The recent news that Jeff Lynne was forced to cancel the final scheduled concert by ELO saddened music fans everywhere. But Lynne put out a message not long after, saying that he still planned to work on music in the studio. That’s always been his happy place anyway.
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His studio expertise goes beyond his work as an artist. Lynne has also produced many top records by some of rock’s leading lights. His work with Tom Petty as producer, co-writer, and sounding board for ideas helped Petty try out life as a solo act. And Petty took to it quite well.
Heartbreaker Hiatus
Tom Petty had the chance to go solo right from the start. He had a record deal in place to record simply under his own name. But he found himself more comfortable in the presence of a full band, many of whom he had worked with for years before ever recording. That’s why The Heartbreakers were on board with him right from the start.
But as the 80s progressed, the band struggled to keep the same enthusiasm and inspiration when working in the studio. After the troubled making of Southern Accents in 1985 and the relatively slapdash effort behind Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) two years later, the band took a little bit of a break.
Even with relations between band members somewhat strained by that point, Petty had no intention of going solo at that point. That’s when a chance encounter with Jeff Lynne in Los Angeles on Thanksgiving Day 1987 changed all those plans.
Lynne Is In
Lynne, in town to help produce a Brian Wilson project, soon began hanging out with Petty at his LA home. Petty played him a song he’d been writing called “Yer So Bad”, admitting that he’d become stuck in trying to turn the song around from one section to the next. Lynne came up with a chord that did the trick, and Petty, excited by the result, asked Lynne to produce the track.
They followed that up by deciding to write a song together. When Petty started adlibbing the opening lines to what would become “Free Fallin’”, he was trying to make Lynne laugh. But Lynne encouraged him to keep going with them. The song eventually revealed more about the narrator than the girl who loved horses and America. It was a song that Petty likely could have only made work in a “solo” context.
Petty and Lynne, with the help of guitarist Mike Campbell and drummer Phil Jones, knocked off a song a day because Lynne was under time constraints. The other Heartbreakers showed indifference toward the project, which convinced Petty that it was time to make the album, which he’d title Full Moon Fever, his first-ever solo record.
‘Fever’ Dreams
Lynne’s influence seems to go beyond the sound of Full Moon Fever. The songwriting seems looser and less intense than some of Petty’s work with the Heartbreakers. There are also more melodic surprises than what you might usually associate with Petty.
The public ate it all up despite the absence of The Heartbreakers. Full Moon Fever cleaned up in a commercial sense. Petty would work with Lynne again within The Traveling Wilburys right after Full Moon Fever was recorded. He’d also connect with him as producer twice more, once with The Heartbreakers in tow.
The history books will say that Full Moon Fever was Tom Petty’s first solo effort. But none of it, the tone, the sound, or the spirit, would have been possible with Jeff Lynne guiding it along.
Photo By Rick Diamond/Getty Images
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