Just three days after the first anniversary of Tom Petty’s final performance (September 25th, 2017, at the Hollywood Bowl) and four days before the first anniversary of his death, An American Treasure, a four-CD box set of unreleased music, is released today.
The 60-song, career-spanning collection contains dozens of alternate versions of classic songs, rarities, live performances and deep tracks.
Petty’s daughter Adria, his wife Dana and Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of The Heartbreakers were all involved in the project.
“Mike [Campbell] and I sat down with [studio collaborator] Ryan [Ulyate] and with Adria, Adria Petty, and we went through a whole bunch of stuff and found some things that I had forgotten," said Tench. "Found some things that I said, ‘Can you look for this?’ and he found them. But he found a lot of stuff that I’d forgotten or I hadn’t known we had done.”
Adria and Dana said, “Everyone involved in this project chose each track with tremendous care and deep respect for the body of work Tom Petty created over the course of 40 years. He also accumulated a wealth of unreleased music in his vaults, and we have collectively uncovered one gem after another."
They call it a "musical portrait of an artist who deeply affected our culture and indelibly touched the lives of fans the world over.”
“Emotionally, it was actually really good," explained Tench. "It was good to hear it and be reminded that I was right – that he wrote great songs. We were a really good band. It was very good. It was wonderful to just keep hearing it. And there is so much. There is so much more music.”
An American Treasure is available in multiple formats, including a six-disc vinyl set and a two-CD set with 26 career-spanning tracks.
Source: TomPetty.com