On April 24th 1989 Tom Petty released his “Full Moon Fever” album.
It was his first solo album, or better explained as his first album credited to just Tom and not with The Heartbreakers.
Oddly enough there was only one member of The Heartbreakers who didn’t contribute to playing on the album, that was drummer Stan Lynch.
Some of Petty’s bandmates in the Traveling Wilburys made appearances, Jeff Lynne, Roy Orbison (who died prior to its release), and George Harrison,
Out of the dozen songs on the album, 9 of them were written by Petty together with Jeff Lynne who also produced the album.
Of the remaining 3 songs, one was a cover of The Byrds song “Feel A Whole Lot Better” which was written by Gene Clark.
The remaining 2 songs were written by Petty and Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and Petty, Lynne and Campbell.
The album was released by MCA records, even though the label didn’t like the album when Tom turned it in.
They were wrong as it seems being the album turned out to be Petty’s commercial peak as an artist.
It was helped by favorable critical reviews and three hit singles.
Being early in the the days of CDs Tom had some fun with a track on the CD only between what would be the last song on the cassette or vinyl album’s Side 1 and the first song on Side 2.
That track was Tom speaking over a background of barnyard noises, saying “Hello, CD listeners. We’ve come to the point in this album where those listening on cassette, or record, will have to stand up, or sit down, and turn over the record, or tape. In fairness to those listeners, we’ll now take a few seconds before we begin side two. [pause] Thank you. Here’s side two.”
Check out a number of tracks from the album below.
