The 25th Americana Honors & Awards opened on Wednesday night with something the Ryman Auditorium had not seen in a very long time: four founding Heartbreakers on the same stage, with Chris Stapleton standing in the spot where Tom Petty should have been.
They played “American Girl.” Then “Breakdown.” By the time Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston walked out to join them for “You Wreck Me,” the room was on its feet.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were at the Ryman to accept a Lifetime Achievement Award in the band’s fiftieth anniversary year, nearly nine years after Petty’s death. What made the performance remarkable was less the award than the lineup: Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Ron Blair and Stan Lynch, back together.
What the “24 years” actually refers to
Much of the coverage has settled on the figure of 24 years, and it is worth being precise about what that number describes, because the outlets do not entirely agree with one another.
Lynch, the band’s original drummer, left the Heartbreakers in 1994. He rejoined them onstage once after that, when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Stereogum reports that Wednesday was his first performance with them since that induction — hence the 24 years.
The surviving Heartbreakers, though, have played together more recently than that. Consequence and NME both describe the Ryman set as the founding members’ first performance since 2017, which puts that gap at nine years rather than 24. American Songwriter splits the difference, noting that while the Heartbreakers have reunited before, this was the first occasion the full group came together.
Both framings are defensible, and the short version is simple enough: the band has convened since Petty died. Stan Lynch had not been part of it since 2002.
“Nobody can fill those shoes”
Campbell did the talking, and he did not pretend the evening was uncomplicated. “It’s really emotional and sweet to be here,” he said, before addressing Petty directly: “Tom, I’m gonna miss rocking around with you.”
Asked whether the reunion might lead to anything more, he closed the door on it. “Nobody can fill those shoes,” he told Rolling Stone. “I can’t fill them, and I don’t know anybody else that I would want to fill them.”
That is worth reading carefully, because it is not a verdict on Stapleton. He opened three dates for Petty and the Heartbreakers on the band’s 40th anniversary tour in 2017, months before Petty died. He has recorded with Campbell and Tench since, and he has worked with Campbell’s side project the Dirty Knobs. He was not a guest vocalist parachuted in for an awards show; of everyone in the band’s orbit, he was the obvious choice.
Campbell’s point was narrower and harder than a casting note. A one-night tribute is one thing. A Heartbreakers that carries on as a going concern without its singer is another, and he is not interested.
A box set, a heavy night, and what comes next
The reunion did not arrive out of nowhere. Earlier that same Wednesday, Petty’s estate announced Origins 1971-1978, a fiftieth anniversary box set due November 6 through UMe. It collects newly mixed and remastered versions of the band’s first two albums, previously unreleased recordings, live material, and restored footage from their 1978 appearance on the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test. The estate also shared “Parade of Loons,” an unreleased Heartbreakers recording from 1978.
The Petty tribute was not the only weight the room carried. Robert Plant received a Lifetime Achievement Award and performed. So did Dolly Parton, who died a few weeks ago and accepted hers in a video recorded before her death, introduced by Emmylou Harris. Brandi Carlile and I’m With Her covered “Coat of Many Colors.”
Elsewhere on the night, Molly Tuttle took Americana Artist of the Year and Tyler Childers won Album of the Year for Snipe Hunter. Margo Price, S.G. Goodman and Kathleen Edwards also performed.
On the evidence of Campbell’s remarks, nothing more is planned. There is no tour, no album, and no suggestion from anyone involved that they want one. The Heartbreakers have spent nine years declining, over and over, to become a band that trades on its catalog without the man who wrote it, and Wednesday reads as a continuation of that position rather than a break from it.
What the night did produce is four men who spent their working lives together playing “American Girl” in a room full of country music’s ghosts, with Stapleton doing the one job none of them wanted, and a standing ovation at the end of it. For a group that has mostly refused to do this sort of thing at all, that is not a small event.
The box set arrives November 6. On current evidence, that is the only Heartbreakers release anyone should expect.
