Sensational: Tom Petty's unreleased "Wildflower" songs and other exciting extras

Tom Petty's 1994 masterpiece "Wildflowers" is released as a greatly expanded new edition of "Wildflowers & All The Rest", which includes the ten songs from the "Wildflowers" recording sessions that were not on the album version, plus solo demos, live performances and alternative versions of the album songs and more

Wildflowers has changed Tom's artistic life in many ways - as a musician, creative partner and band leader - while a profound personal crisis has influenced the stories and emotional drives in his songs. In the end, Tom wrote more songs than he could publish at the time. In fact, Petty, Rubin and Campbell finished the album as a double CD with 25 songs, nearly two hours of music, but his label advised a restriction. Released on November 1, 1994, Wildflowers - a CD of 15 songs, still longer than an hour - was Tom's most emotionally disarming album and has remained so to this day

The resurrection of Wildflowers has a long history. As early as 2014, Tom outlined his plans for the re-issue in an interview with Rolling Stone: "I broke through to something else. My personal life collapsed and that threw me off track for a while. But during the recordings I was completely with myself". In 2016 he expressed the wish to accompany the Wildflowers release with a tour on his Tom Petty Radio at SiriusXM. Tom had always intended to release the second half of the album - a collection called "All The Rest" with ten songs from the "Wildflowers" recording sessions that were not on the album version and five unreleased tracks (other versions of four songs that were to appear on the soundtrack of the 1996 movie "She's The One")

Tom's vision for the project is becoming a reality thanks to the dedication of his loving family, band members and creative partners who helped unearth many previously unheard jewels. The collection was curated by Tom's daughters Adria and Annakim Petty and his wife Dana Petty, who call it "many, many hours of pure musical joy", and Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench of Heartbreakers. Tom's longtime sound engineer and co-producer, Ryan Ulyate, acted as co-producer. Together, they gave themselves over to the warmth that Tom created through his music and the relationship with his fans

"Wildflowers & All The Rest" is published in several different formats. "Wildflowers & All The Rest - Deluxe Edition" contains 15 songs by Tom, which he recorded in his home studio while writing the album. These solo demos offer an intimate look at Tom's songwriting process, where he plays all the instruments and changes his lyrics as he works on them. The Deluxe Edition is rounded out with 14 live performances of "Wildflowers" songs, recorded on various tours between 1995 and 2017. "Wildflowers & All The Rest - Super Deluxe" is a Direct to Consumer Limited Edition set that includes "Finding Wildflowers" - 16 studio recordings with alternative takes of "Wildflowers" songs while Tom, the band members and Rubin polish the final album

The collection has very special packaging in all formats. The Super Deluxe Edition is particularly complete: it contains an introduction written by Rick Rubin, the above-mentioned essay by David Fricke - "Somewhere You Feel Free: Tom Petty's Road to Wildflower" -, lyrics to all songs on "Wildflowers" and "All The Rest", plus an extensive track-by-track by Jaan Uhelszki with contributions from Rubin, Ulyate, "Wildflowers" sound engineer Jim Scott, Heartbreakers live mixing technician Robert Scovill and Heartbreakers Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench and Steve Ferrone.

The creative direction for the "Wildflowers" project was in the hands of Adria Petty, the packaging illustrations were done by Blaze Ben Brooks, the cover beadwork by Maria Sarno, the photographs from the Wildflowers era by Mark Seliger, Robert Sebree and Martyn Atkins.

Tom Petty released 16 studio albums and over 180 songs during his 40-year career. "Wildflowers" was the first album of a longstanding renaissance. No other album by Petty sold so quickly - in the USA it had triple platinum status just nine months after release. The album always held a special place for him, which is shown not least by the fact that at his final live concert in the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, five of the 18 songs on the album were from the album. Wildflowers - his personal triumph and the album Petty had to make in this situation, at any price - is finally available as he imagined it - and beyond

Reviews

"The US songwriter icon's second solo work is a classic. Now the trend-setting ALBUM is not only available remastered, but also with all studio takes that didn't make it onto the album at the time (stereoplay, November 2020)