Petty the biography book
No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise.
Rock and roll made it otherwise. From meeting Elvis, to seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, to producing Del Shannon, backing Bob Dylan, putting together a band with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne, making records with Johnny Cash, and sending well more than a dozen of his own celebrated recordings high onto the charts, Tom Petty's story has all the drama of a rock and roll epic.
*One of Rolling Stone's 10 Best Music Books of * An exhilarating and intimate account of the life of music legend Tom Petty, by an accomplished writer and musician who .
In his last years, Petty, known for his reclusive style, shared with Warren Zanes his insights and arguments, his regrets and lasting ambitions, and the details of his life on and off the stage. This is a book for those who know and love the songs, from "American Girl" and "Refugee" to "Free Fallin'" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance," and for those who want to see the classic rock and roll era embodied in one man's remarkable story.
Dark and mysterious, Petty managed to come back, again and again, showing us what the music can do and where it can take us. What a historic night that would be. This book is that. I wish Warren Zanes could write a biography about everyone I admire. In this deeply engaging and highly readable biography, Warren Zanes not only illuminates the enigmatic man behind the songs, but he captures the human drama of being in a rock band as well as anyone who's ever written on the subject.
It's an X-ray of the most fragile, most volatile, and most sublime social unit ever invented: the rock-and-roll band.
No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history .
The alliances, the distortions, the deep bruises and the absurd elations that can never be explained to an outsider. Sure, Petty is a book about a rock band but it's really a book about being human - how we meet and collaborate, break up and make up, learn to trust or not and, once in a lucky while, sing as loud as we can. It's a masterpiece.
Warren Zanes tells his tale in a voice that is crisp and passionate, sympathetic, unsparing, and shot through with hard experience.