{"id":39875,"date":"2006-08-08T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-08-08T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/highway-companion-2\/"},"modified":"2006-08-08T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-08-08T00:00:00","slug":"highway-companion-2","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/highway-companion-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Highway Companion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Petty would make a great celebrity spokesperson for Maytag. <\/p>\n

Not because of the laconic <\/city><\/place>Gainesville drawl or the perpetually half-stoned expression, and certainly not because of his staunch anti-corporate views.\u00a0 But when the word you want to leave in your audience\u2019s heads is \u201cdependability,\u201d Petty is the obvious choice in the rock and roll world.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to think of a major artist who\u2019s been as dependably good — at times great, rarely less than good — over the past 30 years than Tom Petty. <\/p>\n

Highway Companion<\/i>, Petty\u2019s first solo album sans Heartbreakers since 1994\u2019s Wildflowers <\/i>and third overall, is dependably solid, a lineup of tunes that chug and jangle and pulse and fall back with a practiced ease born of a lifetime of music-making.\u00a0 The album\u2019s theme, such as it is, is baldly stated in the title \u2013 this is traveling music, energetic in places but more commonly ambling, chummy and unassuming. <\/p>\n

Working once again with fellow Traveling Wilbury Jeff Lynne (see also ELO) and Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell, Petty delivers 55 years\u2019 worth of road-weary wisdom stretched out across 12 tracks.\u00a0 There isn\u2019t a lot of variety here in terms of tone or instrumentation — Lynne\u2019s trademark sonic palette of acoustic rhythm guitar, rockabilly bass, jangly leads and lush harmonies doesn\u2019t leave a lot of room for experimentation — yet most of these songs still manage to offer something special somewhere along the way. <\/p>\n

In the case of opener \u201cSaving Grace,\u201d it\u2019s the familiar gruffness of the chugging Bo Diddley\/ZZ Top beat that anchors this appealing rocker.\u00a0 On \u201cFlirting With Time,\u201d it’s a great singalong chorus, and on \u201cDown South\u201d it’s the\u00a0intimacy with which\u00a0Petty writes about his Southern roots.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Moving along, \u201cTurn This Car Around\u201d leads with a thrumming verse\/chorus carrying a hint of menace, before paying off in a terrific bridge drenched with echo and guitars that manage to be jangly and defiant all at once.\u00a0 \u201cNight Driver\u201d is suitably dreamy; and \u201cAnkle Deep\u201d gives you a classic first verse leading into one of Petty\u2019s better story-songs. <\/p>\n

Petty has always been a better writer than editor of his own work, and this disc is no exception.\u00a0 Toward the end there are several tunes that tend to blur together, thanks in no small part to the dogged consistency of Lynne\u2019s production.\u00a0 But Petty\u2019s talent is undeniable; even an otherwise unremarkable tune like \u201cDamaged By Love\u201d gets lit up by shining lyrical nuggets like \u201cShe\u2019s got nothing to hide \/ And she hides it so well.\u201d <\/p>\n

\u201cBig Weekend\u201d sums things up nicely mid-album with this twinkling beauty of a chorus — \u201cI need a big weekend, kick up the dust \/ A big weekend, if you don\u2019t run, you rust.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s no rust on Petty.\u00a0 Highway Companion<\/i> might not blaze any new trails, but it\u2019s a reliably amiable and entertaining piece of work from one of the most dependable rock and roll craftsmen of the past 30 years. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":28427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5868],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-39875","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-tom-petty","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39875","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/39875\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39875"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=39875"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=39875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}