The new documentary Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free – The Making of Wildflowers gets its worldwide release today at 12 p.m. ET as a free streaming event on Tom Petty‘s official YouTube channel.
The film, which will be shown in 4K resolution, is part of the YouTube Originals series.
As previously reported, the movie focuses on the fruitful recording sessions that yielded Petty’s acclaimed 1994 solo effort Wildflowers, plus many other songs that remained in the vaults until the Wildflowers & All the Rest box set was released last year.
The movie features previously unseen footage shot by director Martyn Atkins during the recording of Wildflowers, archival commentary from Tom, and newly filmed scenes of producer Rick Rubin and founding Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboardist Benmont Tench sharing recollections of the sessions.
Tench says he considers Somewhere You Feel Free “an illuminating film.”
“[Y]ou get people’s perspective on the making of the record,” he tells ABC Audio. “And…you get Tom speaking about his thoughts about making the record, and where he was at when he made the songs, and where he was at when he decided he didn’t want to do it with all of The Heartbreakers, and do it as a…’solo’ record. And you find out all of this, as well as getting to see footage from the sessions, and getting to see him just messing around and goofing around, which is always good.”
Benmont says among his favorite parts of the movie were the segments capturing him chatting with Rubin and Campbell, who co-produced Wildflowers with Petty. He notes that before they filmed the conversation, the three of them had never sat down to talk about the album before.
“[I]t was fun and interesting,” Benmont declares. “I found out stuff I didn’t know.”
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