Echo (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album)

Echo is the tenth studio album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. First released in April 1999, the album reached number 10 on the Billboard 200 aided by the singles "Free Girl Now", "Swingin'" and "Room at the Top", which hit numbers 5, 17 and 19 respectively on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Tracks in 1999. The album was the band's last collaboration with producer Rick Rubin, and was also the last to feature contributions from longtime bassist/vocalist Howie Epstein, who died of a heroin overdose in 2003. Echo was certified Gold (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA in July 1999, only three months after it was released. Echo is the only Heartbreakers' album to contain a lead vocal from another member of the band: Mike Campbell on "I Don't Wanna Fight". An outtake entitled "Sweet William" appeared as the B-side (or second song) on the "Room at the Top" CD single.

Contents

• Track listing
• Personnel
• Songs
• References

Only certain songs were played on the band's tour that year. The record was largely written during a period when Petty was going through a painful divorce (influencing the lyrics of songs such as "Lonesome Sundown" and the title track), and Petty has cited that as the reason for his preference not to play any songs from the album in concert. However, "Room at the Top", "Free Girl Now" and "I Don't Wanna Fight" all appear in the concert film High Grass Dogs: Live at the Fillmore and a version of "Billy the Kid" appears on The Live Anthology.