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Benmont Tench: 'Among the people who I can tell you are the most difficult and, in many ways, rewarding to work with, No. 1 is Don Henley'

The trusted keyboard player on his best and most difficult sessions, from the Heartbreakers to that guy Bob from Duluth.

“Don’t take it personally.” A few errant honks aside, Tench — best known as a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers — is a warm and witty presence, just like the sounds that emoted from his keys as the band’s valve. While he says that he’s “awful at learning other people’s songs” — an opinion we’ll dispute on his behalf given the evidence — he can only count on one hand the number of times he left a session feeling dissatisfied. This year found Tench in a different studio mind-set: He released his second solo record, The Melancholy Season, back in March, which he’ll punctuate later this month with a trio of City Winery shows.

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