Petty and Prince, again

The posthumous careers of Tom Petty and Prince have begun.

Petty’s began on Sept. 28 with the release of An American Treasure (Reprise), four CDs’ worth of meticulously curated outtakes, live performances, alternate versions, early takes, remastered “deep cuts,” and other esoterica culled from Petty’s solo, Heartbreakers, and Mudcrutch recordings. It has everything, in other words, but the Traveling Wilburys (and the singles—those are what Geffen’s forthcoming The Best of Everything is for).

Perhaps in recognition of its emphasis on the unfamiliar, An American Treasure is selling for under $50, a price of which the consumer-conscious Petty would’ve been proud. (Caveat emptor: The six-LP vinyl edition, which hits stores on Black Friday, more than doubles the price.) The omission of hits also makes the first listen—especially if undertaken in one four-hour swoop by anyone but a Petty enthusiast still working through his grief—feel like a bit of a slog.

But the second go-round is easier. And by the third it’s obvious that the set has a life of its own. Petty put as much thought and effort into songs that didn’t stand a chance at Top 40 radio (because of their length, their introspectiveness, their medium tempos) as he did into songs such as “Refugee” or “Free Fallin’.” And because he did, his bands did too. Nothing on An American Treasure sounds like filler.

The program unfolds chronologically, with Discs 1 through 3 corresponding to the 1970s, the 1980s, and the 1990s respectively and Disc 4 to 2000-2016. Absorbed in order, they chronicle Petty’s slow but steady maturation as a songwriter and, particularly, as a singer: Somewhere in the ’80s, he outgrew the nasally constricted vocal approach with which he debuted and began easing into a relaxed delivery that, by the time he hooked up with the Wilburys, made him sound if not like an American treasure at least like an American natural.

It would be claiming too much to say that An American Treasure tells a story. Despite such high points as the infectious “Keep a Little Soul,” the early take of Petty’s Roger McGuinn duet “King of the Hill,” the walking-like-an-Egyptian “Fault Lines,” and the Blonde on Blonde–meets–Pet Sounds-ish “Bus to Tampa Bay,” the collection never climaxes.

It does, however, have a denouement. “Thank you so much for giving us your ears tonight,” Petty tells a 2016 Boston crowd at the end of Disc 4. “I really appreciate it. I hope it was musical for you. God bless ya. Good night.”

At the time that Prince retreated to his Kiowa Trail Home Studio to record Piano and a Microphone 1983 (NPG/Warner Bros.), his superstardom-heralding Purple Rain was on the horizon. He even segues from the “When Doves Cry” B-side “17 Days” to a snippet of Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You” with 1½ minutes of its title track. But what was on his mind was getting in touch with his inner shape-shifter—a creature that would prove to be among the most protean ever to emerge from the pop-culture petri dish.

If Piano and a Microphone 1983 were a story, it would—at 34 minutes and 21 seconds—be a short one, its theme elusive. But its exposition would be clear enough from its title (although Piano, Voice, and a Microphone would’ve been more accurate—he does, after all, sing). And between the sacred “Mary Don’t You Weep” and the profane “Cold Coffee and Cocaine” there’d be, as there always was where Prince was concerned, internal conflict aplenty.