Tom Petty to Release Live Album, Play Benefit Concert

Tom Petty attends the 11th annual Golden Heart Awards in Beverly Hills.

Jason LaVeris/FilmMagic

Tom Petty famously railed against the corporate takeover of the record industry with his 2002 album The Last DJ, and he hasn’t stopped fighting. Rolling Stone has learned that to mark Record Store Day’s Black Friday on November 25th, which supports independent record stores, Petty and the Heartbreakers will release a live vinyl LP consisting primarily of tracks from last year’s Mojo. It will also include a new version of his obscure "Sweet William," a heavy blues stomper that was a originally a B side to 1999’s Echo track "Room at the Top." Petty revived the track on the road in 2008. 

There’s more good news for Petty fans. On October 29th, the Heartbreakers will perform a rare intimate show to benefit Cal State University Northridge's noncommercial, public FM public radio station KCSN. The struggling station lost federal funding last year because it did not meet the Corporation of Public Broadcasting’s minimum audience and fundraising requirements, causing them to lose their weekday hosts and drastically change programming.

"I remember when radio meant something," Petty told Rolling Stone in 2002. "We enjoyed the people who were on it, even if we hated them. They had personalities. They were people of taste, who we trusted. And I see that vanishing."

The gig may be Petty’s only show of 2011, and his last for a while. "I kind of don't want to get on the same merry-go-round again," he told Rolling Stone recently, adding that he’s working on new album with his band. "But I don't know. It's early."

Related
• Photos: Tom Petty Works New 'Mojo' in Oakland
• Norah Jones, Will Forte, Nathan Followill Salute Tom Petty 

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Baby Got Back”

Sir Mix-a-Lot | 1992

While watching a Budweiser commercial during the Super Bowl, Sir Mix-a-Lot thought the skinny female models in the ad didn’t represent reality. So he wrote this ode to ample bottoms, featuring its famous to-the-point lyric: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.” MTV banished the video, featuring shaking booties and sexually suggestive fruit, to 9 p.m. or later. “I thought my career was over,” he told Rolling Stone. “Then I called Rick Rubin, and I told him the video was banned, and he was like, 'Great!' We sold another 2 million records.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter