"Mojo" is the twelfth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, released on June 15, 2010.
Tom Petty has been fronting the Heartbreakers off and on (mostly on) for over 30 years now, and he and his band have been delivering a high level of no-frills, classy, and reconstituted American garage rock through all of it.
Petty often gets lumped in with artists like Bruce Springsteen, whose careful and worked-over lyrics carry a kind of instant nostalgia, but Petty's songwriting at its best cleverly bounces off of romance clichés, often with a desperate, lustful drawl and sneer, and he’s usually been more concerned with the here and now than he is about musing about what’s been abused and lost in contemporary America, although he's certainly not blind to it. Petty has always been more immediate than that until now, that is. "Mojo" is Petty's umpteenth album, and technically the first he’s done with the Heartbreakers since 2002’s sly "The Last DJ".
This time out he’s tackling the blues, trying to graft the Heartbreakers' (Mike Campbell on guitar, Scott Thurston on guitar and harmonica, Benmont Tench on keyboards, Ron Blair on bass, and Steve Ferrone on drums) patented 1960s garage sound to the Chicago blues sound of Chess Records in the 1950s. Sonically it certainly works, mostly because this is a wonderful band, but then it all seems a little tired, worn, and exhausted, too, and not a single song here has that certain desperate, determined defiance that Petty has always delivered in the past with a knowing sneer and a little leering wink.
The opener, “Jefferson Jericho Blues,” is a case in point. It starts by being a song about Thomas Jefferson’s dalliance with one of his black maids, and it could have been a scathing indictment of an out-of-date Southern attitude, contemporary racism, and so much more.
Instead, it tumbles unfocused into, well, a song about missing a girl and how time moves slow, and one can’t help but wonder why Petty dragged Thomas Jefferson and his maid into any of it in the first place. Petty has never sounded so emotionally drained and detached as a vocalist as he does on this album, and while it’s nice to hear the Heartbreakers flirt with the blues and to hear Campbell
Track listing
1. Jefferson Jericho
2. First Flash of Freedom (Petty, Mike Campbell) - 6:53
3. Running Man's Bible (Tom Petty) - 6:02
4. The Trip to Pirate's Cove (Tom Petty) - 5:00
5. Candy (Tom Petty) - 4:12
6. No Reason to Cry (Tom Petty) - 3:04
7. I Should Have Known It (Petty, Campbell) - 3:36
8. U.S.
9. Takin' My Time (Tom Petty) - 4:21
10. Let Yourself Go (Tom Petty) - 3:23
11. Don't Pull Me Over (Tom Petty) - 4:05
12. Lover's Touch (Tom Petty) - 4:24
13. High In the Morning (Tom Petty) - 3:36
14. Something Good Coming (Tom Petty) - 4:11
15. Good Enough (Petty, Campbell) - 5:57
16. Little Girl Blues (iTunes Bonus Track) (Tom Petty) - 3:08
17. Mystery of Love (Outtake, not finished in time) (Tom Petty) - 3:56
Released: June 15, 2010
Recorded: at The Clubhouse, Los Angeles
Genre: Heartland Rock, Blues-Rock
Length: 1:04:58
Label: Reprise
Producer: Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Ryan Ulyate
Personnel
Tom Petty - Lead Vocals, Lead Guitar, Rhythm Guitar
Mike Campbell - Lead Guitar
Scott Thurston - Rhythm Guitar, Harmonica
Benmont Tench - Acoustic, Electric Piano, Organ
Ron Blair - Bass
Steve Ferrone - Drums, Percussion
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