“Petty Country: A Country Music Celebration of Tom Petty.”

Two things come into clear focus while listening to the 20 Tom Petty songs on the new Petty Country compilation album, meant to emphasize the rocker’s Southern roots and his influence on country musicians.

It shows how close mainstream country has veered toward mainstream rock. And it shows how the songs of Tom Petty, who passed in 2017 – like those of most quality songwriters – are generally good enough to work well in whatever idiom they’re placed.

To be sure, it’s a bit of a stretch to say most of the songs on this covers album are “reimagined.” Several of them – “I Won’t Back Down” by the Brothers Osborne, “Breakdown” by Ryan Hurd and Carly Pearce, “Runnin’ Down a Dream” by Luke Combs, “I Need to Know” by Marty Stuart and his Fabulous Superlatives, among others – are executed fairly straightforwardly, often leavened with some pedal steel, mandolin or fiddle. That may be enough to make them “country” by the current definition, but it doesn’t necessarily make them reimagined. Ultimately, those songs and others are largely faithful to Petty’s originals.

Two other covers here that hover close to Petty’s own interpretations bear special mention, though. “Ways to Be Wicked” has Margo Price channeling Maria McKee, whose group Lone Justice gave this song its most notable exposure, and it’s a treat. And “I Forgive It All,” by Jamey Johnson, was originally performed by Mudcrutch, Petty’s pre-Heartbreakers band (which reunited many years later). “I Forgive It All” is a lovely, introspective number – “I ain’t broke and I ain’t hungry/ But I’m close enough to care,” one verse goes.

Perhaps the best example, also among several, of a song here that effectively bridges country and rock is Steve Earle’s treatment of “Yer So Bad.” Pedal steel, mandolin and fiddle all shape the sound, but they’re well integrated and help make this cover tougher than Petty’s original. And the lyrics fit Earle to a tee.

Chris Stapleton weighs in with a tough version of the relatively obscure “I Should Have Known It,” a song from Petty’s 2010 album, MOJO. If anything, it takes what was a rock song and turns up the amps, not the twang. Again, not necessarily country, beyond Stapleton’s singing (sort of). It packs a real rock and roll punch.

Three songs that do get more countrified are “Wildflowers” (Thomas Rhett), “American Girl” (Dierks Bentley) and “Southern Accents” by Dolly Parton. Rhett’s “Wildflowers” sounds as if it could have come straight out of some Kentucky holler, while the almost bluegrass approach Bentley and his crew brought to “American Girl” might have been a good template for how some of these other songs could have taken on a more country tinge.

Tom Petty in Nashville

On the day of the album’s release, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville also unveiled a Tom Petty display highlighting how his Southern roots shaped his music, as well as his influence on country music artists. Tom Petty: Where I Come From features several Western-themed artifacts and runs through summer 2025.

The display focuses on his 1985 album, Southern Accents, and includes handwritten lyrics of the title track, one of his Gretch guitars with western motifs and a jacket with outer-space-themed embroidery that he wore at his Live Aid performance in Philadelphia and throughout the Heartbreakers’ Southern Accents Tour that same year. There’s also Petty’s favorite 1950s-made western-themed shirt and suede ankle boots that he wore with the reunited Mudcrutch in 2008 and 2016.

Photo: Amiee Stubbs/Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

A couple of songs here really did undergo something of a metamorphosis. “Don’t Come Around Here No More” is re-interpreted by Rhiannon Giddens of the Carolina Chocolate Drops with help from the Silkwood Ensemble and Heartbreaker Benmont Tench. Giddens helps make this song into something more folk and Americana, with an African touch; not necessarily country, but fresh and different.

Less “fresh” but just as welcome is “Angel Dream,” originally found on the 1996 soundtrack for “She’s The One,” taken on here by Willie Nelson and his son Lukas Nelson. It sounds as if it could have been a Willie original, and he wears it like a new suit.

Even if the country aesthetic pops in and out as the album goes along, several of the performances are at least indirectly informed by previous collaborations; Tom Petty had worked directly with Willie Nelson, Parton, Stuart and George Strait, whose cover here of “You Wreck Me” is emblematic of this album: performances not overly countrified but done with energy and conviction, offering little surprises here and there.

The other thing is that, like the remaining Heartbreakers like Mike Campbell still performing today, it keeps Tom Petty’s legacy in the spotlight.