Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Mojo On 180g 2LP Set

First New Studio Album in 7 Years Opens Up the Floor to Underrated Guitarist Mike Campbell

Bluesy Flavors and Live-on-the-Floor Sound Distinguish Complete Band Effort

No Studio Overdubs: True Audiophile Sound on This Excellent Analog Pressing

Some time in the last few years Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took a left turn. Maybe it was when Petty woke up in the night with the idea of reuniting his first band, Mudcrutch, to cut the album they never got a chance to make back in the early 70s. Maybe it was when the Heartbreakers assembled the mammoth multi-disc The Live Anthology, which detailed thirty years of concerts. Maybe it was when they gave all their home movies, outtakes, and live footage to director Peter Bogdanovich to create the Grammy-winning four-hour career documentary Runnin' Down A Dream. And there have been side projects and experiments since the band last went into the studio to cut a new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album. With Mojo, they have taken such recent freedom and experimentation to heart.

The first thing that hits you about Mojo is that the spirit of the Mudcrutch sessions carried on with the Heartbreakers. This is the sound of a band playing together in a room, not a studio, facing each other, all singing and playing at the same time. The music is alive, with no overdubs or studio trickery. What you hear is what they created on the spot at that time.

As for the songs, Mojo showcases a wide variety of American music from rock ‘n' roll to country and both electric and acoustic blues. And then there are the images in Petty's lyrics which slip in on the melodies and set up a home in your head: The barefoot girl in the high grass chewing on a stick of sugar cane, the run-in with the law that begins when a carload of buddies decide to party with the motel maids, and the hilariously audacious idea of opening an album with an electric blues rocker about Thomas Jefferson's love affair with Sally Hemings.

Mojo has juice and guts but it also has some sweet balladry for the slow dancers and even a wacky reggae number that is unlike anything that the Heartbreakers have done before. It's the kind of album nobody's supposed to be able to make anymore. It got here just in time.

"Mojo (Reprise) spotlights the interplay of the Heartbreakers, and gives guitarist Mike Campbell room to stretch. A master at weaving different colors through Petty’s songs, Campbell brings a new boldness to his playing, as is instantly apparent with the opening fanfare on “First Flash of Freedom.” The songs aren’t exactly jam-fests, but they feel looser, stretching out to accommodate his solos."
--Greg Kot, Chicago Tribune, June 14, 2010

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Mojo Track Listing:
   
1.  The Trip To Pirate's Cove
2.  Candy
3.  No Reason To Cry
4.  I Should Have Known It
5.  U.S. 41
6.  Takin' My Time
7.  Let Yourself Go
8.  Don't Pull Me Over
9.  Lover's Touch
10. High In The Morning
11. Something Good Coming
12. Good Enough