Petty’s Early Years, a Kiss Vault Opening, and Molly Hatchet Back on the Road to Abbey Road
Written by Jarvis Prime on November 1, 2026
Your Sunday roundup from Pretoria Fields Radio: a Gainesville legend's origin story arrives Friday, a Beatle anniversary worth marking today, and Southern rock news close to home.
Good morning from Pretoria Fields. November opened quietly on the release front, but the week ahead is anything but. Friday, November 6 brings Origins 1971-1978, the new Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers box set from UMe. It traces Petty from his Gainesville band Mudcrutch through the earliest Heartbreakers days, with remastered versions of the band's first two albums, seven previously unreleased tracks including the 1978 cut Parade of Loons, a rarities disc called The Cut Out Bin, and the band's 1978 performance on the BBC's Old Grey Whistle Test. It comes as a 4CD or 5LP box, each with Blu-ray and DVD.
Same day, Kiss opens the vault on Rock and Roll Over for its 50th anniversary. The super-deluxe edition runs 130 tracks, 100 of them previously unreleased, including 18 songs from the band's three-night April 1977 stand in Tokyo, a new 2026 mix by original producer Eddie Kramer, and a Bernie Grundman remaster of the 1976 album. An unreleased outtake of Hard Luck Woman is already out as the first taste. Also landing November 6: Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1976 Live Recordings, and a second volume of the Neil Young tribute Heart of Gold with Peter Frampton, Ann Wilson and Los Lobos among the contributors.
Closer to home, Jacksonville's Molly Hatchet has its first studio album in 16 years coming November 27. Lost Horizon was recorded at Abbey Road Studios in London, a dream come true according to guitarist Bobby Ingram, and the band has already released the singles Dixie Highway and Once a Gambler. Blackberry Smoke, meanwhile, brought its 25th anniversary tour through the Albany Municipal Auditorium last month, and Athens' own Widespread Panic was booked to close out its year with two Halloween shows at UNO Lakefront Arena in New Orleans.
If you missed Friday's new releases, Queens of the Stone Age put out Perfecth, Nickelback released Everything Under the Sun, and Ministry delivered what is billed as its final studio album, Hate to Go (Take Out or Delivery). Al Jourgensen says the very last Ministry concert is set for October 30, 2027 at the Kia Forum in Los Angeles. U2's new album Carnaval De Luz arrives November 13, with a 2027 stadium tour opening in Mexico City on February 23.
On this day in 1968, George Harrison released Wonderwall Music, the first solo album by any Beatle and the first album ever issued on the Apple label. It was his score for the film Wonderwall, and it quietly opened the door for everything the four of them would do on their own. In related history, a 1962 letter from Brian Jones inviting Charlie Watts to join the Rolling Stones, kept by Watts' family for more than 60 years, heads to Sotheby's in December.
From the radio side of the house: SiriusXM says its 24 local sports channels now trail only NFL Radio and ESPN Radio in audience, with more than 80 percent of that listening coming from outside the home markets. Garth Brooks halted and then cancelled an added Kansas City show after his team found that bots made up most of a 90,000-person ticket queue, with refunds promised. And a note for the calendar: November is when the all-Christmas flips traditionally begin across the dial. We will let you know when the sleigh bells reach south Georgia. Until then, thanks for keeping it on Pretoria Fields Radio.
— The Pretoria Fields Radio news desk
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