Blake Shelton & More Cover Tom Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’ For Charity

Blake Shelton has joined an all-star line-up of artists to cover Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down for charity. While Shelton has lent his vocal to the classic track, Joe Walsh (The Eagles) appears on guitars, Timothy B. Schmit (The Eagles) on bass with Matt Sorum (Guns N’ Roses/Velvet Revolver) on drums.  

The new cover of I Won’t Back Down is exclusively available to stream at goodnoise.io, a music and arts platform launched by Sorum.

The rendition was recorded to support the Miraculous Love Kids, a non-profit organization founded by American musician Lanny Cordola. The group’s mission is “to teach the guitar to war-torn, poverty-stricken children, in particular young girls who have little to no rights and are often forced into marriage and face the most extreme forms of violence.”

Cordola said in a statement, “In I Won’t Back Down, Tom Petty so powerfully wrote, ‘You can stand me up at the gates of hell, but I won’t back down.’ The girls and I are honoured to have Blake, Joe, Timothy and Matt join us in spreading this message far and wide.”

Originally released in 1989, I Won’t Back Down was the lead single from Petty’s solo album Full Moon Fever. The song peaked at #16 on the Australian ARIA Top 50 Singles chart.

The song was also covered by Jason Aldean on Saturday Night Live as a tribute to the victims of the 2017 Las Vegas shooting and Petty, who died a day after the incident. Other notable covers include Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson and actor Sam Elliot.

In 2021, The Miraculous Love Kids/Girl With Guitar recorded Steve Miller’s Fly Like An Eagle with singer Sammy Hagar and Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger. Other recordings include the Tom Morello-penned God Help Us All, The Beach Boys’ Brian Wilson’s Love And Mercy and the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams featuring a slew of the world’s most prominent musicians.