On what would have been Tom Petty‘s 73rd birthday, two previously unreleased songs from his solo career and the Heartbreakers—”What’s the Matter With Louise” and “Mystery of Love”—were released on Friday (October 20).
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“What’s the Matter With Louise” was released as an Amazon exclusive while “Mystery of Love” was an outtake from the original Mojo sessions, and appears on Extra Mojo Version, an extended digital version of Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ 2010 blues album, Mojo.
In addition to the two new songs, the 2021 documentary, Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers is also being released on Amazon Prime Video. The film features rarely-seen 16mm footage of Petty and his band working on his 1994 solo album Wildflowers, along with new interviews with Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench, among others.
“There was a sort of haunted quality to that material to him because it was so strong and so powerful,” said director Mary Wharton in 2021. “And then to take on a film about an artist like Tom Petty, who was a perfectionist in everything that he did, certainly the specter of that, and the incredibly high standards that he held himself to, for me, it was a scary thing to tackle, to try to hold myself to those same high standards.”
Earlier in October, two more previously unheard tracks from the Mojo era, a cover of Sonny Boy Williamson II’s “Help Me” were also released. Originally released in June 2010, Mojo debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 chart.
“With this album, I want to show other people what I hear with the band,” said Petty on the album. “‘Mojo’ is where the band lives when it’s playing for itself.”
[RELATED: 7 Songs You Didn’t Know Tom Petty Wrote for Other Artists]
Recorded live in the band’s rehearsal space, The Clubhouse in Los Angeles, California, Mojo was the second to last album released by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers before Petty’s death. The band released its 13th and final studio album, Hypnotic Eye, in 2014.
Following Petty’s death on October 2, 2017, at age 66, a box set entitled An American Treasure was released, featuring songs curated by his wife, Dana Petty, and Tench.
Photo: Sam Jones / Courtesy of Sacks & Co.
