Chris Stapleton Says This Tom Petty Album is His Favorite LP of All Time

Chris Stapleton is one of country music's most talented stars, but unlike other country stars, his rock influence is crystal clear. If you wanted further proof, his favorite album of all time is a total giveaway.

Stapleton shared via Instagram his recent visit to the Cade Museum for Creativity & Invention. The museum is located in Gainesville, Fla., which is the hometown of Tom Petty. Understandably, the museum features artifacts from their favorite son from his legendary career.

Stapleton wrote, "My all-time favorite record is Tom Petty 'Wildflowers.' Standing on the rugs that were in the room, staring at the artifacts from its creation were highlight moments for me. Thanks Cade Museum for an unforgettable experience."

Released in 1994, Wildflowers was Petty's second solo studio album, which was the follow-up to his hit 1989 solo debut Full Moon Fever. Wildflowers is among Petty's most beloved work. The albums features classic tunes like "You Wreck Me," "It's Good to Be King" and "You Don't Know How It Feels."

After much delay, Wildflowers finally got the grand reissue treatment in October 2020. The reissue was helmed by several of Petty's closest confidants. Among them were Heartbreakers members Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. Also involved with the project was Petty's wife, Dana, and his daughters, Adria and Annakim.

Dubbed Wildflowers & All the Rest, the reissue is available in a variety of bundles and formats, including a massive Super Deluxe Edition made up of 5 CDs and 9 LPs totaling 70 tracks, nine unreleased songs and 34 unreleased versions. The "All the Rest" portion of the reissue is made up of ten songs left over from the Wildflowers recording sessions. Of those ten, five are previously unreleased tracks.

Below is our ranking of Petty's best songs from his career. Keep scrolling to see where some of the tracks from Wildflowers landed.

Tom Petty was a bit like Tom Hanks: he was so great that after a while you almost took his greatness for granted. When compiling this list, we kept in mind that the man was putting out great music up until the very end, and we wanted to recognize some of his gems that didn't get as much love as they should have, including some of his final recordings.

We decided that anything he wrote was fair game: obviously his songs with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, as well as his three solo albums. We also included songs from Mudcrutch, his pre-Heartbreakers band (which included Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) who broke up in 1975 after recording a few songs; they reunited in 2007 and released a pair of albums. Of course, we included the Traveling Wilburys, focusing on the songs where Tom was the main singer, as well as the songs he wrote for Stevie Nicks, Roy Orbison and Roger McGuinn. We mostly went with studio recordings, but nevertheless, we still heartily recommend the 2008 box set The Live Anthology. We also decided against including covers (although we love his Byrds covers "So You Wanna Be A Rock And Roll Star" and "Feel A Whole Lot Better," his cover of Fleetwood Mac's "Oh Well" and his duet with Stevie Nicks on Jackie DeShannon's "Needles and Pins," to name a few). It's worth noting that we frequently referenced Paul Zollo's excellent book, Conversations With Tom Petty often, and we'd definitely recommend that book, as well as Warren Zanes' Tom Petty: The Biography.

Did we miss a few songs? Sure - Petty had waaaaay more than 50 great ones (and we're sure you'll let us know on social media what we missed). But for now, enjoy these, there might be some that you forgot about or some that you haven't even heard.

The highlight of Mudcrutch’s debut/reunion album (they only recorded a few singles before breaking up in the early ‘70s). Unfortunately, many wrote Mudcrutch off as a side-project. Had Petty kept “Scare Easy” for the Heartbreakers, it could have been a huge hit. He never played Heartbreakers songs with Mudcrutch, and vice-versa, which is a shame. And it’s kind of funny, in retrospect: if the Heartbreakers played Traveling Wilburys songs (including “Handle With Care”) -- reproducing parts by Dylan, Orbison and Harrison -- you’d think they could have pulled off Mudcrutch songs live (given the fact that ⅗ of Mudcrutch were also Heartbreakers).