4 Must-Hear Country Covers of Tom Petty

In 2024, Big Machine released a compilation of country covers of Tom Petty songs. This list highlights four of the best from the album, but it’s worth exploring the entire collection. Petty’s songs have long been considered standards, and with country music being one of America’s defining genres, it, too, formed the standards that later inspired Petty and the artists he grew up admiring. There’s a reason Petty’s songs fit so comfortably in the hands of the country artists below.

Videos by American Songwriter

“Free Fallin’” by The Cadillac Three and Breland

Full disclosure: The fellas in The Cadillac Three are friends of mine, but sometimes your friends also happen to be in a great band. It’s easier than you think to mess up a perfect song. And “Free Fallin’” exists in the category of perfect songs. But here, singer Jaren Johnston blends his dusty baritone against Breland’s soulful croon, reinforcing the free breeze driving Tom Petty’s classic hit. You wouldn’t be wrong to build your summer playlist around this track.

“Runnin’ Down A Dream” by Luke Combs

A heartland rock standard, “Runnin’ Down A Dream” features one of the most iconic guitar riffs in history. And on Full Moon Fever, guitarist Mike Campbell recorded what may be his finest solo using a 1962 Gibson SG he purchased from a video store. Luke Combs does a good job of committing to Petty’s cool aloofness, and though it’s difficult to match Campbell’s Page-meets-Harrison grace, Combs’ backing band stays true to the original.

“You Wreck Me (Live)” by George Strait

This is like a country legend using a mirror to reflect Petty’s love of roots music onto him. Some call George Strait the King of Country Music, and in this stirring live version, the King rips through the second single from Petty’s 1994 solo masterpiece, Wildflowers. However, Strait straight up rocks here. There’s an extended jam with a fiddle and an acoustic guitar before the King returns to close the tune. Petty died in 2017, but you can hear in this live recording the kind of bliss his music still brings to an audience.

“I Should Have Known It” by Chris Stapleton

I anticipated that Chris Stapleton’s reading of “I Should Have Known It” was going to be great. This track is Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers on Led Zeppelin. Like Petty and Campbell had ingested whatever strange voodoo Jimmy Page was getting up to in the old days. And Stapleton can wail like Robert Plant. Yet, where Plant studied the American South from faraway England, Stapleton was born in Lexington. Though this recording opens A Country Music Celebration Of Tom Petty, this is the kind of deep blues that only happens when you’re born into a Faustian bargain.

Photo by Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for CMA