Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers-”Mojo”
It was once said that “the longer you live, the better you get.” In recording Mojo, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took to the studio in a way they hadn’t done before (at least to such an extent); not only did the group go into recording the album with an entirely blank canvas—the decision was made to go into Mojo without any demos in hand—but much of the album was essentially recorded live: no headphones, each member facing each other while they played out their ideas. Speaking to Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune, Petty shed some light on the process, “This is a record we couldn’t have made in the ’70s and ’80s because we weren’t really good enough as musicians.” He continued, “We’re using our age as a plus in this sense, in that we’ve become better musicians.” It would seem that Petty would agree with the statement of aging gracefully, if only in terms of he and his band’s musical evolution. And if Mojo is the evidence that we have to either confirm or deny whether Petty and the Heartbreakers have gotten better or worse with age, it would seem wholeheartedly irrational to argue the latter.
In 2006 Tom Petty released his third solo album, and first in over a decade, Highway Companion. That same year a number of other veteran acts (Young, Springsteen, the Who, Frampton, John, Meat Loaf, etc.) joined Petty in releasing new material, though the majority of the releases proved the initial quote to have plenty of exceptions. It’s fitting that those aforementioned words were muttered by Bob Dylan as he also released an album in 2006 (Modern Times); one that serves up even more evidence supporting the quote. While Highway Companion was expectedly strong, the album eventually claimed spots on a myriad of year end lists, it doesn’t resonate in the same way as Mojo; which might, once again, relate to Bob Dylan. Further along in his interview with Kot, Petty revealed the prime influence on Mojo, “For the last 10, 11 years, I’ve been immersed in blues. That’s what I listen to all the time and we got caught up in that vibe on this record.” It might be a bit of a stretch, but Dylan’s last two albums (or at least the last two albums that weren’t nut-bar crazy) also cracked at the seams with the blues. Putting the similarities to Dylan and the focus on the blues aside for a moment however, the album actually does have its fair share of tracks that sound like the Heartbreakers of old; even if Mojo‘s opening song is titled “Jefferson Jericho Blues.”
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