure, hanging out with Dylan
and the Grateful Dead won't maintain your physique or preserve a
clear complexion, but rock 'n' roll isn't about skin care.

Bolstered by the familiar ring of Benmont Tench's organ, Petty,
Mike Campbell and latter-day Heartbreaker Scott Thurston created a
three-guitars-thick sound that was lush but not overpowering.
Meanwhile, drummer Steve Ferrone and founding bassist Ron Blair (who
left the band for 20 years only to return in 2002) kept vigilant
time.

Dressed in blue jeans with trademark admiral's coat, Petty
grinned slyly through the two-hour-plus joyride, which included all
the expected favorites, plus two tunes from Petty's forthcoming solo
disc, "Highway Companion," due in late July.

Toward the show's end, he conjured a truly inspired version
of "Learning to Fly." An extended take of Them's "Mystic Eyes" made
for a rousing encore surprise.

"This might just be our favorite place to play," Petty said,
noting that it likely was Boston radio that first played his music
some 30 years ago. He then dusted off "Fooled Again (Don't Like It)"
from his debut LP for the first time in more than two decades.

Former Phish guitar god Trey Anastasio demonstrated musical
precision and radiated positive spirit in the opening slot. His fans
added a youthful spin to the capacity crowd.



Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, with Trey Anastasio, at the
Tweeter Center, Wednesday night

*********************************************************************

Music Review | Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
30 Years in the Making, a Show Still Lean and Hungry
Sign In to E-Mail This Print Save

By NATE CHINEN
Published: June 22, 2006
When Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their first album 30
years ago, they could hardly have known that they would become one
of the biggest touring acts in rock 'n' roll. They probably had no
premonition of playing a sold-out show at Madison Square Garden, as
they did on Tuesday night, or providing theme music for the
broadcast of the N.B.A. Finals, which wrapped up the same evening.
Those would have seemed like grandiose benchmarks for a band so
scrappy and garage-like, so devoted to grease and grit.

Skip to next paragraph

Rahav Segev for The New York Times
Tom Petty during the show Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden.

Readers' Opinions
Forum: Popular Music
But then again, the band's hunger was clear from the start. It's
there in the bright swagger of "American Girl," the song that closed
that first album (and, as an encore, Tuesday's concert). "She
couldn't help thinking that there was a little more to life
somewhere else," Mr. Petty sang on that track, with plainspoken
insistence. Only a couple of years earlier he had left Gainesville,
Fla., for Los Angeles, band mates in tow.

Mr. Petty has managed to maintain that image of restlessness and
independence, sometimes at the cost of sounding in touch with the
modern world. His stage manner has bloated a bit — at the Garden he
lifted his arms in gladiatorial triumph after nearly every song —
but it didn't come across as excess. Nor did a preponderance of
songs from his greatest hits compilation, which has sold more than
10 million copies.

This was largely because of the hits themselves, with their calmly
searching lyrics and sturdy, effortless melodies. (It felt as if the
whole arena sang along to "I Won't Back Down" and "Free Fallin,' "
which were sequenced in a satisfying one-two punch.) But the show's
impact also had a lot to do with the Heartbreakers' refusal to let
those songs gain an ounce of weight, in either pretense or flab.

The guitarist Mike Campbell brought a raucous lift to the compact
breaks that seemed built into every song. Benmont Tench and Ron
Blair, also charter Heartbreakers, played keyboards and bass
respectively; Steve Ferrone played drums. Scott Thurston managed
harmonica and rhythm guitar, along with background vocals; on the
Traveling Wilburys song "Handle With Care" he capably tackled the
part originally filled by Roy Orbison (and, in a recent
appropriation, Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie).

Among the concert's few covers was Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well," which
featured Mr. Petty strutting the stage, Jaggeresque, with a pair of
maracas. This prefaced an appearance by the Fleetwood Mac survivor
Stevie Nicks, who joined Mr. Petty on half a dozen songs, including
their duet "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around." She took the lead vocal
on the early Heartbreakers hit "I Need to Know," with strident
enthusiasm.

Mr. Petty offered only one song from "Highway Companion," his album
scheduled for release next month. Yet the song, a roadhouse shuffle
called "Saving Grace," already sounded like a classic. "It's hard to
say who you are these days," Mr. Petty sang. "But you run on anyway,
don't you, baby?"

The "Highway Companion" tour continues tomorrow night in
Indianapolis and concludes on Aug. 19 at Randalls Island, as part of
AmsterJam.

********************************************************************
Workin' on a mystery
Tom Petty, Heartbreakers commemorate 30 years of great Southern
stories

Mark Humphrey / AP
Throughout his long, successful career, Tom Petty has been compared
musically to the likes of the Byrds, Bob Dylan, and Neil Young.
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COMMENTARY
By Helen A.S. Popkin
MSNBC contributor
Updated: 10:44 a.m. ET June 21, 2006
The Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers hit "American Girl" has an oft-
repeated back story that, as a Florida native (like Petty), I've
always wanted to believe was true.

As the legend goes, Gainesville-born Petty wrote it about a
University of Florida coed who jumped to her death from the Beatty
Towers dorm. One variation has the unnamed girl tripping on
hallucinogens and attempting to fly. I prefer the version in which
the coed is lucid, voluntarily shedding her mortal coil and filled
with the invigoration suicides are said to have once they make the
decision.

Since middle school, I've repeated this story to incredulous ears
more times than I can remember — continuing to tell it even when I
was too old to responsibly pass on such unfounded nonsense. Enter
the Internet. Some time back, in an ADD moment, I googled the myth
only to find that sadly, a myth is all it is.

Story continues below ↓
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It's not that I want some girl to be dead. I'm just a sucker for
good Southern ghost story, which with or without a
suicide, "American Girl" remains. What soulless creature (who enjoys
rock and roll music) doesn't get chills every time the ringing
guitar riff pops up on classic radio? Then there are the lyrics, and
just as important, Petty's phrasing: "And if she had to die/Trying
she/Had one little promise she was gonna keep … "

"American Girl" is so eerie, it was used to create atmosphere
in "Silence of the Lambs," and so fresh that it's hard to believe
the song came out in 1977. Yet this summer, Tom Petty and the
Heartbreakers celebrate their 30th anniversary by launching what is
rumored to be the band's last major tour. And in July, Petty
releases "Highway Companion," his third solo LP (and 18th overall).
How scary is that?

Runnin' down a dream
Throughout his long, successful career, Petty has been compared
musically to the likes of the Byrds, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. But
as "American Girl," and the rest of his huge catalog reveal, this
Florida boy hails from the same story-telling tradition as fellow
Southerners Flannery O'Conner, Carson McCullers and Truman Capote.
Like the best of their work, Petty's songs create sparse, sharp
images, with something desperate underneath.

"American Girl" is the only Petty hit that comes with a fan-
generated urban legend (that I know about). But it's one of many
practically-perfect songs about Regular Joes and Josephines yearning
to break free. If not from life, then the particular lives they
happen to be living. Take just a few of the titles: "Breakdown," "I
Need to Know," "Refugee," "The Waiting," "Running Down a
Dream," "Runaway Trains," "Mary Jane's Last Dance."


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The Heartbreakers sound is a deceptively simple roots rock hybrid.
It echos garage rock, folk and pure pop while remaining wholly
American and unique. (FYI: Petty shares his roots via his record
collection on the XM Satellite Radio Show "Tom Petty's Buried
Treasures.") Underneath the music, Petty's Southern voice (both
literal and literary) brings personas and characters to life.
In "Spike," he only needs one line to conjure a vivid scene of
rednecks harassing some poor punk rock kid ("Hey, Spike/You're
scarin' my wife").

In Petty's love songs, like the Carson McCullers story, the heart is
always a lonely hunter. Take "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around," a song
he recorded with Stevie Nicks. (Word to your mother — Nicks is
performing with Petty on the Heartbreakers tour.) Here is a man so
wounded by his lover, all he can do is beg her to stop. It ain't
quite Dylan, but it works.
Workin' on a mystery

• Passionate alt-folk from Garrison Starr
Garrison Starr's greatest gift is her gorgeous, full, rough,
passionate voice that can be alternately pensive, intimate, hurt,
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• How hard can it be to cancel an AOL account?
• Dog makes cell phone call to save owner's life
• WHO: H5N1 virus mutated slightly in family
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• Key to long life may be mom's age at birth
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• Teen, firefighter die in Midwest storms
• Hang up your cell or get hit by lightning
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Pack up the plantation
Unlike less fortunate talented artists (Hey, Paul Westerberg!),
Petty's songwriting gets the recognition and Grammys it deserves. In
1996, Petty received both the Golden Note Award from ASCAP and
UCLA's George and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical
Achievement. In 1999, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers got a star on
the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and in 2002, the band was inducted into
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Petty even had a guest spot on
the "Simpsons" playing himself as the song writing instructor at
Homer's rock star camp.

Achieving rock star status during MTV's early days, Petty's
creativity transferred well to video. So much so that he received
MTV's Video Vanguard Award in 1994. Those old enough may cringe when
remembering the Heartbreakers "You Got Lucky" video in which Petty
and his crew travel a post-apocalyptic desert in some sort of
Buckminster Fuller mobile ala "Mad Max." It wasn't a bad song. It
wasn't a bad video. But man, it seemed like MTV played it every five
minutes. Better to remember the spooky "Don't Come Around Here No
More," in which Petty, as the Mad Hatter, torments Alice in
Wonderland before serving her as cake. Then there's "Mary Jane's
Last Dance," in which Petty gussies up, then parties with a corpse
(played by Kim Basinger). Now that's good Southern Gothic!

Like the best storytellers, Petty easily translates his song's
stories on stage. He and the Heartbreakers still put on a great
show. Over the years, the performance has transformed from youthful
exuberance and boundless energy to the more theatrical. Though not
widely thought of as one of the more politically vocal rock stars,
Petty has used his concerts as an outlet for his views on the
government. In a 1991 show, as the band played "Don't Come Around
Here No More," three characters dressed as Presidents Nixon, Reagan
and Bush (the father) chased Petty around the stage.

The first performances of the current tour lasted over two electric
hours. A retrospective set list covers the best known Tom Petty and
the Heartbreakers hits as well as Petty's work with rock super
group, the Traveling Wilburys, and songs from Petty's
upcoming "Highway Companion" LP. There are few surprises in the song
choices — it is, after all, an anniversary tour. But as 30 years of
touring show, Petty and the Heartbreakers concerts are never stale.

Ever the crowd-please, Petty is following tradition and closing
shows with … what song? "American Girl," of course. And for the two
hours of music played to get there, the audience is always ready to
explode when the final encore comes around. Like any great
story, "American Girl" is one you can hear a million times, and
still want to hear it a million more. The song may not have a ghost
story behind it, but like Tom Petty, "American Girl" never seems to
get old.

New York City-based writer Helen A.S. Popkin can't help thinking
there's a little more to life, somewhere else.

© 2006 MSNBC Interactive