Tom Pettys Remarkable Stand Against the Confederate Flag
Very interesting story of a part of his life.
GONE, BUT NEVER FORGOTTEN
Tom Pettys Remarkable Stand Against the Confederate Flag
https://www.thedailybeast.com/tom-pettys-remarkable-stand-against-the-confederate-flag?via=twitter_page
Remembering the anomalous rock n roll icon, who died late Monday following a heart attack at the age of 66.
Stereo Williams
10.03.17 7:00 AM ET
...................The video for their 1982 single You Got Lucky featured a Mad Max-inspired, apocalyptic storyline, evidence that the group wasnt as resistant to the music video format as many of their peers. This would be more evident by 1985, with the release of the popular Alice in Wonderland-themed visual for Dont Come Around Here No Morea synth-driven hit by Petty and co-written and co-produced with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics.
Dont Come Around Here No More was a major hit from the Heartbreakers 1985 Southern Accents album, but the LP was a source of tension within the band. Accents had originally been conceived as a concept record about Southern culture, but the inclusion of Stewart muddied the theme. Nonetheless, on the Southern Accents Tour, Petty included merchandise and stage dressing that prominently featured the Confederate flag. It was a move he would come to regret.
The Confederate flag was the wallpaper of the South when I was a kid growing up in Gainesville, Florida, Petty would say in 2015. I always knew it had to do with the Civil War, but the South had adopted it as its logo. I was pretty ignorant of what it actually meant. It was on a flagpole in front of the courthouse and I often saw it in Western movies. I just honestly didnt give it much thought, though I should have.
In 1985, I released an album called Southern Accents. It began as a concept record about the South, but the concept part slipped away probably 70 percent or so into the album. I just let it go, but the Confederate flag became part of the marketing for the tour. I wish I had given it more thought. It was a downright stupid thing to do.
A sticking point for Petty was when fans began to bring Confederate flags to shows. In 2010, Fred Mills of BLURT recalled seeing Petty live in 1990 (with Lenny Kravitz opening, no less) when a fan tossed a Confederate flag onstage.
A certain yahoo element had already been making its presence in the crowd known, emitting whoops and raising beer cups whenever Petty would make a regional reference. It was starting to feel like a NASCAR rally in the arena. Now, as the band eased into the songs signature piano intro, somebody tossed a folded-up object onto the stage, said Mills. Petty walked over, picked it up, and started unfolding it: a rebel flag, symbol of the Confederacyand of a whole lot more. He froze, uncertain as to what he should do. Well, wave it proudly at all your fellow Southerners, you could almost hear the collective thought ripple through the air. Instead, Petty walked back to the mic, still holding the flag, and slowly began to speak, talking about how on the Southern Accents Tour a few years ago theyd included a Confederate flag as part of the stage set, but since then hed been thinking about it and decided that it had been a mistake because he understood maybe it wasnt just a rebel image to some folks. As a low rumble of boos and a few catcalls came out of the crowd, Petty carefully wadded the flag up and concluded, So we dont donodding at the flagthis anymore. Glaring at it one last time and then chucking it back down, he glanced at the band then launched directly into the next song.
Pettys success in the late 1980s with the multiplatinum Full Moon Fever ..................................
DarthDem
(5,256 posts)Thank you for sharing. I always knew I loved this man's music, but now I'm learning that he was a liberal and a free-thinker as well. What a loss. This will, however, make me appreciate his music even more. I suspect he will live on and on and on in his remarkable artistry for some time.
SunSeeker
(51,698 posts)Now I like him even more.