Had

If New Orleans was the first city of jazz; New York, the city that never sleeps: the home of bebop; Paris the city of 50s cool, then, arguably, that dynamic, cosmopolitan, constantly self-reinventing megacity London is the jazz burg of the 21st century.

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. All of this was on full display on Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), their simplest and best album since Hard Promises. Not to say that Let Me Up is a perfect album – far from it, actually. Filled with loose ends, song fragments, and unvarnished productions, it's a defiantly messy album, and it's all the better for it, especially arriving on the heels of the well-groomed Accents. Apart from the (slightly dated) rant "Jammin' Me'" (co-written by Dylan, but you can't tell), there aren't any standouts on the record, but there's no filler either – it's just simply a good collection of ballads ("Runaway Trains"), country-rockers ("The Damage You've Done"), pop/rock ("All Mixed Up," "Think About Me"), and hard rockers ("Let Me Up [I've Had Enough]"). While that might not be enough to qualify Let Me Up as one of Petty & the Heartbreakers' masterpieces, it is enough to qualify it as the most underrated record in their catalog.

It’s been 50 years since Vince Gill chose a path toward music and left his home in Oklahoma to launch his career — a journey that’s taken him to Kentucky then California and finally Nashville, and, as a touring artist, around the world. It has seen him find success as a member of bands such as Mountain Smoke, Bluegrass Alliance, Boone Creek, Sundance, Pure Prairie League, Rodney Crowell’s Notorious Cherry Bombs, The Time Jumpers and, most recently, the Eagles, and as an iconic recording artist in his own right. Last week, Gill signed a lifetime deal with his longtime label MCA.