Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Footage of Tom Petty, playing bass (as he did in his first bands) only this time in a TV appearance backing Dwight Twilley.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=l24DFbedbJ0&search=tom%20petty

Interesting to see Petty play bass, especially a Rick. First view I could only see two knobs...but a neck PU...was corn-fused a bit.

But Gawd...that song was insipid. Couldn't take 2 minutes of it...

I liked The Dwight Twilley band at least from what I could remember of them but the echo was a little excessive on his voice, was Petty his full time bass player? He was pretty good on bass. I never knew there were two unknown comics.

Seems to me, on the lp, Petty has a vocal credit on the track. But no bass credit (though I could be wrong.) One can clearly hear him singing background towards the end of the song (he also has prominent vocals on Twilley's 1984-ish single "Girls.") Bass was his first instrument. He played it in at least two bands, maybe more. And a very similar 4001 is seen in the "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" video, only played by the Heartbreakers bassist Ron Blair. He clearly had a lot of experience on the four stringer and was labelmates with Twilley at Shelter Records so perhaps he was tracking with his 4001 when asked to. That "Twilly Band" album only has two members on its cover. So I think others were just filling in.

I've seen Blair in several videos with a jetglo 4001, great sound that guy had. And I was impressed by how Petty played, he had a good pumping rocking style. I think he was probably better on bass than guitar like another famous guitar player: Ron Wood, who was a great bass player and used Transonics, at least for long enough to shoot Promo shots with them.

Well, Tom certainly had a lot of experience on bass, playing it in several bands. I think he was also a singing bassist, as in singing lead, when he was in that role.

There are photos of Blair playing a Hofner as well, circa '80-81. And photos of Petty playing a Hofner in the early 70s. I wonder if that was Tom's bass as well.

I could be wrong, but didn't Tom play bass with the Traveling Wilburys as well?

Good point. He did in the videos.

Did he use the same Ric?

Although the Wilbury's were known almost exclusively for playing Rics, I believe Tom is playing a Dano Longhorn bass in their first video, and one of the others is playing Mike Campbell's Ric 12. That is the only Ric sighting I can remember from that band.

Petty was a full time bassist from '65 to '76.

He switched to guitar on his first LP when the Heartbreakers were formed in '76.

Well that explains it, he looked right at home on that Ric bass in addition to also sounding like a real bass player. I wonder why he didn't stick with bass, he looked like he was enjoying himself. I know that the first chance I got to buy a bass when I was a kid the guitar got put down.

think he was playin one of these...


at least thas what the promo said

Maybe he was like Macca, whatever the band needed, if he could play it, he'd play it. And maybe Blair was a better bassist, though TP certainly paid his dues if he was at it for 11 years beforehand. One would think Petty had learned guitar earlier for songwriting purposes. He was good enough of a writer to be signed to Leon Russel's label as a writer before anything happened for him bandwise in LA.

Another possibility is that he was made rhythm guitarist so he could concentrate on his singing more.