Official Tom Petty Website Starts Countdown Clock

Tom Petty‘s official website was updated with a new image of the late rocker and a countdown clock. No formal announcement came with the updates and the clock is set to expire at 10 a.m. ET tomorrow (Wednesday, July 11).

Petty died in October of last year at the age of 66, following an accidental prescription drug overdose. The guitarist had just completed the Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers 40th Anniversary Tour a few weeks before his untimely death. That tour preempted a tour in support of an expanded edition of Petty’s 1994 album Wildflowers.

Interviews with Petty and his manager Tony Dimitriades revealed that a double-LP version of Wildflowers was in the works and that Petty wanted to perform the expanded edition completely in concert with the assistance of such auxiliary musicians as Norah Jones. It remains unclear if the countdown clock on the website is related to the purported Wildflowers reissue.

Petty’s stage-played 1965 Gibson SG cherry electric guitar and a hat worn on stage and in a Traveling Wilburys video will be auctioned for charity. The July 21 sale features the instrument Petty played while he and The Heartbreakers backed Bob Dylan on the 1987 True Confessions Tour. Sales of the guitar and hat will benefit the Southern California-based charities The Midnight Mission and the Tazzy Animal Rescue Fund.