Various tribute performances coming in for Tom Petty this week. Firstly RS report that Bruce Springsteen opened his debut performance of Springsteen on Broadway with a tribute to Petty: “The singer-songwriter dedicated the first of his solo acoustic storyteller shows to the late singer-songwriter, along with Petty’s family and Heartbreakers bandmates, audience members told The New York Daily News. Springsteen also saluted Petty via Twitter on Tuesday. “Down here on E Street, we’re devastated and heartbroken over the death of Tom Petty,” he wrote. “Our hearts go out to his family and bandmates. I’ve always felt a deep kinship with his music. A great songwriter and performer, whenever we saw each other, it was like running into a long lost brother. Our world will be a sadder place without him.”
In other news RS are also reporting that Marty Stuart and his band have recorded a performance for Later.. with Jools Holland which pays tribute to Petty, sneaking in a minute of Runnin’ Down a Dream into the end of Time Don’t Wait. They report: “Stuart’s connection to Petty stretches far beyond a long-held admiration of his music. His 2017 Way Out West LP, which features “Time Don’t Wait,” was produced by Petty’s longtime Heartbreakers band mate and friend, Mike Campbell. And in 1996, Stuart was in a Los Angeles studio at the invitation of his longtime friend and former father-in-law Johnny Cash (Stuart was once married to his daughter, Cindy Cash), when Petty and his fellow Heartbreakers walked in to join them in playing on Cash’s Unchained album. “In that moment, we were all just Johnny Cash’s band,” Stuart told Rolling Stone Country last year.” (watch the clip below).
Other bands have paid tribute to Petty this week with covers of his songs including Wilco who played a rendition of The Waiting which you can watch below, and the National who covered Damaged by Love from his “Highway Companion” album which you can watch here.
Finally (for now), Fleet Foxes paid tribute to Petty at their show in Chicago on Monday night with a cover of his 1985 hit Don’t Come Around Here No More. Watch the folk rendition via Spin here.
