Big Blue Sky

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/new-again-ringo-starr
Interview magazine originally published this interview in June 1992 then reprinted it (posting it online) in 2005. 💘🐞

RINGO STARR: Good evening. My name is Ringo Starr.
TOM PETTY: And I’m Tom Petty. Two seasoned professionals around the four-track. So you’ve made a new album, Ringo?
STARR: Yes. I’d like to thank you for being on one of the tracks that’s not actually on the album.
PETTY: Oh, I’m always on the ones they take off.
STARR: Well, listen, you used me as a fake drummer in a video, so we’re even.
PETTY: I haven’t got to hear the album yet, but I’m told it’s really, really good.
STARR: Oh, let me give you a copy. Here you go.
PETTY: Thanks. So, you play drums on the album?
STARR: I play the drums. I am the only drummer. I am the best rock drummer on the planet. I’m sure you’ll agree.
PETTY: You certainly are. No arguments there.
STARR: I’ve just been putting things in place since ’88, when I went into rehab. I’m getting back in the business. I’m straight enough to actually play and perform, and to put the first All-Starrs together. And we put out the live album from that tour in ’90. So in ’91, the natural thing to do was a studio album.
PETTY: Great. Are you going on the road?
STARR: I put another all-star band together for this year with Joe Walsh and Nils Lofgren from the last All-Starrs, plus Burton Cummings, Dave Edmunds, Todd Rundgren, Timothy B. Schmit, Zak Starkey [Starr’s son], and Ringo Starr.
PETTY: Wow. That’s quite a band.
STARR: That’s an orchestra.
PETTY: I saw your last one, you know. It was really nice.
STARR: Where? At the Greek [Theatre in L.A.]?
PETTY: Yeah.
STARR: I like it there. it’s a really good-size audience for me. I don’t want ot play those big stadiums like you play. [laughs]
PETTY: Well, that’s because you’re already rich.
STARR: I’ve just heard that you’ve got a new deal. You must be loaded.
PETTY: Well, I’m just doing interviews now.
STARR: So am I. that’s how well-off we are. Of course, Mr. Harrison, the billionaire of life, has just left town.
PETTY: Yeah, ol’ one-gig-a-year guy.
STARR: One gig every seven years.
PETTY: I heard you got onstage at [London’s Royal] Albert Hall recently with George.
STARR: That was such a good show. It was great because Joe Walsh opened, and Zak played with Joe. That was a real thrill to see. I went with the kids and my ex-wife and friends. I was there just to watch. The show went so well—George was just groovin’. He should have taken it on the road. I told him that. He should be doing what god wants him to do: perform. So then Joe sauntered off-stage and said [mimicking Walsh], “George wondered if you want to come on.” It didn’t take much coaxing, and I got up for the last two numbers.
PETTY: Well, Mike Campell [guitarist in Pety’s band, the Heartbreakers] was playing that night, and he said when you came on that he almost had to just sit down and dig the rhythm ’cause you’re a really great drummer. The human metronome, I call you.
STARR: B.B. King called me the human grandfather clock.
PETTY: [laughs] And what did Timothy Leary call you?
STARR: Whaaaa!
PETTY: I got George playing the blues last night. We were jamming. He’s a really good blues guitarist. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never broken into that.
STARR: Thank god he’s playing the blues and not that bloody ukulele that he loves so much.
PETTY: Well, we went through a few years of that. I’ve got four ukuleles at my house just for emergencies, you know.
STARR: In case George gets withdrawal.
PETTY: What kind of records do you listen to when you’re at home? Do you still listen to the stuff that you grew up digging? I know you were a Johnnie Ray fan, weren’t you?
STARR: Yeah. I don’t listen to too much Johnnie Ray, or Frankie Laine. Nat King Cole, I like to put on.
PETTY: I’m going to do an album with Nat King Cole, I think. It’s bound to go. [laughs]
STARR: It’s bound to be a sensation. Gotta be. They’ll just cut you into the video.
PETTY: Can’t you see me? [sings] “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have made you…”
STARR: So anyway, you go to the record collection and what do you pick out? Ray Charles never lets me down. And, you know, I’m actually starting to play Sgt. Pepper. I don’t know why….I do know why. Because George Martin is doing a show, The Making of Sgt. Pepper, and he’s interviewing us all, and so I thought, I’d better play that record and see what it’s like. I was really knocked out again. I hadn’t played it in so long that the diversity of the songs blew me away. But it also sounds kind of naïve, really.
PETTY: Naïve?
STARR: Yeah. The production, and the state of the art in those days.
PETTY: Well, it’s great production, though. It’s a really good sound.
STARR: But the mix—stuff over here and stuff over there.
PETTY: But I like that.
STARR: I didn’t say I didn’t like it, Tom. [Petty laughs] I said it sounds naïve.
PETTY: Well, okay. Making any movies? Have you given up acting?
STARR: I haven’t really given it up. I’m just refocusing on being a drummer again. Back to the dream, you know, of when I was 13.
PETTY: Do you live in L.A. now?
STARR: Well, we’re residents of Monte Carlo, but we bought this home in Beverly Hills. And we’re living here because I’m working again. We also have a house in Aspen, of course, like everyone else. I’m sure you do.
PETTY: No.
STARR: Where are you? Telluride? [laughs]
PETTY: No, I can’t ski. I don’t know how.
STARR: You can if you come with me. I love it!
PETTY: But you’ve never broken a leg or anything?
STARR: I’ve never broken a bone in my life, or in my body.
PETTY: [laughs] So, what do you do when you get free time, Ringo?
STARR: Well, I usually come around to your house and watch you sleep.
PETTY: [laughs] Besides that, I mean. Do you have any other interests?
STARR: Right now, we’re unpacking. We’ve just moved into the new house. I really like to sit outside. Things are changing in my head, and I like to be out in the light. So we bought this house—a billion-dollar greenhouse, really. Windows everywhere, huge glass. One level. So, I hang around, make phone calls, watch the TV, play a record. Barbara’s in school studying psychology, and I’m here having fun.
PETTY: So she’s gone back to college then? Good for her.
STARR: I believe I mentioned that she was [getting] a Ph.D., which is totally wrong. That’s down the line.
PETTY: I’m thinking about going back to high school and trying to—
STARR: —learn to spell—
PETTY: —and to add, because I can’t help my kids with their homework. It’s embarrassing.
STARR: All mine have left school, bar one, and I could never help him with his work anyway. But I’m really thinking, if we have any long breaks, of checking out the UCLA curriculum and seeing maybe if I want to take pottery or—
PETTY: Bait casting?
STARR: Chewing-gum making.
PETTY: Are you serious?
STARR: I’m real serious. They have a million things you can do. It would be great to hang out and see what’s happening. So that’s another thing for the future. Anyway, Tom, let’s have a break, because breakfast is here.
PETTY: Okay, we must have done hours by now.
 
THIS INTERVIEW ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE JUNE 1992 ISSUE OF INTERVIEW.
 

^for us speaking English, here is a translation form Google...

TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS MOJO - Tour Edition (2 CD set) "With this album I want to show people how the band sounds like when they play for themselves," said Tom Petty declared the album Mojo, the bedrock of the American Rocks Road after his revitalizing affair with Mudcrutch in 2010 brought back together with his Heartbreakers. The result was a typical Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers album, which ranges from rock & roll to country and electrified like acoustic blues, ballads to fast numbers - all recorded while you were standing together in a room, make eye contact and held fun had together. One could also say that under live conditions, because like no other band succeed Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, to create at their concerts even before a large audience with a familiar and cozy atmosphere that makes the concert-goers to a member of the Heartbreakers-family . In June we will have the rare good fortune too, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers experience for us to live again when the band will visit on their European tour in some German cities. For this reason, the album Mojo in a Tour Edition, which contains the complete studio recording 12 live recordings that were recorded up to an exception during the U.S. tour in 2010. Most of the songs are from the album Mojo, about Jefferson Jericho Blues, First Flash Of Freedom, The Running Man's Bible, and Goodenough, but there are also classics such as I Will not Back Down, American Girl and Refugee in brilliant live versions of . hear A real treat for Tom Petty fans.

Okay, I found all 16 tracks and have them in 320. I am not big on holding on to FLAC. Here is How I put them in a running order for my iPhone. If anyone wants them, please PM me and I will hook you up with a link. 
 
Listen To Her Heart
King’s Highway
You Don’t Know How it Feels
I Won’t Back Down
Takin’ My Time
Drivin Down To Georgia
Breakdown
I Should Have Known It
Sweet William
Jefferson Jericho Blues
First Flash of Freedom
Running Man’s Bible
Good Enough
Refugee
Runnin’ Down A Dream
American Girl

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/new-again-ringo-starr
Interview magazine originally published this interview in June 1992 then reprinted it (posting it online) in 2005. 💘🐞

RINGO STARR: Good evening. My name is Ringo Starr.
TOM PETTY: And I’m Tom Petty. Two seasoned professionals around the four-track. So you’ve made a new album, Ringo?
STARR: Yes. I’d like to thank you for being on one of the tracks that’s not actually on the album.
PETTY: Oh, I’m always on the ones they take off.
STARR: Well, listen, you used me as a fake drummer in a video, so we’re even.
PETTY: I haven’t got to hear the album yet, but I’m told it’s really, really good.
STARR: Oh, let me give you a copy. Here you go.
PETTY: Thanks. So, you play drums on the album?
STARR: I play the drums. I am the only drummer. I am the best rock drummer on the planet. I’m sure you’ll agree.
PETTY: You certainly are. No arguments there.
STARR: I’ve just been putting things in place since ’88, when I went into rehab. I’m getting back in the business. I’m straight enough to actually play and perform, and to put the first All-Starrs together. And we put out the live album from that tour in ’90. So in ’91, the natural thing to do was a studio album.
PETTY: Great. Are you going on the road?
STARR: I put another all-star band together for this year with Joe Walsh and Nils Lofgren from the last All-Starrs, plus Burton Cummings, Dave Edmunds, Todd Rundgren, Timothy B. Schmit, Zak Starkey [Starr’s son], and Ringo Starr.
PETTY: Wow. That’s quite a band.
STARR: That’s an orchestra.
PETTY: I saw your last one, you know. It was really nice.
STARR: Where? At the Greek [Theatre in L.A.]?
PETTY: Yeah.
STARR: I like it there. it’s a really good-size audience for me. I don’t want ot play those big stadiums like you play. [laughs]
PETTY: Well, that’s because you’re already rich.
STARR: I’ve just heard that you’ve got a new deal. You must be loaded.
PETTY: Well, I’m just doing interviews now.
STARR: So am I. that’s how well-off we are. Of course, Mr. Harrison, the billionaire of life, has just left town.
PETTY: Yeah, ol’ one-gig-a-year guy.
STARR: One gig every seven years.
PETTY: I heard you got onstage at [London’s Royal] Albert Hall recently with George.
STARR: That was such a good show. It was great because Joe Walsh opened, and Zak played with Joe. That was a real thrill to see. I went with the kids and my ex-wife and friends. I was there just to watch. The show went so well—George was just groovin’. He should have taken it on the road. I told him that. He should be doing what god wants him to do: perform. So then Joe sauntered off-stage and said [mimicking Walsh], “George wondered if you want to come on.” It didn’t take much coaxing, and I got up for the last two numbers.
PETTY: Well, Mike Campell [guitarist in Pety’s band, the Heartbreakers] was playing that night, and he said when you came on that he almost had to just sit down and dig the rhythm ’cause you’re a really great drummer. The human metronome, I call you.
STARR: B.B. King called me the human grandfather clock.
PETTY: [laughs] And what did Timothy Leary call you?
STARR: Whaaaa!
PETTY: I got George playing the blues last night. We were jamming. He’s a really good blues guitarist. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never broken into that.
STARR: Thank god he’s playing the blues and not that bloody ukulele that he loves so much.
PETTY: Well, we went through a few years of that. I’ve got four ukuleles at my house just for emergencies, you know.
STARR: In case George gets withdrawal.
PETTY: What kind of records do you listen to when you’re at home? Do you still listen to the stuff that you grew up digging? I know you were a Johnnie Ray fan, weren’t you?
STARR: Yeah. I don’t listen to too much Johnnie Ray, or Frankie Laine. Nat King Cole, I like to put on.
PETTY: I’m going to do an album with Nat King Cole, I think. It’s bound to go. [laughs]
STARR: It’s bound to be a sensation. Gotta be. They’ll just cut you into the video.
PETTY: Can’t you see me? [sings] “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have made you…”
STARR: So anyway, you go to the record collection and what do you pick out? Ray Charles never lets me down. And, you know, I’m actually starting to play Sgt. Pepper. I don’t know why….I do know why. Because George Martin is doing a show, The Making of Sgt. Pepper, and he’s interviewing us all, and so I thought, I’d better play that record and see what it’s like. I was really knocked out again. I hadn’t played it in so long that the diversity of the songs blew me away. But it also sounds kind of naïve, really.
PETTY: Naïve?
STARR: Yeah. The production, and the state of the art in those days.
PETTY: Well, it’s great production, though. It’s a really good sound.
STARR: But the mix—stuff over here and stuff over there.
PETTY: But I like that.
STARR: I didn’t say I didn’t like it, Tom. [Petty laughs] I said it sounds naïve.
PETTY: Well, okay. Making any movies? Have you given up acting?
STARR: I haven’t really given it up. I’m just refocusing on being a drummer again. Back to the dream, you know, of when I was 13.
PETTY: Do you live in L.A. now?
STARR: Well, we’re residents of Monte Carlo, but we bought this home in Beverly Hills. And we’re living here because I’m working again. We also have a house in Aspen, of course, like everyone else. I’m sure you do.
PETTY: No.
STARR: Where are you? Telluride? [laughs]
PETTY: No, I can’t ski. I don’t know how.
STARR: You can if you come with me. I love it!
PETTY: But you’ve never broken a leg or anything?
STARR: I’ve never broken a bone in my life, or in my body.
PETTY: [laughs] So, what do you do when you get free time, Ringo?
STARR: Well, I usually come around to your house and watch you sleep.
PETTY: [laughs] Besides that, I mean. Do you have any other interests?
STARR: Right now, we’re unpacking. We’ve just moved into the new house. I really like to sit outside. Things are changing in my head, and I like to be out in the light. So we bought this house—a billion-dollar greenhouse, really. Windows everywhere, huge glass. One level. So, I hang around, make phone calls, watch the TV, play a record. Barbara’s in school studying psychology, and I’m here having fun.
PETTY: So she’s gone back to college then? Good for her.
STARR: I believe I mentioned that she was [getting] a Ph.D., which is totally wrong. That’s down the line.
PETTY: I’m thinking about going back to high school and trying to—
STARR: —learn to spell—
PETTY: —and to add, because I can’t help my kids with their homework. It’s embarrassing.
STARR: All mine have left school, bar one, and I could never help him with his work anyway. But I’m really thinking, if we have any long breaks, of checking out the UCLA curriculum and seeing maybe if I want to take pottery or—
PETTY: Bait casting?
STARR: Chewing-gum making.
PETTY: Are you serious?
STARR: I’m real serious. They have a million things you can do. It would be great to hang out and see what’s happening. So that’s another thing for the future. Anyway, Tom, let’s have a break, because breakfast is here.
PETTY: Okay, we must have done hours by now.
 
THIS INTERVIEW ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE JUNE 1992 ISSUE OF INTERVIEW.
 

https://www.interviewmagazine.com/music/new-again-ringo-starr
Interview magazine originally published this interview in June 1992 then reprinted it (posting it online) in 2005. 💘🐞

RINGO STARR: Good evening. My name is Ringo Starr.
TOM PETTY: And I’m Tom Petty. Two seasoned professionals around the four-track. So you’ve made a new album, Ringo?
STARR: Yes. I’d like to thank you for being on one of the tracks that’s not actually on the album.
PETTY: Oh, I’m always on the ones they take off.
STARR: Well, listen, you used me as a fake drummer in a video, so we’re even.
PETTY: I haven’t got to hear the album yet, but I’m told it’s really, really good.
STARR: Oh, let me give you a copy. Here you go.
PETTY: Thanks. So, you play drums on the album?
STARR: I play the drums. I am the only drummer. I am the best rock drummer on the planet. I’m sure you’ll agree.
PETTY: You certainly are. No arguments there.
STARR: I’ve just been putting things in place since ’88, when I went into rehab. I’m getting back in the business. I’m straight enough to actually play and perform, and to put the first All-Starrs together. And we put out the live album from that tour in ’90. So in ’91, the natural thing to do was a studio album.
PETTY: Great. Are you going on the road?
STARR: I put another all-star band together for this year with Joe Walsh and Nils Lofgren from the last All-Starrs, plus Burton Cummings, Dave Edmunds, Todd Rundgren, Timothy B. Schmit, Zak Starkey [Starr’s son], and Ringo Starr.
PETTY: Wow. That’s quite a band.
STARR: That’s an orchestra.
PETTY: I saw your last one, you know. It was really nice.
STARR: Where? At the Greek [Theatre in L.A.]?
PETTY: Yeah.
STARR: I like it there. it’s a really good-size audience for me. I don’t want ot play those big stadiums like you play. [laughs]
PETTY: Well, that’s because you’re already rich.
STARR: I’ve just heard that you’ve got a new deal. You must be loaded.
PETTY: Well, I’m just doing interviews now.
STARR: So am I. that’s how well-off we are. Of course, Mr. Harrison, the billionaire of life, has just left town.
PETTY: Yeah, ol’ one-gig-a-year guy.
STARR: One gig every seven years.
PETTY: I heard you got onstage at [London’s Royal] Albert Hall recently with George.
STARR: That was such a good show. It was great because Joe Walsh opened, and Zak played with Joe. That was a real thrill to see. I went with the kids and my ex-wife and friends. I was there just to watch. The show went so well—George was just groovin’. He should have taken it on the road. I told him that. He should be doing what god wants him to do: perform. So then Joe sauntered off-stage and said [mimicking Walsh], “George wondered if you want to come on.” It didn’t take much coaxing, and I got up for the last two numbers.
PETTY: Well, Mike Campell [guitarist in Pety’s band, the Heartbreakers] was playing that night, and he said when you came on that he almost had to just sit down and dig the rhythm ’cause you’re a really great drummer. The human metronome, I call you.
STARR: B.B. King called me the human grandfather clock.
PETTY: [laughs] And what did Timothy Leary call you?
STARR: Whaaaa!
PETTY: I got George playing the blues last night. We were jamming. He’s a really good blues guitarist. In all the time I’ve known him, he’s never broken into that.
STARR: Thank god he’s playing the blues and not that bloody ukulele that he loves so much.
PETTY: Well, we went through a few years of that. I’ve got four ukuleles at my house just for emergencies, you know.
STARR: In case George gets withdrawal.
PETTY: What kind of records do you listen to when you’re at home? Do you still listen to the stuff that you grew up digging? I know you were a Johnnie Ray fan, weren’t you?
STARR: Yeah. I don’t listen to too much Johnnie Ray, or Frankie Laine. Nat King Cole, I like to put on.
PETTY: I’m going to do an album with Nat King Cole, I think. It’s bound to go. [laughs]
STARR: It’s bound to be a sensation. Gotta be. They’ll just cut you into the video.
PETTY: Can’t you see me? [sings] “Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa, men have made you…”
STARR: So anyway, you go to the record collection and what do you pick out? Ray Charles never lets me down. And, you know, I’m actually starting to play Sgt. Pepper. I don’t know why….I do know why. Because George Martin is doing a show, The Making of Sgt. Pepper, and he’s interviewing us all, and so I thought, I’d better play that record and see what it’s like. I was really knocked out again. I hadn’t played it in so long that the diversity of the songs blew me away. But it also sounds kind of naïve, really.
PETTY: Naïve?
STARR: Yeah. The production, and the state of the art in those days.
PETTY: Well, it’s great production, though. It’s a really good sound.
STARR: But the mix—stuff over here and stuff over there.
PETTY: But I like that.
STARR: I didn’t say I didn’t like it, Tom. [Petty laughs] I said it sounds naïve.
PETTY: Well, okay. Making any movies? Have you given up acting?
STARR: I haven’t really given it up. I’m just refocusing on being a drummer again. Back to the dream, you know, of when I was 13.
PETTY: Do you live in L.A. now?
STARR: Well, we’re residents of Monte Carlo, but we bought this home in Beverly Hills. And we’re living here because I’m working again. We also have a house in Aspen, of course, like everyone else. I’m sure you do.
PETTY: No.
STARR: Where are you? Telluride? [laughs]
PETTY: No, I can’t ski. I don’t know how.
STARR: You can if you come with me. I love it!
PETTY: But you’ve never broken a leg or anything?
STARR: I’ve never broken a bone in my life, or in my body.
PETTY: [laughs] So, what do you do when you get free time, Ringo?
STARR: Well, I usually come around to your house and watch you sleep.
PETTY: [laughs] Besides that, I mean. Do you have any other interests?
STARR: Right now, we’re unpacking. We’ve just moved into the new house. I really like to sit outside. Things are changing in my head, and I like to be out in the light. So we bought this house—a billion-dollar greenhouse, really. Windows everywhere, huge glass. One level. So, I hang around, make phone calls, watch the TV, play a record. Barbara’s in school studying psychology, and I’m here having fun.
PETTY: So she’s gone back to college then? Good for her.
STARR: I believe I mentioned that she was [getting] a Ph.D., which is totally wrong. That’s down the line.
PETTY: I’m thinking about going back to high school and trying to—
STARR: —learn to spell—
PETTY: —and to add, because I can’t help my kids with their homework. It’s embarrassing.
STARR: All mine have left school, bar one, and I could never help him with his work anyway. But I’m really thinking, if we have any long breaks, of checking out the UCLA curriculum and seeing maybe if I want to take pottery or—
PETTY: Bait casting?
STARR: Chewing-gum making.
PETTY: Are you serious?
STARR: I’m real serious. They have a million things you can do. It would be great to hang out and see what’s happening. So that’s another thing for the future. Anyway, Tom, let’s have a break, because breakfast is here.
PETTY: Okay, we must have done hours by now.
 
THIS INTERVIEW ORIGINALLY RAN IN THE JUNE 1992 ISSUE OF INTERVIEW.
 

here Benmont plays with John Rooney - 2019 album called "Joy".
 
 
 

Benmont plays on the Jenny Lewis album that came out last week. This track also features Ringo and Don Was:
 

I remember first hearing 'She’s Not There' on the radio in my bedroom. So ethereal. So spooky ... the DJ said it was The Zombies from England. 'Of course,' I thought. 'That is exactly what a zombie rock group would sound like.'” -Tom Petty  
 

Apparently there are at least 2 places called Pirates'Coves in California. One's near Point Dume at Malibu & the other's up the coast from San Fransisco. 

I'd love to have an official release of the True Confessions Tour with Bob Dylan. Maybe one day in Dylan's Bootleg Series...
 

I must say, Big Blue Sky, that's an awesome list you have there. And I like your idea of choosing only ONE song off each album, hard as that may be. I enjoyed your exercise to much that I'll follow suit. BUT, I'll include a song from Wildflowers. That being said, any song off WF can be and deserves to be on a Greatest Hits compilation, so it doesn't really matter which song you pick in my opinion. All are deserving. WF would easily weigh down any GH2 album. In my teens, It's Good to be King was my favorite track. In my early 20's, it was Time to Move On. In my later 20's, it became Hard On Me. In my 30's, it was Crawling Back to You, tied with Wake Up Time. Now, at this season in life, it's gotta be To Find a Friend. But that song would be too slow to kick off a GH2 album, so I'm choosing to go with an upbeat & optimistic selection. Here goes:
 
1. A Higher Place
2. Walls
3. Sea of Heartbreak
4. Counting on You
5. Have Love Will Travel
6. Big Weekend
7. Scare Easy
8. It's Good to Be King (live)
9. I Should Have Known It
10. Fault Lines
11. Dreams of Flying
12. Lonesome Dave
13. For Real
 
 

Mudcrutch somehow ended up with the more artistic covers (generally speaking) than TPATH. 

Okay, sure, so they're all sensational musicians & over the years have contributed to other people's recording sessions.
Are there too many to count?
I knew about this first appearance (from 3:20) but was completely surprised while watching the second music video (from 2:10 onwards).
 
 

Okay, sure, so they're all sensational musicians & over the years have contributed to other people's recording sessions.
Are there too many to count?
I knew about this first appearance (from 3:20) but was completely surprised while watching the second music video (from 2:10 onwards).
 
 

Okay, sure, so they're all sensational musicians & over the years have contributed to other people's recording sessions.
Are there too many to count?
I knew about this first appearance (from 3:20) but was completely surprised while watching the second music video (from 2:10 onwards).
 
 

Okay, sure, so they're all sensational musicians & over the years have contributed to other people's recording sessions.
Are there too many to count?
I knew about this first appearance (from 3:20) but was completely surprised while watching the second music video (from 2:10 onwards).
 
 

Indeed. Or even.. in line with Tom still planning to go ahead with the Wildflower project right away after the tour, he may have figured, why not use the tour to pave the way some.. like a mini promotion of what is to come.  In other words, it's not instead of, it's because of. I like to think there would be a logic to that as well.

Right.. but anniversaries rarely was how they rolled, though, was it. Seeing how they celebrated their 41st in 2017, how DTT was celebrated with a deluxe treatement at 31, how they rode with a Tom solo album for the TPATH 30th Anniv tour, as you mention, how Playback would have been the perfect 20! extravaganza, if it wasn't one year early, and the 20th of Wildflowers is closing in on 30, for all I know. I like to think of all this as mildly confusing but extremely charming. At the very least it speaks to the genuine, less calculated side of their enterprise, and what's not to love about that part! They'd always get to things when and how they liked! It's all just numbers anyway..
 

Well yes, I do agree that this isn't real & it's all in my mind. It's a fun thought experiment / a flight of fancy / part of long tradition of creating mix tapes. 

I bet this here is a fairly forgotten Tom Petty moment...
 

I'll try and answer as best I can. Overall I think the Greatest Hits Vol. 2 should be a great companion piece to Vol 1. Since Vol. 1 is mostly singles, I'm hoping a lot of singles will make it. Those are obvious go-tos. Other than the live-LPs I wouldn't personally go lookin' for live recordings or live covers. I'm not lookin' at Mudcrutch either, but I could see 1 song make it towards the end of the record/playlist.

She's The One has some great covers, so that could be a way to get one or two covers on the record.

Rag mama rag................ brilliant stuff.

There is a lot to be said for that. This one is actually one of those things in life that goes beyond whether you find it fantastic or not. (Although, liking it helps some.) At least if you are a music fan with any interest in general rock universe navigation. See.. without The Band in general, their friends and allies, and perhaps that Last Waltz film in particular (as some sort of beacon at the end of a movement), it would be very hard to understand anything of what happened to rock music in the late 60 throughout the 70s and on, how the genuinely American folk rock developed and paved way for what was to become the Alternative Rock, the Americana craze of our times. Milestone material? Well.. Let's just say, trying to understand modern American rock without it, would like trying to understand modern sci-fi without the Alien trilogy.
On a more "Farming" level, The Last Waltz certainly helps, if mainly by association, in understanding the influences and style references that are soaking through so much of Tom's music. It may also be a pointer towards the rationale behind some of his choice of covers over the years - since, as much as he loved 50s blues rock and the British invasion stuff (in itself in part influenced by Bob and The Band and so on), Tom was himself definitely a child of his times, wasn't he? The traces of Bob, The Band, Butterfield, Bloomfield, Grateful Dead, Little Feat, JJ Cale and all this 70s Americana rock sentiments - the presence of all the who's-who in terms of various inventors of the folk rock scene - are loud and clear, all the way from the first chords of Mudcrutch*. I basically think this stuff was tremendously important to Tom and the guys! "The same mountain stream", yes... that is so very aptly put!
Good or bad - the Last Waltz is, if nothing more, splendid context.** No necessity or obligation to think or care about these things at all, of course. Music is fine as isolated bubbles too. I'm just saying.. if one has an itch... this film is one of the places to start the scratching.
That said, hearing that clip there out of context, I can agree it's not the proudest moment of either The Band or Butterfield. The don't exactly nail that song, IMO. And as for Butterfield in general, he sure was a key player and he contributed to a lot of cool stuff, but as a leading man and especially as a singer, I do think that he is slightly overrated. To me he is far from the only reason why his namnesake Blues Band is so groovy. Look more in ways of rhythm section and guitar to find my answers. Also. I'm no big fan of long instrumental harmonica jams, so that may be part of it.... 
Hm.. having said all this, the one thing that surprise me, though.. is that.. I can't think of all those perfect The Band covers that Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers surely must have pulled out over the years. There is some very strange absence there. A hole in my mind, surely.
 
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* Come to think of it - slightly tweaked, a song like Up In Mississippi really could be a The Band song. I can hear their harmonies, the Weight or Cripple Creek style vibe taking that song to it's final destination.
**Another document that covers a slightly different limb of this alternative/Americana beast, a slightly more singer/songwriter oriented era and context, that is highly recommendable would be the Heartworn Highways movie. Ya all really need to see that one, if only for the fantastic studio photage of Larry Jon Wilson trying to nail Ohoopee River Bottom Land (that voice!?), of Guy Clark doing Forever, For Always, For Certain and Townes of course, the sob fest that is Townes Van Zandt's kitchen table take of Waitin' Around to Die. Oh man… I would link all those.. or the whole film.. but you all have to do some of the work yourself. Cruel world.  

Shelter summed it up.
Better songs (than the Mystery Train version from The Last Waltz) to get into The Band might be
Up on Cripple Creek, Don't Do It, The Weight and maybe The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. If you care for a certain type of "Americana" music, it's almost impossible not to like these. And in the rare case you really don't, they are at least interesting signposts in the history of popular music. Although they're definitely much more than just that.
Watching The Last Waltz might help understand the importance of The Band. The first song just kills. Having said that, it is, of course, a complicated or even troubled movie, or at least the history of its conception is. Fantastic as an end product nevertheless. And as far as music goes it's probably the single most important document of its time.

3/17/19
Them
 

3/15/19
Hal Blaine playing drums.