Mike Campbell 2: Wreckless Abandon

Having spent his entire adult life working as Tom Petty’s right hand man on stage and in the studio, Mike Campbell waited a good three years after his boss died before finally starting his solo career. (A stint touring with Fleetwood Mac alongside Neil Finn kept him busy as well.) He’d already formed the Dirty Knobs as a side project, so they were ready to back him up on Wreckless Abandon.

As was clear from the exactly two songs wherein he sang lead with the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch, he was never exactly a singer. But years of writing for and with Tom certainly helped shape his voice into a vehicle for lyrics, and we’re here for the guitars and hooks anyway. The title track has lots of them, fitting nicely between classic Heartbreakers and the Stones’ “Happy”, framed by atmospheric effects. On “Pistol Packin’ Mama” his drawl gets easily lost against guest Chris Stapleton’s, and if it’s a little derivative, “Sugar” makes up for it in bite and attitude. “Southern Boy” stomps a little too long, but the pounding “I Still Love You” shows what was missing on the last couple Heartbreaker albums. Stapleton comes back to harmonize on “Irish Girl”, which rhymes “mutiny” with “scrutiny” and otherwise sounds like 21st-century Mudcrutch.

He tells it like it is on the Stapleton co-write “F-ck That Guy” (censorship ours), but isn’t the most arresting storyteller on the John Lee Hooker pastiche “Don’t Knock The Boogie”, which improves once the solos start. “Don’t Wait” stays in the swamp even longer, so the pretty and quiet “Anna Lee” is certainly a respite. Benmont Tench shows up to lend a little welcome piano to “Aw Honey”, and “Loaded Gun” brings back the classic Campbell sound from all those records. The last minute of the album is dedicated to an acoustic slide rendition of “Don’t Knock The Boogie”.

The band is clearly comfortable backing him, since they’d been together twenty years already, and Wreckless Abandon has a fresh live sound thanks to George Drakoulias. Most of it clearly came to life on stage, but that doesn’t mean some editing mightn’t have helped. We’re just glad he’s still writing and playing. (He blows a mean harmonica too. And he got Klaus Voormann to design the cover.)

The Dirty Knobs Wreckless Abandon (2020)—3