An appropriate album for anyone who went outside last night and looked at the big moon shining bright.
It was Sheryl Crow who sang “A Change Will Do You Good”, but it was advice taken to heart by her friend Tom Petty. Petty released his first solo * album on this day in 1989, Full Moon Fever. We’ll get to my asterisk in a little.
By that point, Petty had put out seven studio albums with his backing band The Heartbreakers. However, the last one of those prior to this work, Let Me Up, hadn’t won much love from the record-buying public nor the critics. Arguably it was the weakest work of his career. So he’d fallen in with the hobbyist supergroup Traveling Wilburys in ’88 and made some new friends, including George Harrison, Roy Orbison and perhaps most importantly, Jeff Lynne of ELO. As Rolling Stone said, “Tom Petty picks his friends well.”
So when he had some tunes rattling around in his head and in demo form, he decided not to just make another Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers record, as per the norm, but to do a solo one. Of course, “solo” was rather subjective as while he did much of the writing, the lead vocals obviously and much of the standout guitar work, he still called in a number of other musicians to help. Those included minor contributions from the Heartbreakers’ Benmont Trench on piano and Howie Epstein (who added some backing vocals) and major contributions from his musical right-hand man, Mike Campbell. So it really wasn’t that far removed from a traditional Heartbreakers record. Campbell, the most prominent of his backing band, as usual added some great guitar work, co-produced it and co-wrote the hit “Love Is A Long Road” with him. Then, for good measure he had Orbison and Harrison add minor bits and Jeff Lynne add a lot to the record, making it essentially a hybrid of the Wilburys and Heartbreakers. Lynne not only co-wrote the majority of the tracks with Petty , but added in keyboards and was the main producer, giving it quite a bit more contemporary and well-produced feel to many fans… despite the fact that much of it was recorded in Campbell’s garage in what Petty says was “the most enjoyable (recording work) of my career.”
The result was great, 11 new songs plus a cover of the Byrds “I’ll Feel A Whole Lot Better.” Singles popped off it and dominated FM rock radio for much of the year to follow. “Free Fallin’”, “I Won’t Back Down” and “Running Down A Dream” all topped rock charts, equaling the total number of rock #1 hits he’d had to that point in his whole career. As well, “Free Fallin’” made it to #7 on the Billboard singles chart, the highest of his career to that point and “I Won’t Back Down” made the UK top 30, his first success there. In Canada, both “I Won’t Back Down” and “Running Down a Dream” got to #5, and even “A Face In the Crowd”, the fourth single off the album, made the top 20.
As a result, the record quickly climbed the charts, and sold for months on end. In the U.S. and Canada it hit #3 and in Britain it became his first top 10 one. When all was said and done, it was the biggest of his career, topping 8 million copies and being 5X platinum at home. Which would have left egg on the face of Irving Azoff, who’d gone from managing Dan Fogelberg to running MCA Records which put out Petty’s records. He didn’t think he heard any hits on the record and tried to refuse letting it be released. Happily for Petty and listeners, Azoff quit and moved over to Warner Bros. not long after he first heard Full Moon Fever, and the new boss thought more highly of it!
Reviews were generally good for it, then and now. at the time, Rolling Stone rated it 3.5-stars, calling it a “rewarding, low-key side project” (ironic that was how it was seen when first hitting the shelves – a side project of less than great importance) and the Chicago Tribune rated it 3.5-stars as well, but out of 4 (instead of 5). They found it a “wonderful mix of depth and free-wheeling fun” beckoning to be listened to in “a convertible with the top down.” Later on, allmusic would give it 4.5-stars, the best since his ’81 album Hard Promises. They noted that while Lynne had a tendency in general to over-produce, on this one “Petty’s roots rock becomes clean and glossy” and the record stood out due to the fact it “didn’t have a weak track.”
Petty recalled the Heartbreakers for his next album, Into the Great Wide Open, but kept Lynne around to help out again.