Tom Petty
Thomas Earl Petty was an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist. He was the leader and frontman of the rock bands Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch and a member of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys. He was also a successful solo artist.
Over the course of his career, Petty sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling artists of all time. His hit singles with the Heartbreakers include "American Girl", "Don't Do Me Like That", "Refugee", "The Waiting", "Don't Come Around Here No More" and "Learning to Fly". Petty's solo hits include "I Won't Back Down", "Free Fallin'", and "You Don't Know How It Feels".
Petty and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Petty was honored as MusiCares Person of the Year in February 2017 for his contributions to music and for his philanthropy. He also acted; he had a recurring role as the voice of Lucky Kleinschmidt in the animated comedy series King of the Hill from 2004 to the show's original conclusion in 2009.
Petty died of an accidental drug overdose in October 2017 at the age of 66, one week after the end of the Heartbreakers' 40th Anniversary Tour.
Early life and education
Petty was born on October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Florida, the first of two sons of Kitty Petty, a local tax office worker, and Earl Petty, a traveling salesman. His brother, Bruce, was seven years younger.Petty grew up in the Northeast Gainesville Residential District, known locally as the Duckpond. After his death, a historical marker was placed in the neighborhood and a nearby park was renamed to Tom Petty Park.
Petty attended Howard Bishop Middle School, where he played Little League baseball and basketball. He then attended Gainesville High School, graduating in 1968.
Career
Petty's interest in rock and roll music began at age ten when he had an opportunity to meet Elvis Presley. In the summer of 1961, his uncle was working on the set of Presley's film Follow That Dream, in nearby Ocala, and invited Petty to watch the movie's filming.Petty instantly became a Presley fan. When he returned that Saturday, he was greeted by his friend Keith Harben, and soon traded his Wham-O slingshot for a collection of Elvis 45s. Of that meeting with Presley, Petty said, "Elvis glowed."
In 2006, Petty said he knew he wanted to be in a band the moment he saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. "The minute I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show—and it's true of thousands of guys—there was the way out. There was a way to do it. You get your friends and you're a self-contained unit. And you make the music. And it looked like so much fun. It was something I identified with. I had never been hugely into sports. ... I had been a big fan of Elvis. But I really saw in the Beatles that here's something I could do. I knew I could do it. It wasn't long before there were groups springing up in garages all over the place." He later said that the Rolling Stones inspired him by demonstrating that he and musicians like him could make it in rock and roll.
Don Felder, a fellow Gainesville resident who later joined the Eagles, wrote in his autobiography that he was one of Petty's first guitar teachers although Petty said that Felder taught him to play piano instead.
As a young man, Petty worked briefly on the grounds crew of the University of Florida, but never attended as a student. An Ogeechee lime tree that he purportedly planted while employed at the university is now called the Tom Petty tree, though Petty said he did not recall planting any trees. He also worked briefly as a gravedigger.
1976–1987: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Shortly after embracing his musical aspirations, Petty started a band known as the Epics, which later evolved into Mudcrutch. The band included future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench and was popular in Gainesville, but their recordings went unnoticed by a mainstream audience. They recorded at The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Their only single, "Depot Street", released in 1975 by Shelter Records, failed to chart.After Mudcrutch split up, Petty reluctantly agreed to pursue a solo career. Tench decided to form his own group, whose sound Petty appreciated. Eventually, Petty and Campbell collaborated with Tench, Ron Blair and Stan Lynch, forming the first lineup of the Heartbreakers. Their eponymous debut album gained little popularity among American audiences, achieving greater success in Britain. The singles "American Girl" and "Breakdown" peaked at after the band toured in the United Kingdom in support of Nils Lofgren. The debut album was released by Shelter Records, which at that time was distributed by ABC Records.
Their second album, You're Gonna Get It!, was the band's first Top 40 album, featuring the singles "I Need to Know" and "Listen to Her Heart". Their third album, Damn the Torpedoes, quickly went platinum, selling nearly two million copies; it includes their breakthrough singles "Don't Do Me Like That", "Here Comes My Girl", "Even the Losers" and "Refugee".
In September 1979, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed at a Musicians United for Safe Energy concert at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Their rendition of "Cry to Me" was featured on the resulting album, No Nukes.
Their fourth album, Hard Promises, released in 1981, became a top-ten hit, going platinum and spawning the hit single "The Waiting". The album also featured Petty's first duet, "Insider" with Stevie Nicks.
Bass player Ron Blair quit the group and was replaced on the fifth album, Long After Dark, by Howie Epstein; the resulting lineup lasted until 1994. The album contained the hit "You Got Lucky".
In 1985, the band participated in Live Aid, playing four songs at John F. Kennedy Stadium, in Philadelphia before a crowd of 89,484 people.
The band's album, Southern Accents, was also released in 1985. It included the hit single "Don't Come Around Here No More", produced by Dave Stewart. The song's video featured Petty dressed as the Mad Hatter, mocking and chasing Alice from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, then cutting and eating her as if she were a cake. The ensuing tour led to the live album Pack Up the Plantation: Live! and an invitation from Bob Dylan to join Dylan on his 60-date True Confessions Tour through Asia, Oceania, and North America.
In 1986 and 1987, they played some dates with the Grateful Dead. Also in 1987, the group released Let Me Up which includes "Jammin' Me" which Petty wrote with Dylan.
1988–1991: Traveling Wilburys and solo career
In 1988, Petty, along with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne, was a founding member of the Traveling Wilburys. The band's first song, "Handle with Care", was intended as a B-side of one of Harrison's singles, but was judged too good for that purpose and the group decided to record a full album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. A second Wilburys album, mischievously titled Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 and recorded without the recently deceased Orbison, followed in 1990. The album was named Vol. 3 as a response to a series of bootlegged studio sessions being sold as Travelling Wilburys Vol. 2. Petty incorporated Traveling Wilburys songs into his live shows, consistently playing "Handle with Care" in shows from 2003 to 2006, and for his 2008 tour adding "surprises" such as "End of the Line" to the set list.In 1989, Petty released Full Moon Fever, which featured hits "I Won't Back Down", "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down a Dream". It was nominally his first solo album, although several Heartbreakers and other well-known musicians participated: Mike Campbell co-produced the album with Petty and Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, and backing musicians included Campbell, Lynne, and fellow Wilburys Roy Orbison and George Harrison.
Petty and the Heartbreakers reformed in 1991 and released Into the Great Wide Open, which was co-produced by Lynne and included the hit singles "Learning To Fly" and "Into the Great Wide Open", the latter featuring Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway in the music video.
Before leaving MCA Records, Petty and the Heartbreakers got together to record, live in the studio, two new songs for a Greatest Hits package: "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air". This was Stan Lynch's last recorded performance with the Heartbreakers. Petty commented "He left right after the session without really saying goodbye." The package went on to sell over ten million copies, therefore receiving diamond certification by the RIAA.
1991–2017: Move to Warner Bros. Records
In 1989, while still under contract to MCA, Petty secretly signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros. Records, to which the Traveling Wilburys had been signed. His first album on his new label, 1994's Wildflowers, Petty's second of three solo albums, included the highly beloved title track, as well as the singles "You Don't Know How It Feels", "You Wreck Me", "It's Good to Be King", and "A Higher Place". The album, produced by Rick Rubin, sold over three million copies in the United States.In 1996, Petty, with the Heartbreakers, released a soundtrack to the movie She's the One starring Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston. The album's singles were "Walls " featuring Lindsey Buckingham, "Climb that Hill", and a song written by Lucinda Williams, "Change the Locks". The album also included a cover of "Asshole", a song by Beck. The same year, the band accompanied Johnny Cash on Unchained, provisionally titled "Petty Cash", for which Cash won a Grammy for Best Country Album. Cash later covered Petty's "I Won't Back Down" on American III: Solitary Man.
In 1999, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their last album with Rubin at the helm, Echo. Two songs were released as singles in the US, "Room at the Top" and "Free Girl Now". The album reached number 10 on the US album charts.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played "I Won't Back Down" at the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit concert for victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The following year, they played "Taxman", "I Need You" and "Handle with Care" at the Concert for George in honor of Petty's friend and former bandmate George Harrison.
Petty's 2002 release, The Last DJ, was an album-length critique of practices within the music industry. The title track, inspired by Los Angeles radio personality Jim Ladd, bemoaned the end of the freedom that radio DJs once had to personally select songs for their station's playlists. The album peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200 album chart in the United States.
In 2005, Petty began hosting his own show "Buried Treasure" on XM Satellite Radio, on which he shared selections from his personal record collection.
In 2006, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers headlined the fifth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival as part of their "30th Anniversary Tour". Special guests included Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers Band, Trey Anastasio, the Derek Trucks Band, and the Black Crowes. Nicks joined Petty and the Heartbreakers on stage for several songs including "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around".
In July 2006, Petty released a solo album titled Highway Companion, which included the hit "Saving Grace". It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, which was Petty's highest chart position since the introduction of the Nielsen SoundScan system for tracking album sales in 1991. Highway Companion was briefly promoted on the tour with the Heartbreakers in 2006, with performances of "Saving Grace", "Square One", "Down South" and "Flirting with Time".
During the summer of 2007, Petty reunited with his old bandmates Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh, along with Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, to reform his pre-Heartbreakers band Mudcrutch. The quintet recorded an album of 14 songs that was released on April 29, 2008. The band supported the album with a brief tour of California in the spring of 2008.
In 2007, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers contributed a cover of "I'm Walkin'" to the album Goin' Home: A Tribute to Fats Domino. The album's sales helped buy instruments for students in New Orleans public schools and contributed to the building of a community center in the city's Hurricane Katrina-damaged Ninth Ward.
On February 3, 2008, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed during the halftime-show of Super Bowl XLII at the University of Phoenix Stadium. They played "American Girl", "I Won't Back Down", "Free Fallin" and "Runnin' Down a Dream". That summer, the band toured North America with Steve Winwood as the opening act. Winwood joined Petty and the Heartbreakers on stage at select shows and performed his Spencer Davis Group hit "Gimme Some Lovin'", and occasionally he performed his Blind Faith hit "Can't Find My Way Home". In November 2009 the boxed set The Live Anthology, a compilation of live recordings from 1978 to 2006, was released.
The band's twelfth album Mojo was released on June 15, 2010, and reached number two on the Billboard 200 album chart. Petty described the album as "Blues-based. Some of the tunes are longer, more jam-y kind of music. A couple of tracks really sound like the Allman Brothers—not the songs but the atmosphere of the band." To promote the record, the band appeared as the musical guests on Saturday Night Live on May 17, 2010. The release of Mojo was followed by a North American summer tour. Prior to the tour, five of the band's guitars, including two owned by Petty, were stolen from their practice space in Culver City, California in April 2010. The items were recovered by Los Angeles police the next week.
In 2012, the band went on a world tour that included their first European dates in 20 years and their first ever concerts in the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador.
On July 28, 2014, Reprise Records released Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' thirteenth studio album, Hypnotic Eye. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, becoming the band's first album to top the chart. On November 20, 2015, the Tom Petty Radio channel debuted on SiriusXM.
In 2017, the Heartbreakers embarked on a 40th Anniversary Tour of the United States. The tour began on April 20 in Oklahoma City and ended on September 25 with a performance at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California. The Hollywood Bowl concert, which would ultimately be the Heartbreakers' final show, ended with a performance of "American Girl".
On September 28, 2018, Reprise Records released An American Treasure, a 60-track career-spanning box set featuring dozens of previously unreleased recordings, alternate versions of classic songs, rarities, historic live performances and deep tracks. The box set was preceded by the first single, "Keep A Little Soul", in July 2018. The song is an unreleased outtake originally recorded in 1982 during the Long After Dark sessions.
In July 2024, the Petty estate signed a deal with Warner Chappell Music to distribute Petty's entire catalog.