Latest Ron blair Podcast Episodes
10 Questions with Mary Beth Donnelly
The Tom Petty Project - July 03, 2024 09:00 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is my ten questions with the wonderful Mary Beth Donnelly, who very kindly joined me on the kick off episode of season ten to talk about the title track from Wildflowers. We chatted about Paul Simon, Jeff Lynne, and everything in between as we went through my ten questions to fin...
Tommy Edwin Returns
The Tom Petty Project - June 26, 2024 09:00 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is another conversation I had with the wonderful Tommy Edwin. We discussed Travis picking and talked about putting set lists together and whether choose the songs you think the crowd should hear, not the songs you think they want to hear. Tommy was wonderfully warm, engaging, and...
Don't Fade On Me
The Tom Petty Project - June 19, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsWhen I think about the solo in this song, it has a gravity to it that makes it feel centuries old. You could almost imagine that it has been living underground in some secret grotto since time began, just waiting for the right song to come along and feed it. It feels like a primal life force all...
Honey Bee
The Tom Petty Project - June 12, 2024 10:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsIn the liner notes for Wildflowers and all the Rest, engineer Jim Scott remarks that “Tom would write a song like ‘Honey Bee’ on the spot and the band would just follow him. There are dozens of recordings just starting a song and making it up from top to bottom, coming up with funny lyrics.” Of ...
Only a Broken Heart
The Tom Petty Project - June 05, 2024 09:00 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsAs journalist Jaan Uhelski writes in the Wildflowers and All the Rest liner notes, “If Wildflowers is an album about taking stock of one’s life, “Only a Broken Heart” is a watershed moment on that excavation of self.” Everything about the way the final album version of this song is arranged and ...
It's Good to Be King
The Tom Petty Project - May 29, 2024 09:00 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratings“It's good to be king and have your own way. Get a feeling of peace at the end of the day” There’s security in success, but there’s an ominous cautionary tone that creeps into the next line, “And when your bulldog barks and your canary sings, You're out there with winners, it's good to be king”....
You Wreck Me
The Tom Petty Project - May 22, 2024 09:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsLegendary Nashville songwriter, Harlan Howard is purported to have coined the expression “three chords and the truth” and friend and colleague Bob Dylan is also remembered for the great line “All I need is my red guitar, three chords and the truth”. Well that’s all this riff is. Three chords. No...
Time to Move On
The Tom Petty Project - May 15, 2024 09:00 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsOn certain days, I think “Time to Move On” is the best song on Wildflowers, on other days, other songs take that honour. It’s a song that resonates with so many people because it gives us that glimpse into someone finding freedom, if not exactly peace. Despite being the fourth most streamed son...
You Don't Know How It Feels
The Tom Petty Project - May 08, 2024 09:00 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsWe’re all quick to judge people, whether they cut us off in the fast lane, or don’t hold a door open for us as we’re heading out of the grocery store. But we don’t know what that person is going through, emotionally, psychologically, physically. That disconnect is amplified a hundredfold when it...
Wildflowers
The Tom Petty Project - May 01, 2024 09:00 - 39 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsEverything about the way this song is crafted sneaks up on you. It’s a masterclass in how you take an idea and flesh it out into a fully-fledged tour de force piece of art. And that’s not to say that this song isn’t wonderful when played just on an acoustic guitar, or on piano with just the voca...
Approaching Wildflowers
The Tom Petty Project - April 24, 2024 09:00 - 14 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsWhen climbers finally decide to take on the holy grail of all ascents, Everest, they first face a nine day journey to base camp, which includes two full rest days. This journey alone weeds out about thirty of explorers. Those who are lucky enough to make the arduous trek to the first staging pos...
Russell Mark Returns (Swing and a Miss)
The Tom Petty Project - April 17, 2024 09:00 - 33 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsOne last non-Petty episode before we being digging into Wildflowers! This time, Russell Mark, from The Nextdoors is back to talk about their new single "Swing and a Miss". We talk about perfection in art and whether it's worth striving for, we nerd out over specific production choices and songwr...
Jake Thistle Returns (The Half Left Out)
The Tom Petty Project - April 10, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsThis is another special non-Petty episode of the podcast with the fantastic Jake Thistle, who found time in his insanely busy schedule to sit down with me to discuss his label debut, The Half Left Out. We chatted a little about Gainesville and Tom of course, but mainly we dug into the weeds arou...
Greatest Hits (with John Paulsen)
The Tom Petty Project - April 03, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsA really fun one today folks. John and Kevin dig deep into inclusions and ommissions from 1993's Greatest Hits. We have a conversation about formats (CD vs vinyl), chronological ordering vs sequencing, and whether ballads belong on Greatest Hits compilations. Both John and Kevin have one song th...
The Petty 8ight with Sean and Todd McGinity
The Tom Petty Project - March 27, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday’s episode is the third installment in my Petty 8ight series, where I bring in musicians who aren’t Pettyheads, give them eight deeper cuts that they likely haven’t heard before, and get their thoughts on them. In this episode, my willing newbies are Sean and Todd McGinity. The brothers are...
Something in the Air
The Tom Petty Project - March 20, 2024 16:28 - 21 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsA major change in this cover version is the format of the lyrics. Something in the Air is a fairly ominous call to arms. The original was released in May of 1969 when the Vietnam War was still raging at its most furious. Speedy Keen said that told ZigZag magazine in 1975 of the song "It was a re...
Mary Jane's Last Dance
The Tom Petty Project - March 13, 2024 09:00 - 27 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsWhen author Paul Zollo asks Tom about the song in his book Conversations With Tom Petty, and mentions that the song had been partially written some years previously, Tom confirms this, saying, “That was one I wrote during the Full Moon Fever sessions. I wrote all but the chorus. I just had the l...
Peace in L.A.
The Tom Petty Project - March 06, 2024 09:00 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsIn March and April of 1992, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were wrapping up the European final leg of their Into The Great Wide Open tour. This leg saw them play dates in Germany, the UK, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, France, Norway, and on April 3rd, they closed out the tour in Malmo, Sweden,...
10 Questions with Peter Nester
The Tom Petty Project - February 28, 2024 09:00 - 46 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is my ten questions with the brilliant Peter Nester. I usually put these out as bonus episodes in the same week as my chat with that guest, but Pete's answers to these questions were so thorough, considered, and beautifully expounded, that I felt this needed to be a regular relea...
Jeff Slate Returns
The Tom Petty Project - February 23, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsThis is a special non-Petty episode of the podcast. I haven’t recorded one in ages, but when former guest Jeff Slate reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in talking to him about his new single which is out now and the album it’s from which will drop in May, it wasn’t a hard sell for me ...
Peter Nester
The Tom Petty Project - February 21, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsI have two words for you: Yogi Berra. But what does the Yankees catcher have to do with my conversation with Pete Nester? Tune in to find out! Today's episode is a sprawling, hugely enjoyable conversation I had with a fellow music podcaster who I've been listening to for a couple and a half yea...
Into the Great Wide Open (with John Paulsen)
The Tom Petty Project - February 14, 2024 09:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsAnother long one this season folks! But again there's so much to talk about with this album and we felt we needed to talk about each individual track. John and I had a good discussion about the background to the recording of this album and where this sits in the evolution of Tom's songwriting. W...
Built To Last
The Tom Petty Project - February 07, 2024 20:17 - 24 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsThe lyrics in Built to Last are unambiguously hopeful and quietly resilience. Perhaps it’s Tom’s last attempt to build a creative buttress around his failing marriage. Perhaps its an equal attempt to put up a wall around a band that had gone through a major friction point and were probably still...
Makin' Some Noise
The Tom Petty Project - January 31, 2024 09:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsI know that, because you’re listening to this podcast that you must love rock n roll music. And when you hear the crackle of a cable being plugged into an amp, or that low buzz from the speaker, there’s just something primal and irresistible that happens to you if you love this type of music. Yo...
You and I Will Meet Again
The Tom Petty Project - January 24, 2024 09:00 - 26 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsAnother simple song, another catchy hook, another memorable idea that Tom puts into our heads and leaves there as a treat. I’m 100% sold on Into The Great Wide Open these days, where I didn’t listen to it front to back very often before. This song is another little forgotten deep cut that does s...
10 Questions with Mark Lindsey
The Tom Petty Project - January 10, 2024 09:00 - 23 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is my ten questions with the amazing Mark Lindsey. As a veteran of over 40 Heartbreakers shows and as a guy who has seen Mudcrutch, Bob Dylan, ELO, and Bob Dylan live, my questions about opening acts, shows Mark would like to see, and Mudcrutch or the Wilburys became all the more...
Out in the Cold
The Tom Petty Project - January 03, 2024 16:41 - 20 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsIn Conversations With Tom Petty, Tom says “I struggled with the lyrics quite a bit. It was one of those things where you struggle and you always wonder if you got everything out of it that you could.” He does go on to say that during a rehearsal for the song he found that he enjoyed the lyrics, ...
Mark Lindsey
The Tom Petty Project - December 29, 2023 09:00 - 52 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is my wonderful conversation with one of the finest human beings you're going to find anywhere on the planet. As well as being a lifelong superfan of Tom Petty and a veteran of over 40 of his shows, Mark also runs the Sight and Sound Care charity that provides free vision care, i...
Trapper Schoepp
The Tom Petty Project - December 27, 2023 09:00 - 50 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is a conversation I had with Milwaukee-based musician Trapper Schoepp. We discussed his love of Tom's music, the background behind his cover of Free Fallin' which you can find on all streaming platforms, his co-write with Bob Dylan (yes, you read that right!) and he rapid-fire an...
10 Questions with Doc Wiley & Chris Gillette
The Tom Petty Project - December 24, 2023 09:00 - 36 minutes ★★★★★ - 26 ratingsToday's episode is Doc Wiley and Chris Gillette's answers to my ten questions. Doc found a good hack to my question "Which Tom Petty concert from history would you like to have seen" and Chris talked wonderfully about Walls and mentioned that The Waiting played it during their PBS special, which...
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