The magic of rock and roll is a sacred archive maintained by those alive to still play the hits

A handful of songs into Benmont Tench’s recent performance in Chicago, he paused to take inventory before choosing the next number, ticking off the names of the artists on one hand: “Tom, Tom, Jerry, Chuck…” He is legitimately on a first-name basis with most of those people, but it wasn’t bragging, he was talking about those artists in the same the way the fans in the queue outside had been doing while waiting to get inside, people for whom rock and roll is not a stylish accessory or background for an evening’s conversation, but instead is regarded as art that they are in an active relationship across time, over decades.

Tench is one of those folks, too, despite also being the guy that Bob Dylan likes to call when he doesn’t feel like playing piano, or who gets asked to step in on piano and organ when it’s time to pay tribute to The Band, or more recently, as part of the house band for the Patti Smith tribute concert at Carnegie Hall in March, getting namechecked by Bruce Springsteen — “Hit it, Benmont!” — at the start of “Because the Night.”

Of course, Benmont Tench III is most well-known for being the guy sitting over Tom Petty’s right shoulder as a charter member of the Heartbreakers, rocking away at the Hammond B3 organ. In his bandmate, guitarist Mike Campbell’s great memoir, "Heartbreaker," Campbell tells the story of how engineer Jimmy Iovine said that the trick to making a song better when you worked with a keyboard player like Danny Federici of the E Street Band or Benmont Tench was simple: Turn them up.

Tench has been performing a brief tour across the States after releasing a lovely, introspective solo record, "The Melancholy Season," earlier this year, and in February, he played a week of well-deserved dates at the Cafe Carlyle in New York City. On the night I saw him, he worked his way through a setlist of material drawn from his two solo albums (2012’s "You Should Be So Lucky" and the aforementioned "Melancholy Season"), as well as a carefully curated collection of cover tunes.

“Curated” is almost a dirty word these days, implying something artificial or forced, but in this context, it is about Tench’s visible, tangible affection for rock and roll as an art form and his role in maintaining its history. During the set I witnessed, there was a setlist, but he’d dispensed with it quickly, gently childing himself for calling a bunch of audibles, and that’s when he’d done that inventory of what he had already played.

Following an animated, precise and joyful performance of Chuck Berry’s “Bye Bye Johnny,” he swung into a history lesson, correctly informing the crowd that it had been recorded “just down the street” at Chess Records, about 4 miles south as the crow flies down at 2120 South Michigan Avenue. “I don’t know who it was [that played on the original] but I wish I played like that,” he confessed, obviously not realizing that he just did.

Benmont Tench (Jordi Vidal/Redferns/Getty Images)Tench is a polymath, a cross-genre equal-opportunity appreciator of great music. So while his set featured his rendition of the Grateful Dead’s “China Doll,” he also offered a stunning interpretation of Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart.” The distillation of that song’s trancelike synth bridge into dissonant, chunky piano chords still maintained the song’s deep despair while also transforming it into something a 72-year-old gentleman wearing a suit and a Panama hat could comfortably embody.

He’d later gently admonish a request for the Velvet Underground’s “Venus In Furs,” explaining that there was no way he could play it without a viola. He’d later end the set proper by telling us that he was about to play an old song — “maybe it’s Celtic” — and the crowd sat quietly awaiting this piece of history. Except that the ancient composition in question was the Velvets’ “Rock & Roll,” telling us about Janey and how her life was saved by rock and roll. He was singing it for us, but he was also singing it for himself.

Tench is also the person in the story in Campbell’s book concerned that they couldn’t call themselves the Heartbreakers because there was already a band with that name, the New York Dolls’ Johnny Thunders collection of motley guitar assassins. (Petty and company did not get a warm reception when they played CBGB’s, and the venue had to work overtime to make sure people knew it wasn’t those Heartbreakers.)

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There was a noticeable amount of sibilance in Tench’s vocals the night of the show I attended, and after a few songs he’d explain that “a funny thing happened on my way to Chicago,” where a routine visit to his doctor led to the discovery that the tongue cancer he’d been managing since 2011 had moved into his jaw, and he had to have his jaw removed and then replaced from bone in one of his legs. “It hurts sometimes, but — I’m still here,” he declared. If there was somehow anyone in the audience who wasn’t already on his side, they absolutely were then. It was a hard reminder of why you should always go to the show, spin that record, sing along to that song.

The many Tom Petty shirts in the crowd were acknowledged multiple times through Tench’s setlist choices. Early on, he’d delivered a wry “Welcome to Hell” by Mudcrutch, an early Petty outfit Tench was part of, and a short time later, a warm and poignant rendition of “Straight Into Darkness” from the Heartbreakers’ 1982 album "Long After Dark." The lines “I don’t believe the good times are over / I don’t believe the thrill is all gone” hit differently these days, harder, bleaker. Tench’s interpretation is close to the original but, like all of the non-originals tonight, carries his unique and distinctive perspective. He’s classically trained, but balances his proficiency by possessing (like the aforementioned Federici) a kind of preternatural sense of what a song needs.

Tench obviously feels the music he’s performing, at one point knocking over an adjacent bottle of water from the vibration on the keys and his foot on the ground and the pedals. This was not a mellow evening of gentle, contemplative acoustic keyboard sounds by any means. His originals are quietly addictive; the title track from "The Melancholy Season" sticks with you, as do tunes like “Today I Took Your Picture Down” or the delightful romp of “Wobbles” from his first solo outing, written about a young lady walking up Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans after a few adult beverages.

One of the evening’s most incredible moments was a trenchant version of Bob Dylan’s “Blind Willie McTell,” also calling back to the Big Easy, delivered with authority and depth, and rich with color and shading. It shouldn’t be surprising, because he’s spent time with the man. He played on 2020’s "Rough and Rowdy Ways," and once again, the Heartbreakers were the backing band at Dylan’s 2023 surprise Farm Aid appearance. Perhaps most legendarily, the Heartbreakers toured as Dylan’s backing band back in 1986, and stories of their time with him are some of the best chapters in the Campbell memoir.

The last song of the night was “American Girl,” one of the best rock and roll songs ever. Everybody can probably hear that guitar intro in their head, so its choice as a solo piano number might seem curious. But as with everything else Tench had delivered that night, he performed it with extra heart and so much soul. But also, everyone knows that song like a catechism already, so listening to Tench’s heartbreaking rendition is one of those moments where you hear what’s being played in front of you alongside the one that lives in your brain already. We know we’ll never hear it again that way, but we still get to sit here and listen to the person who played on it when it was recorded and played it live with Petty and the rest of his bandmates over the years, continuing to keep those molecules alive in the atmosphere. It is a sacred privilege and duty to be able to do that, to keep memories and energy alive and inhabited, and to extend that gesture out into the audience as well.

Musician Tom Petty (2nd L) and members of The Heartbreakers (L-R) Ron Blair, Benmont Tench, and Mike Campbell attend the world premiere of "Runnin' Down A Dream" at the Steven J. Ross Theater at Warner Bros. Studios on October 2, 2007 in Burbank, California. (Charley Gallay/Getty Images)Mike Campbell’s "Heartbreaker" isn’t just a great book about playing guitar with Tom Petty for almost half a decade, it’s also a truly engaging book about a life in rock and roll. Coming in at almost 450 pages, it might seem imposing from the outside, but it’s a very quick and easy read, perfect for days at the beach or long plane trips. You don’t have to be a huge fan of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers to enjoy it, either, because Campbell is such a reliable narrator and generally affable guy, who is willing to give you a front seat to decades of music history.

The most inscrutable thing about the book is when Campbell goes off into painstaking detail about guitars — which, if you’re someone who plays guitar (or cares about them), will be heaven. But he’s so enthusiastic that he will make you want to look up every single guitar model he’s talking about, from the small Rickenbacker he bought from a classified ad and that Tom Petty himself posed with on the cover of "Damn the Torpedoes," or the Broadcaster that was one his core guitars, and you will find yourself doing web searches to see exactly what he’s talking about.

The best example of this is the story he tells about the time he and Petty were summoned to a surprise outing to meet the Rolling Stones and watch them rehearse. They had no idea where they were going or who would be there, and yet, the first thing Campbell will tell you is what guitars they all had. Only then he will tell you about what it was like to be standing in a room with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts. (Bill Wyman was missing because he didn’t like waiting around for Keith, but Keith was early this time. This meant that Campbell got a chance to fill in on bass.) If you’ve ever known a guitar player, this will be completely unsurprising behavior, but even if you haven’t, it’s probably what you imagine it’s like anyway.

If you’ve already seen the great Heartbreakers documentary "Running Down A Dream" and/or read the Dan Zanes Petty biography, Campbell’s memoir is not extraneous, but rather fills in the blanks and adds so much additional color. He is unvarnished about his drug use, the band’s drug use, the interpersonal squabbles, the places everyone took wrong turns and made bad decisions — musically, financially, or just as a human being alive on planet earth. It would have been easy to gloss over those parts, or leave them out completely (and likely there are stories that didn’t make the cut for a wide variety of reasons, to be sure). By the end, you’ll probably be wondering why the room has suddenly gotten so dusty while at the same time cheering him on, loudly, in his post-Heartbreakers life.

Benmont Tench has dates in Philadelphia, Boston and New York City in June; more information is at https://www.benmonttench.com/. Mike Campbell’s book "Heartbreaker" is out now, and you can see him and his band the Dirty Knobs on the road with Chris Stapleton or Blackberry Smoke throughout the summer.