Tom Petty is feted by peers and industry leaders at record-breaking MusiCares Person of the Year benefit

What’s it take to raise $8.5 million in one night for charity? About 3,000 Tom Petty fans.

That was the outcome Friday of the Recording Academy’s annual Person of the Year fundraiser for its MusiCares Foundation, this year saluting the veteran singer, songwriter, guitarist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member.

Recording Academy President Neil Portnow, in announcing the numbers just before Petty and the Heartbreakers took the stage to cap an all-star evening of tributes, said this year’s total set a record for the organization that’s entering its 27th year of providing assistance to musicians in need.

Past honors have gone to Bob Dylan, Aretha Franklin, Paul McCartney, Neil Young, Quincy Jones, Tony Bennett, Elton John and Bruce Springsteen, among others.

“I’m really at a loss for words,” Petty, 66, said, trembling slightly as he looked out on the audience consisting of entertainment industry movers and shakers, celebrities and politicians, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco).

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The night featured the likes of Randy Newman, Jackson Browne, Lucinda Williams, the Bangles, Jeff Lynne, the Foo Fighters, Norah Jones, Dhani Harrison, Jakob Dylan, Taj Mahal, the Lumineers, Elle King, Regina Spektor and the Head and the Heart all putting their spin on various Petty songs.

The A-list nature of the show extended to the house band, which backed many of the featured guests. Musical director T Bone Burnett brought together celebrated R&B-soul great Booker T. Jones, guitarist David Mansfield, bassist Dennis Crouch, percussionist Jay Bellerose and sisters Rebecca and Megan Lovell, a.k.a. roots-rock duo Larkin Poe.

Heartbreakers lead guitarist Mike Campbell, drummer Steve Ferrone and keyboardist Benmont Tench also pitched in on various numbers.

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Tom Petty acknowledges the crowd while performing as the honoree of the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Tom Petty acknowledges the crowd at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Tom Petty sings a duet with Stevie Nicks at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Don Henley sings the Tom Petty song “Freefalling” to honor Petty as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The Shelters perform in honor of Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Jakob Dylan, lead singer for the Wallflowers, performs to honor Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The Head and the Heart band performs honoring Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Lucinda Williams performs in honor of Tom Petty on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Chris Hillman and Herb Pedersen perform at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017, at an event honoring Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Regina Spektor performs at an event Feb. 10, 2017, honoring Tom Petty as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Guitarist Gary Clark Jr. performs to honor Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Jackson Browne performs in honor of Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Cage the Elephant performs an an event honoring Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The Lumineers perform to honor Tom Petty as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The Foo Fighters along with Gary Clark Jr., center, perform at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017, in an event honoring Tom Petty.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Norah Jones performs to honor Tom Petty as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Taj Mahal performs at an event honoring Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Elle King performs at the Los Angeles Convention Center in honor of Tom Petty.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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George Strait performs to honor Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The Shelters arrive on the red carpet before performing to honor Tom Petty as the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year at the Los Angeles Convention Center on Feb. 10, 2017.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Saxophonist Mindi Abair arrives on the red carpet to attend the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year event honoring Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Kate Upton arrives on the red carpet to attend the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year event honoring Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Guitarist Gary Clark Jr. and model Nicole Trunfio arrive on the red carpet at the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year event honoring Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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John Stamos arrives at the Los Angeles Convention Center to honor Tom Petty as the MusiCares Person of the Year.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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The Head and the Heart band gathers on the red carpet prior to performing at the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year celebration honoring Tom Petty.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

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Pianist Lang Lang arrives on the red carpet to attend the Recording Academy’s MusiCares Person of the Year honoring Tom Petty at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

  (Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

In fact, Petty’s first thank you was directed to the Heartbreakers, the ever-ready band of collaborators he’s often worked with over his four-decade-plus career, and who were at his side once again Friday.

“A rock and roll band is a wonderful thing, folks,” Petty told members of the crowd, who ponied up anywhere from $750 to $7,500 just for a seat at one of about 300 tables set up in the Los Angeles Convention Center. A silent auction preceding the dinner and concert raised more than $500,000.

A live auction of a high-performance sports car, a trip to Shanghai and a set of four pages of lyrics to four of Petty’s signature songs in his own hand raised almost $400,000.

In return, onlookers were told that MusiCares spent more than $4.2 million last year helping more than 16,000 clients with a plethora of needs, from medical care to substance abuse treatment to housing and emergency instrument or equipment issues.

Newman opened the show with a solo reading of Petty’s “Refugee,” demonstrating how in sync Petty’s song is with his own signature sardonic view of human foibles, as he sang, “Honey, it don’t make no difference to me / Everybody has to fight to be free.”

Actor-comedian Ed Helms, the show’s emcee, quickly spun out the first of a number of jabs at President Trump, saying, “Due to a new White House executive order, that version of ‘Refugee’ has been banned, and Randy Newman has been put on a plane and sent to Syria.”

In describing the mission of MusiCares for the audience, Helms also quipped, “It’s more than just a spelling disaster.”

Petty’s songs turned out to be remarkably flexible in others’ hands. Often, when musicians take on songs of Bob Dylan, the Beatles or other titans of rock, they adapt themselves to the works.

With Petty, numbers plucked from his extensive catalog aligned readily with the artists who sang them. Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams applied her luscious Louisiana-bred drawl to “Southern Accents,” Dave Grohl and the Foo Fighters hard-rocked their hearts out on “Honey Bee,” country kingpin George Strait turned “You Wreck Me” into a convincing two-step and the Lumineers extracted the Americana essence of “Walls (Circus).”

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John McVie, left, Stevie Nicks and Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac perform at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Friday for their MusiCares Person of the Year tribute, the first time a group received the award.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Stevie Nicks leads Fleetwood Mac in their performance at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Friday.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Stevie Nicks, left, John McVie, Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Mick Fleetwood at Radio City Music Hall in New York on Friday.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Miley Cyrus performs at the Recording Academy’s 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac in New York on Friday.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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President Clinton and Hillary Clinton were in attendance at Radio City Music Hall for the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Mick Fleetwood, left, greets former President Clinton after Clinton’s tribute speech at the MusiCares tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Kimberly Schlapman, left, and Karen Fairchild perform with country music group Little Big Town at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute at New York’s Radio City Music Hall.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Lorde performs at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Friday.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Keith Urban performs at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Friday.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Alana Haim, left, Danielle Haim and Este Haim of the band HAIM perform at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Brandi Carlile, left, and Phil Hanseroth perform at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute honoring Fleetwood Mac at Radio City Music Hall.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

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Fleetwood Mac performs at the 2018 MusiCares Person of the Year tribute at New York’s Radio City Music Hall on Friday.

  (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Elsewhere, “Learning to Fly” and “The Waiting” morphed into poetic meditations in heartfelt performances by Browne, and Spektor kept the set list fresh with an exquisite rendering of “I Forgive It All” from “2,” the 2016 album from Mudcrutch, the Florida rock band Petty had before trading coasts in 1974 and assembling the Heartbreakers.

A sweet moment, given Petty’s original debt to the Byrds, was the appearance by that pioneering folk-country-rock band’s co-founder, Chris Hillman, and his longtime collaborator Herb Pedersen to sing a stripped-down “Wildflowers.”

Another of the most accomplished singer-songwriters to emerge in the 1970s, Eagles co-founder Henley sang just one song, “Free Fallin’,” but poured passion into it with his smoky vocal. He spared no expense by bringing along a five-piece horn section and two additional singers.

Another highlight: the moment Nicks, dressed, as always, in flowing black, emerged from the wings to join Petty and the Heartbreakers on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” and “”Insider.” Petty introduced the latter as “a song I wrote for her, but she didn’t like it,” prompting a moment of old-married-couple-like quibbling as she protested, “That’s not true!”

The evening inspired a Traveling Wilburys redux when Lynne and Harrison teamed up with Petty and the Heartbreakers on “I Won’t Back Down,” before Petty stepped back to the mic to end the show with “Runnin’ Down a Dream” a bit after midnight.

It capped a richly satisfying evening, one whose real beneficiaries are likely to reap rewards from the assemblage for months and years to come.

randy.lewis@latimes.com

Follow @RandyLewis2 on Twitter.com

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