Tom Petty raised the mercury in the late 1980s

Tom Petty performsing at the 2017 MusiCares Person Of The Year event, which honoured him, in Los Angeles in February 2017. Photo: AFP

There’s a tale of improbability somewhere in Tom Petty reigniting his career and becoming an MTV star in the late 1980s. Given the sound of the time, his smash album Full Moon Fever had no reason to succeed and stare its odds straight down. After all, Petty was a 39-year-old boy-next-door songwriter who seemed to have his best years behind him, peaking with the Heartbreakers on Damn The Torpedoes a decade before.

However, the power of the song prevailed, and the 1989, 12-song long player bristled with killer songcraft and a deft production, a period Petty acknowledges as a purple patch for him.