I don’t know why Tom Petty dying is such a big deal to me; I liked his music but I don’t really ID closely with artists I like in that way. I guess I just always thought of him as that young guy dressed up as the madhatter being inscrutably sly, or standing in the California sun playing his guitar? How can a young, cheeky person like that be dead? Of course he was 66; Petty hadn’t been young for decades.
He was a constant though. Folks never portrayed him as a hugely influential cultural touchstone like Dylan or Garcia or Richards, but he and the Heartbreakers were always there making hit songs year after year, keeping that unique voice and mellow sound of his in the Charts, singing about folks dealing with pain, adversity, exclusion, and ambition. He was a great musician and songwriter; I actually listened to and knew his lyrics, which I can’t say for 98% of the music I listened to in the 90s.
Anyway, it sucks that he’s dead and that his voice is gone now. Of course it’s an inevitability -it happens to all of us and everyone, no matter how impish, lively, or Californian their public image- but that it had to happen sometime doesn’t make it any less sad that it happened. I hope he didn’t suffer too badly.