MOVING PICTURES
“The Making of Wildflowers” INTIMATE NEW TOM PETTY DOCUMENTARY NOW STREAMING FOR FREE ON YOUTUBE BY JOE NOLAN Film Critic Director Peter Bogdanovich’s sprawling 2007 documentary, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin’ Down a Dream was an epic, sprawling and deftly detailed history of the eponymous band’s career from their early days in Gainesville, Fla., as a regional outfit called Mudcrutch. It followed the band to the top of the charts in the 1980s, and into legendary status by the time the band created their Wildflowers album with producer Rick Rubin in the mid-1990s. Bogdanovich’s film is energized with exhaustive documentation, spotlighting every change in the band’s lineup, every new twist on their sound, and all the collaborators — George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Dave Stewart, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Dell Shannon to name a few — who played a part in the band’s continued development and success over nearly half a century. Bogdanovich’s film will likely never be bested as the definitive cinematic history of the band, and it’s required viewing for longtime Heartbreakers fans and newbies alike. Now a new documentary by Mary Wharton zooms-in on what many fans and critics consider to be the band’s high water mark. Tom Petty, Some-
where You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers spotlights the period from 1992-1994 when Petty joined forces with producer Rick Rubin to create the titular masterpiece LP. The film made a successful limited theatrical run in October, and it just started streaming for free on YouTube on Nov. 11. We mention Bogdanovich’s film because Wharton’s movie manages to be the yin to its yang: Bogdanovich’s movie covers decades of history and clocks-in at a staggering 4h 19m runtime. Wharton’s movie focuses on a few years in the middle of the band’s career, and her film doesn’t break the 1h 30m mark. Bogdanovich’s film gives us an international cast of musicians, producers and star collaborators. Wharton’s film focuses on Petty and Rubin — the album was released as a solo LP that allowed the singer to “step out of the politics of The Heartbreakers.” In reality, most of The Heartbreakers contributed to the album, and guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboard player Benmont Tench also fill-in the blanks of Wharton’s film with their reminiscences about the band’s creative process, their tensions and camaraderie. The album was cut over 21 months from July 20, 1992 - April 29, 1994 at Sound City and
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TOMMY WOMACK IS READY TO ROCK AGAIN BY JIM PAT TERSON
Ocean Way studios in Los Angeles, CA. Wharton gives us lots of footage of the band in the studio, behind the mixing console, and even on stage. But beyond the actual performances she captures, Wharton gives viewers deep insights into the process behind Petty’s writing, and how the band and Rubin evolved collections of chord changes, odd guitar riffs and random notebook scrawlings into a masterpiece album built on timeless songs like “Wildflowers,” “It’s Good to Be King,” “You Wreck Me,” and “You Don’t Know How it Feels.” Rubin isn’t a musician or even an expert audio engineer. His specialty is accommodating artists, meeting them where they are, and empowering them to find the flow in their creativity. Petty and the band had done projects with producer Jeff Lynne who is known for his technical, perfectionist releases. Petty and the band brought the discipline that Lynne inspired to the making
n 1998, Tommy Womack released the song “A Little Bit of Sex” on his first solo album. Twenty-three years later, he offers “A Little Bit of Sex Part 2” on his latest project, I Thought I was Fine. Things have changed. The first song, written when Womack was 24, features anxiety about causing a pregnancy or catching a sexually transmitted disease. He was pushing 60 when he wrote “A Little Bit of Sex Part 2,” about declining libido as we get older and navigate health issues. “Not tonight honey, I want to watch Law and Order,” Womack sings on the newer song. The song opens up with the couplet, “Rock ‘n’ roll is a losing cause/All my old groupies got menopause.” “That’s the beauty of his songwriting,” said Jonathan Bright, who co-produced and played on the album with Womack at Bright’s Nashville recording studio. “He can be hilarious, and he can be heartbreaking, and a lot of times it can be within a verse and a chorus of the same song.” Womack has returned to his first love — “loud, sloppy rock ‘n’ roll” — after years styling himself as an Americana artist. For fans of his 1980s band Government Cheese, I Thought I was Fine will constitute a return to form. “I came to an epiphany that I don't listen to Lucinda (Williams)
or Steve Earle or Jason Isbell or anybody like that,” Womack said. “I listen to The Ramones and AC/DC.” His lyrics, always insightful and witty, aren’t stuck in the past. He tackles mature topics like the older brother he would have liked to have known better, the indignity of “Job Hunting While Depressed,” trying to “Pay it Forward” despite being down on your luck and what happens when a narcissist falls in love. “It’s almost like those Hank Williams Sr. songs that are so simple,” Bright said. “They're universal themes, but the way he presents them is definitely through his filter.” Those who want to compare Womack’s old and newer songs might be interested in “30 Years Shot to Hell,” a compilation due soon that tracks Womack’s progress from Government Cheese through his later band the bis-quits; duo project with fellow bis-quits member Will Kimbrough, Daddy; and into his solo career. In addition to playing clubs, Womack has hustled for a living as an author (one novel and two very funny memoirs), a deejay on WXNA and columnist for The East Nashvillian. He’s open to house concerts and will even write a song on a specific topic or theme for a fee. He is also a prodigious Facebook poster, on everything from his health to insightful serial posts
November 24 - December 6, 2021 | The Contributor | NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE | PAGE 11
of Wildflowers, but Rubin’s masterstroke was setting-up live recording sessions where the musicians could interact. They also took their time over more than a year-and-a-half of recording, relaxing into a place where they felt free to take chances and try-out ideas while also putting concerns about labels and charts and tour schedules on the back burner. Wharton’s film is an invaluable document of the making of a modern masterpiece. It’s also a tender, funny, and fascinating profile of one of our greatest contemporary songwriters, and one of America’s greatest rock bands. Tom Petty, Somewhere You Feel Free: The Making of Wildflowers is streaming on YouTube Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/ songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.
on rock bands including Led Zeppelin and The Rolling Stones. He’s had exactly one non-creative job that he liked, working at Bookstar, the sinceclosed bookstore in the old Belle Meade Theatre building on Harding Pike. “Every time I've had to go get a job in the past, it's been a depressing situation,” Womack said about his song “Job Hunting While Depressed.” “I worked at Vanderbilt (University) about 15 years at three different places, and I hated it. … I'm not a corporate guy at all.” COVID-19 closed off his performing income for a year and a series of health setbacks have slowed him down. A crash with a tractor trailer in 2015 left him with several broken bones in his pelvis and he’s survived bladder cancer three times. Most recently he collapsed on his way to WXNA, and it turned out he had a Vitamin D deficiency. Bright, who tours with the Raelyn Nelson Band (Raelyn is Willie Nelson’s granddaughter), has his own rock ‘n’ roll project coming out next year, a band called De Piratas in collaboration with members of Jason and the Scorchers. “We're at the age where we know that it doesn't matter how good or what you do, there's still a huge element of luck,” Bright said. “All anyone has to offer is their selves, their individuality. … And certainly Tommy is a complete individual.”
