“Stapleton pauses and his voice catches, as he reflects on Tom Petty’s untimely passing in October. ‘When my booking agent first told me that they were thinking about having me out on the road, I didn’t figure it was real. And in the world of things that I get to do—which seems increasingly surreal every day—that was right at the top of the list. It was very cool. The last thing he ever said to me was: ‘I hope we get to do more of this.’ And I left there thinking that we might. Like so many in the musical world and, of course, the guys in his band, I was so heartbroken to learn that he had passed. I cried about it. That was a hard day for me.'”

The issue also includes our 2017 Holiday Gift Guide, plus articles on: Mike Gordon, Spoon,Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Nicole Atkins,Oteil Burbridge, J Roddy Walston and The Business, Stewart Copeland, ODESZA, Stephen Stills and Judy Collins, Dopapod and Relix’s beer collaboration with SweetWater Brewing Company and The String Cheese Incident’s Kyle Hollingsworth.

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