Highway Companion Iowa

Highway Companion

Tom Petty

American Recordings, 2006

http://www.tompetty.com

REVIEW BY: Jeff Clutterbuck

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED: 08/08/2006

By definition, I am the prototypical casual Tom Petty fan. Were you to ask me to name a few songs of his, I could surely do that. Every now and then, one of them will get stuck in my head and won’t leave for a while (case in point; the past few weeks it was "Mary Jane’s Last Dance.") However, that was as far as I wanted to take it.

To be honest, Petty never instilled in me a desire to pursue his work. It always seemed to be relatively inconsequential. I mean, if I was looking for a few tracks to play while driving down the road, with the windows down and the sun shining, Petty would be one of my first choices. But to me, his music seemed wrapped entirely in that niche.

Highway Companion has gotten some press as an introspective record of sorts. With that in mind, I decided to give a Petty album a shot, since perhaps my impressions had been wrong and there was more to it than meets eye.

For about the first five tracks, Petty had me hooked. “Saving Grace” is hands down the best track off the album. A raging ZZ Top-inspired blues rocker, it perfectly encapsulates his trademark sound. “Square One” is the exact opposite; a gorgeous acoustic number that goes beyond the usual sex, drugs and rock & roll. Sometimes we go through a lot of pain and heartache to get back to where we started off at, and “Square One” defines that feeling perfectly.