Why Tom Petty Origins 1971-1978 Isnt Your Normal Box Set: The Important Thing Was Making a Good Album

Adria Petty says an anniversary, to her, is “a very uncool marketing thing.” But this year’s 50th anniversary of the self-titled debut album by her father, the late Tom Petty, and his band the Heartbreakers was too good of a storytelling opportunity to pass up.

“I really want to acknowledge the Heartbreakers this year, ’cause they’re all alive and have achieved so much and are still going strong now,” Petty — who co-produced the new box set Origins 1971-78 — tells Billboard via Zoom from California. “This anniversary is really important to us. It’s really important to us that everybody gets their flowers when they’re still alive…. (Origins) is the musical diagram to how Tom became Tom and the Heartbreakers and how they found their way to this music.”

Out Friday (Nov. 6), Origins represents a two-year undertaking that dove deep into Petty and the Heartbreakers’ vaults, primarily conducted by the Petty Legacy LLC brain trust which also includes longtime producer/engineer Ryan Ulyate and managers Will Botwin and Scott Greer. The multi-disc set includes new mixes of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and 1978’s You’re Gonna Get It! (with extended versions of some of the tracks), an unreleased Live From the Record Plant 1977 performance and videos from the BBC’s Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978.

The focal point, however, is No Sleep Til L.A., which features a dozen early tracks from 1971-77 — recorded by the pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch and Petty solo in addition to the Heartbreakers — as well as five more included on an EP dubbed The Cut Out Bin. Those will also be issued as a separate, individual album as well as on the box set.

“This body of work, to me, is sort of a Rosetta Stone for rock ‘n’ roll in a weird way,” explains Adria Petty, a music video and commercial director in addition to her Petty Legacy role. Since Tom Petty’s death in 2017 at the age of 66, she’s also co-produced archival projects. “They could take it to reggae, they could take it to disco, they could take it to soul, they could really take it to country rock — this, that or the other. They went their own way and became an amalgam of all that. They were just experimenting, making noise together that they liked. My responsibility here is to point out the cultural importance, that during disco, during their aftermath of Vietnam, these guys blazed their own trail and kept it going for 50 years.”

Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench, who was also part of Mudcrutch along with Petty and guitarist Mike Campbell, confirms via Zoom from his home that before the first Heartbreakers album, “We were searching. I think (No Sleep Til L.A./The Cut Out Bin) is nice because you can hear where Tom is listening to some country stuff and also listening to R&B and to Van Morrison. And the rest of us are just going, ‘Oh, this fits around what he’s saying’ and playing it. Mudcrutch and the Heartbreakers were both great bands,” he says. “From the first minute of the Heartbreakers it was really natural and easy, and the first couple of records are the sound of us finding out what we could do. You can hear the excitement, us going, ‘Oh, this is good!’”

Stan Lynch, the Heartbreakers’ drummer from 1976-94, adds that the material provides an accurate snapshot of the band at that time. “What I hear as I listen now is those are some old souls, boys doing men’s work,” he says. “We were driven. We were desperate. We were hungry — and we were good. We weren’t messing around. We didn’t care about anything but the music. We were just feral in those days, and you can hear that.”

Rocking Around With You

Ulyate, who met Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers via Jeff Lynne and began working full-time with 2008’s Mudcrutch reunion album, says that once he got the word about the Origins project from Adria Petty, “My job was just to go through every tape that we had — and there’s a lot.” That meant cataloging “every multi-track tape they made from 1971-78,” which he says was probably more than 100. Ulyate was also insistent that “I wanted to make sure people heard this in the best way possible, so we didn’t find a bunch of cassettes or bootlegs.” That was a slight disappointment for Tench, who had a set of Mudcrutch demos recorded in his family’s living room back in Gainesville, Fla., that he offered for consideration.

“It sounded like a 45 from a band in Detroit in 1968 to me,” he says. “I was told the fidelity wasn’t good enough, and I’m like, ‘That’s the point!’” But Tench adds, “I still love it. I always like it if we can find something good and we can put out something good. I don’t want to ever get to the point where we put out unreleased stuff that’s like, ‘Oh, I can see why this wasn’t released.’”

Adria Petty says that “five or six times” more than the 17 unreleased tracks were considered for Origins, with a good deal of discussion and debate among the production team. She herself was outvoted on the inclusion of the yacht-rock-style track “Save Me,” but there was great consensus about others, including “Parade of Loons,” which the Heartbreakers recorded between the first two albums, the goofy “Sin City,” the reggae-tinged “You’re Gonna Learn” and Tom Petty’s solo acoustic rendition of “Unheard of Kind of Hero,” which dates back to 1976.

No Sleep Til L.A. also includes original recordings of Mudcrutch songs such as “I Can’t Fight It,” “Depot Street” and “Up in Mississippi Tonight” that were included on the 1995 compilation Playback.

“We’re lucky that we found tracks that were representative of that whole period of time,” Ulyate explains. “The important thing, really, was making a good album. It wasn’t necessarily making a historical thing; it had to be a good album. So we picked the tracks and fought over them and got to the right amount of tracks for an album, and then put the rest of what we liked on The Cut Out Bin.

“Tom Petty was always into the album. An album is something you listen to in one sitting; the first song kicks ass and makes you want to listen to the rest of it, and the last song on side one makes you want to flip it over to side two. So we sequenced it as if it was an album, to take you on a journey and not worry about the chronology of the tracks.”

Adria Petty says her votes were guided by the simple matter of what her father would approve of.

“My dad used music to raise me…and I was around a lot when he made records and they were playing back everything in the studio and picking singles, so I think I have a pretty good idea of what he would’ve to come out — and what he wouldn’t,” she says. “So we didn’t leave stuff on the cutting room floor; we pulled stuff that didn’t stand on its own. I feel like between this and Playback you really have everything from the archive that Tom would’ve wanted out.”

Ulyate was responsible for the eight extended versions of tracks from the two studio albums — including “American Girl,” “Breakdown,” “Fooled Again (I Don’t Like It)” and Too Much Ain’t Enough‘s title track. “Sometimes these guys were so into it they’d play for another minute or so beyond the fade-out that’s on the record,” he explains. “We weren’t constrained by time, so my feeling was if there’s something that was good that we didn’t hear on the original record, let’s hear it. As long as it’s interesting, let’s keep going.”

Tench was all for it, with a caveat. “I think it’s interesting,” he says, “as long as the original (version) is still available, too, ’cause that’s why people fell in love with it. To get an extended version and hear what Mike kept playing, that’s cool. But I still think there’s a reason why we faded it when we did, before we put it out — no shade on Mike, no shade on Ryan.”

Too Much Ain’t Enough

The Heartbreakers — particularly Tench and Campbell, who have been more involved with some of the archival projects — also had input on the Origins tracklist. “They mixed a bunch of stuff and sequenced it and played it for me to see what I thought, and they listened to my input,” Tench says. “There were a couple I said, ‘I don’t think that shows us in our best light. I think there’s better stuff in there,’ and I think they dropped one or two songs and may have changed the sequence a little bit, but not much. I just appreciate the fact I’m consulted and I’m heard.”

Ulyate recalls one memorable listening session for Origins with all four surviving original Heartbreakers — including bassist Ron Blair — in Los Angeles. (The four performed together, joined by Chris Stapleton, at this year’s Americana Honors & Awards on Sept. 16 in Nashville). “We always want to make sure they’re happy with it; they’re definitely part of the approval process,” he says. “So we had a playback for them at Sound City, just to get their reaction to it. They were all sitting down in chairs and listening to this stuff, and I was really happy see they were happy with it. That meant we’re doing a good job. It was really nice, and Stan said, ‘Boy, this sounds great.’ I’m like, ‘Thank you.’”

As Origins arrives, Adria Petty promises that more will be coming during the next 12 months, what she calls “micro activations every month that are really special, really loving to this band and Tom” — although she can’t yet specify what those will be. Petty Legacy is also planning “a bigger project about the ‘70s that hopefully will come off in the next year.”

Tench voices a desire to see an expanded edition of 1987’s Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough), while Ulyate says he remains at the ready for whatever the estate focuses on next.

“There are so many ways we can go,” he notes. “What I tell people is that I’m here, I’m ready, I’m waiting. I know what we’ve got, and anywhere you want to go, let’s go there. There’s plenty of stuff there, all sorts of places we can go. We’re really lucky that Tom kept all those tapes…and kept track of them. The fact he was so fastidious about his tape library is rare…and really lets us do these special things.”