Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - Runnin' Down a Dream

I'm breaking away from the norm with this post. Instead of a single album, I'm going to recommend a multi-disc DVD documentary that includes bits and pieces of some great albums...all by Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.

My brother Pete got me this 4-disc set for Christmas and the 4-hour documentary on discs 1 & 2 is one of the best I've ever seen (it's close to topping Wilco's "I am Trying to Break Your Heart" film). The footage they've got of the band back in the Seventies is incredible because you basically get to witness the making of their earliest albums. The interviews distributed throughout the film really tell the story, and the music is just plain fantastic.

In my opinion, Petty & co have recorded at least 3 of the greatest albums ever: Damn the Torpedoes, Full Moon Fever, and Wildflowers. I know two of those are Petty "solo" albums but they include the band. With this documentary you really see how those albums came about, especially Torpedoes because Petty was involved in a huge lawsuit with the recording industry at the time. I'd venture to say he came out on top of that one.

Disc 3 is a recent TP & H concert in Gainsville, FL, and it also includes Stevie Nicks. I'm not a big Nicks fan but she really fits in well with the band. There is a SMOKING version of Muddy Waters' "I'm a Man" included (the revved up Yardbirds version). Great concert and TP can still rock.

Disc 4 is a CD collection of some of the rare tracks off the documentary. It includes a performance of "Honey Bee" on Saturday Night Live in the mid-Nineties when he had Dave Grohl (in between Nirvana and Foo Fighters at the time) playing drums. I remember watching that one live back in the day and thinking it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

Check out the trailer for this one