Where the one-two punch of “Saving Grace” and “Square One” are so strong they can work apart from their album mates, the rest are still solid enough to create a unified atmosphere. And more than a decade on, it still holds the power of 12 songs uniquely designed to work along the road. Since music and art isn’t a competition, this works the way it was intended. Instead, Highway Companion is excellent work by a great artist, and it stands up best in those isolated moments, in the driver’s seat alone with nothing but the sound of the road and the semi-regular appearance of overhead lights accompanying the music. In the end, it doesn’t measure up to those, but great albums by some of my favorite artists can’t stand with those pillars.
Part of the memory of the time was listening while internally sizing up the contents to Petty’s best, judging exactly how it held up to Wildflowers or Hard Promises.
And with that vision of the past riding shotgun to the present, the effect of the album was magnified. I had a flash of what might have been part of Petty’s vision for the time, and I was sucked in. Digging through the then-new Petty album suddenly became an easier experience, with the stories and the sounds coming to life in a way they hadn’t while I was just listening to the CD in my apartment. The experience was so vivid that when I originally reviewed this album in 2006, it became the foundation of that piece. That ride was also just under an hour, and the stretches of unlit highway seemed to suit the characters in the songs. as I made my way back home from my job on the night desk at the newspaper. When this album had originally come out, I remembered it being my companion at 1 or 2 a.m. When the first notes of “Saving Grace” came through on Route 44 heading back to Route 3, there was an incredible feeling of déjà vu. So after a night visiting friends in Plymouth, I pulled it up for the ride back to Boston that usually takes just under an hour. His 2006 solo album is hiding within an expansive library, but my recollection was that the songs were mostly quiet little gems that hung together to create a mood that sustains itself for the duration. I made a gloriously overindulgent five-hour, 74-song playlist of my favorites, plunged back into the four-disc The Live Anthology and began a re-inspection of some of the albums that don’t always get my immediate attention. This has spurred on the typical, semi-regular re-visitation with his catalog. That means concerts, of course, and as part of a ticket-buying flurry this week, I secured entry to the second night of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ return to Boston in July. And it’s hard not to think about the spring and summer. The sun’s out and, while not balmy, it’s not freezing.
Another late night with Tom Petty's Highway CompanionĬoming off two major snowstorms, we’re in the middle of some unseasonable warmth in New England.
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