Tom Clancys The Division Extremis Mali

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers spent much of 1986 on the road as Bob Dylan's backing band. Dylan's presence proved to be a huge influence on the Heartbreakers, turning them away from the well-intentioned but slick pretensions of Southern Accents and toward a loose, charmingly ramshackle roots rock that harked back to their roots yet exhibited the professional eclecticism they developed during the mid-'80s…

Not long after You're Gonna Get It, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' label, Shelter, was sold to MCA Records. Petty struggled to free himself from the major label, eventually sending himself into bankruptcy. He settled with MCA and set to work on his third album, digging out some old Mudcrutch numbers and quickly writing new songs. Amazingly, through all the frustration and anguish, Petty & the Heartbreakers delivered their breakthrough and arguably their masterpiece with Damn the Torpedoes…

2CD FM broadcast captures Tom Petty s complete 1993 homecoming concert, his first show in Gainesville, Florida for 20 years. This show was just prior to the release of his greatest hits album and while he was in the process of moving to a new label. The greatest hits album also included 2 new recently recorded songs ; 'Mary Jane's Last Dance' and a cover of Thunderclap Newman's 'Something in the Air', both of which are included in this show. And the show was broadcast on the radio nationwide, in superb FM quality. So, here is Tom Petty's triumphant, yet somewhat overdue, return to Gainesville. Although some of the circulating FM versions of the show are shortened substantially, this is the full show in all its glory.

Damn the Torpedoes wasn't simply a culmination of Tom Petty's art; it happened to be a huge success, enabling him to call the shots on its successor, Hard Promises. Infamously, he used his first album as a star to challenge the record industry's practice of charging more for A-list artists, demanding that Hard Promises should be listed for less than most records by an artist of his stature, but if that was the only thing notable about the album, it would have disappeared like Long After Dark…

Tom Jones became one of the most popular vocalists to emerge from the British Invasion. Since the mid-'60s, Jones has sung nearly every form of popular music – pop, rock, show tunes, country, dance, and techno, he's sung it all. His actual style – a full-throated, robust baritone that had little regard for nuance and subtlety – never changed, he just sang over different backing tracks. On-stage, Jones played up his sexual appeal; it didn't matter whether he was in an unbuttoned shirt or a tuxedo, he always radiated a raw sexuality that earned him a large following of devoted female fans who frequently threw underwear on-stage. Jones' following never diminished over the decades; he was able to exploit trends, earning new fans while retaining his core following.

Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers famously played 20 nights at the legendary Fillmore venue in San Francisco in 1997. 6 of the shows were professionally recorded and this release features many of the high points of the residency. The small venue allowed the band to vary their sets each night; they included re-arranged and distinctive versions of their hits, deep cuts, and many cover versions – paying tribute to the artists that Tom and the band had been influenced by. The 4 CD deluxe edition includes fifty-eight tracks pulled primarily from the last six concerts performed in the residency. Those six shows were professionally recorded and tracks from the setlists in those shows have seen previously release on The Live Anthology and the 2020 expanded reissue of Petty's 1994 album Wildflowers.

The Early Years, Vol. 1 is an album of early demos recorded by a 21-year-old Tom Waits in 1971, two years before the release of his first album, Closing Time, and issued on the record label owned by his ex-manager. Waits accompanies himself on piano or guitar and sings in an unaffected nasal tenor. (One track, "Ice Cream Man," is given a full-band treatment.) Several of these songs, notably "Ice Cream Man," "Virginia Ave.," "Midnight Lullabye," and "Little Trip to Heaven," turned up on his later albums, but the overall level of writing and performance is well below Waits' usual standard.