Tom Petty

• 1. Introduction

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  Tom Petty was ten years old in the summer of 1961 when his uncle, who was working on the set of Elvis Presley's film Follow That Dream in nearby Ocala, Florida, invited him to watch the filming. Petty became a Presley fan on the spot. Years later he described the encounter in three words: "Elvis glowed." When he returned that Saturday, his friend Keith Harben greeted him. Soon afterward, Petty swapped his Wham-O slingshot for a collection of Elvis 45s. That trade began a road from Gainesville garages to stadium stages. By the end of his career, Petty had sold more than 80 million records worldwide, which places him among the best-selling artists of all time. How does a kid with a slingshot and a stack of singles build a catalog like that? Why would a rock star end up in court, in bankruptcy, and in a public argument with his own record label over a price tag? And what was left unfinished when the music finally stopped?

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• 2. Gainesville Boy

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  Thomas Earl Petty was born on the 20th of October 1950 in Gainesville, Florida, the first of two sons. His mother, Kitty Petty, née Avery, worked in a local tax office, and his father, Earl, was a traveling salesman. His brother, Bruce, arrived seven years later.

  The family lived in the Northeast Gainesville Residential District, a neighborhood locals called the Duckpond. Petty attended Howard Bishop Middle School, where he played Little League baseball and basketball. He went on to Gainesville High School and graduated in 1968.

  Before music paid the bills, he held a few odd jobs. He spent a short time on the grounds crew at the University of Florida, though he never enrolled there as a student. An Ogeechee lime tree he supposedly planted on campus is now known as the Tom Petty tree, although Petty said he could not remember planting any trees. He also worked briefly as a gravedigger.

  In 2006, Petty pinpointed the moment he knew he wanted a band. It was the night he watched the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show. In his words, "there was the way out." He added, "You get your friends and you're a self-contained unit. And you make the music." He had never been hugely into sports, and the Beatles showed him something he felt sure he could do. He later credited the Rolling Stones with proving that musicians like him could make it in rock and roll.

  Guitar lessons came from a neighbor. 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. Petty remembered it differently and said Felder taught him piano. Soon Petty started a band of his own, called the Epics.

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• 3. Building the Heartbreakers

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  Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench were members of Mudcrutch, the band that the Epics eventually became. Mudcrutch was popular around Gainesville, yet its recordings went unnoticed by a mainstream audience. The group recorded at The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Its only single, "Depot Street," came out on Shelter Records in 1975 and failed to chart.

  When Mudcrutch broke up, Petty reluctantly agreed to try a solo career. Then Tench formed a group of his own, and Petty liked its sound. Petty and Campbell teamed up with Tench, bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch, and that became the first lineup of the Heartbreakers.

  Their self-titled debut, released through Shelter Records and distributed by ABC Records, found little love in the United States. Britain embraced it instead. After the band toured the United Kingdom in support of Nils Lofgren, the singles "American Girl" and "Breakdown" took off, with "Breakdown" re-released in 1977.

  The second album, You're Gonna Get It!, became the band's first Top 40 album and carried "I Need to Know" and "Listen to Her Heart." The third, Damn the Torpedoes, went platinum quickly and sold nearly two million copies. It held the breakthrough singles "Don't Do Me Like That," "Here Comes My Girl," "Even the Losers" and "Refugee."

  Hard Promises arrived in 1981, reached the top ten and went platinum. It produced "The Waiting" and also held Petty's first duet, "Insider," sung with Stevie Nicks. Ron Blair then quit, and Howie Epstein replaced him on Long After Dark in 1982, which contained "You Got Lucky." That lineup stayed together until 1994.

  In September 1979, the Heartbreakers played a Musicians United for Safe Energy concert at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan. Their version of "Cry to Me" ended up on the resulting album, No Nukes. In 1985 they played four songs at Live Aid, at John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, before a crowd of 89,484 people.

  Southern Accents, also from 1985, held "Don't Come Around Here No More," produced by Dave Stewart. In its video, Petty appeared as the Mad Hatter, mocking Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, chasing her, then cutting and eating her as if she were a cake. The tour that followed produced the live album Pack Up the Plantation: Live! It also brought an invitation from Bob Dylan to join his 60-date True Confessions Tour across Asia, Oceania and North America.

  In 1986 and 1987, the band played some dates with the Grateful Dead. The 1987 album Let Me Up (I've Had Enough) included "Jammin' Me," a song Petty wrote together with Dylan, and the two musicians were about to cross paths again.

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• 4. Wilburys and Solo Flight

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  In 1988, Petty became a founding member of the Traveling Wilburys, alongside George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. Their first song, "Handle with Care," was meant to be a B-side for one of Harrison's singles. The group judged it too good for that job and decided to record a full album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1.

  A second album followed in 1990, recorded without Orbison, who had recently died. The group playfully titled it Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3. That name answered a series of bootlegged studio sessions that were being sold as Travelling Wilburys Vol. 2.

  Petty carried the band into his own concerts. He played "Handle with Care" consistently from 2003 to 2006. On his 2008 tour he slipped in "surprises" such as "End of the Line."

  Full Moon Fever came out in 1989. It was nominally his first solo album, yet it was a family affair. Mike Campbell co-produced it with Petty and Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra. Backing musicians included Campbell, Lynne and fellow Wilburys Roy Orbison and George Harrison. The record delivered "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down a Dream." In the video for "I Won't Back Down," Ringo Starr appears behind the drums, but the drumming was actually done by Phil Jones.

  In 1991, Petty and the Heartbreakers reformed and released Into the Great Wide Open, co-produced by Lynne. The singles included "Learning to Fly" and the title track, whose music video featured Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway.

  A greatest hits package followed. The band gathered to record two new songs live in the studio, "Mary Jane's Last Dance" and a cover of Thunderclap Newman's "Something in the Air." The session was Stan Lynch's last recorded performance with the Heartbreakers. Petty remarked, "He left right after the session without really saying goodbye." The package sold over ten million copies and earned diamond certification from the RIAA.

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• 5. Fighting for Control

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  In May 1979, Petty filed for bankruptcy. The trouble began when ABC Records was sold to MCA Records, and Petty refused to be passed to another label without his consent. He ended up signed to Backstreet Records, a new MCA subsidiary.

  Early in 1981, the coming Heartbreakers album that would become Hard Promises was set to be MCA's next release at a list price of $9.98. The usual price was $8.98. The higher figure, nicknamed "superstar pricing," had just been applied to Steely Dan's Gaucho and the Olivia Newton-John and Electric Light Orchestra soundtrack for Xanadu. Petty objected loudly in the press, and fans made it a popular cause. He and the label considered withholding the album or naming it Eight Ninety-Eight. In the end, MCA dropped the price increase.

  In 1987, Petty sued the tire company B.F. Goodrich for $1 million. He said a television commercial used a song very similar to his "Mary's New Car." The advertising agency had earlier asked permission to use Petty's song and had been refused. A judge issued a temporary restraining order against the ad, and the suit was later settled out of court.

  Petty also refused to let George W. Bush use "I Won't Back Down" in his 2000 presidential campaign. In 2020, his family did the same for Donald Trump, saying, "Tom Petty would never want a song of his used for a campaign of hate."

  Yet he was relaxed about songs that merely sounded like his. When some outlets claimed that the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Dani California," released in May 2006, resembled "Mary Jane's Last Dance," he told Rolling Stone he seriously doubted any negative intent. He pointed out that "a lot of rock 'n' roll songs sound alike." He recalled that the Strokes admitted borrowing from "American Girl" for "Last Nite," and he laughed out loud. "I don't believe in lawsuits much," he said.

  In January 2015, it came out that Petty and Jeff Lynne would receive royalties from Sam Smith's "Stay with Me," after its writers acknowledged similarities to "I Won't Back Down." Each man was awarded 12.5 percent of the royalties, and both names were added to the ASCAP credit. Petty said he did not think Smith plagiarized him. "Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by," he said.

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• 6. Later Albums and Stages

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  In 1989, while still under contract to MCA, Petty secretly signed a lucrative deal with Warner Bros. Records, the label of the Traveling Wilburys. His first album there was Wildflowers in 1994, the second of his three solo albums. It was produced by Rick Rubin and sold over three million copies in the United States. Along with the title track, it spun off "You Don't Know How It Feels," "You Wreck Me," "It's Good to Be King" and "A Higher Place."

  In 1996, Petty and the Heartbreakers made the soundtrack for the movie She's the One, starring Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston. Its singles included "Walls (Circus)" with Lindsey Buckingham, "Climb that Hill," and "Change the Locks," written by Lucinda Williams. The album also carried a cover of a Beck song. That same year the band backed Johnny Cash on Unchained, provisionally titled "Petty Cash," which won Cash a Grammy for Best Country Album. Cash later covered "I Won't Back Down" on American III: Solitary Man.

  Echo, released in 1999, was the last Heartbreakers album with Rubin at the helm. It reached number 10 on the US album charts and produced the singles "Room at the Top" and "Free Girl Now." After the attacks of the 11th of September 2001, the band played "I Won't Back Down" at the America: A Tribute to Heroes benefit. The next year, at the Concert for George, they played "Taxman," "I Need You" and "Handle with Care," the last with Jeff Lynne, Dhani Harrison and Jim Keltner.

  The Last DJ, from 2002, was an album-length critique of the music industry. Its title track was inspired by Los Angeles radio personality Jim Ladd and mourned the lost freedom of DJs to choose their own playlists. The album peaked at number nine on the Billboard 200. In 2005, Petty began hosting Buried Treasure on XM Satellite Radio, sharing selections from his personal record collection.

  In 2006, the Heartbreakers headlined the fifth annual Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on their 30th Anniversary Tour. Guests included Stevie Nicks, Pearl Jam, the Allman Brothers Band, Trey Anastasio, the Derek Trucks Band and the Black Crowes. In July of that year came the solo album Highway Companion, with the hit "Saving Grace." It debuted at number four on the Billboard 200, Petty's highest chart position since SoundScan began tracking album sales in 1991.

  During the summer of 2007, Petty reunited with old bandmates Tom Leadon and Randall Marsh, plus Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, to revive Mudcrutch. The quintet recorded 14 songs, released on the 29th of April 2008, and played a brief California tour. That same year, on the 3rd of February 2008, the Heartbreakers performed at the Super Bowl XLII halftime show at the University of Phoenix Stadium. They played "American Girl," "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down a Dream." In 2007 they had also covered "I'm Walkin'" for a Fats Domino tribute album, whose sales helped buy instruments for New Orleans public school students and build a community center in the Hurricane Katrina-damaged Ninth Ward.

  Mojo arrived on the 15th of June 2010 and climbed to number two on the Billboard 200. Petty called it blues-based and said a couple of tracks sounded like the atmosphere of the Allman Brothers Band. Five of the band's guitars, two of them Petty's, were stolen from their Culver City practice space in April 2010, and Los Angeles police recovered them the next week.

  A 2012 world tour included the band's first European dates in 20 years and its first-ever concerts in Nova Scotia and in Newfoundland and Labrador. On the 28th of July 2014, Hypnotic Eye debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, the first Heartbreakers album to top that chart. The Tom Petty Radio channel debuted on SiriusXM on the 20th of November 2015.

  The 40th Anniversary Tour of 2017 began on the 20th of April in Oklahoma City. It ended on the 25th of September at the Hollywood Bowl in Hollywood, California. That show became the Heartbreakers' last, and it closed with "American Girl."

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• 7. Beyond the Music

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  In 1978, Petty made his first film appearance, a cameo in FM. He had a small part in the 1987 film Made in Heaven and appeared in several episodes of It's Garry Shandling's Show between 1987 and 1990, playing himself as one of Shandling's neighbors. On The Larry Sanders Show, he played a guest who gets bumped from the program and nearly comes to blows with Greg Kinnear.

  In the 1997 film The Postman, directed by and starring Kevin Costner, Petty played the Bridge City Mayor. The dialogue implies he is a future version of himself. In 2002, he spoofed himself on The Simpsons, in the episode "How I Spent My Strummer Vacation," as a tutor teaching Homer Simpson to write lyrics, and he loses a toe during a riot. From 2004 until 2009 he voiced Elroy "Lucky" Kleinschmidt on King of the Hill in a recurring role. In 2010, he made a five-second cameo with comedian Andy Samberg in a video called "Great Day."

  His home life was harder than his screen life. Petty said his father could not accept a "mild-mannered kid who was interested in the arts," and subjected him to regular verbal and physical abuse. He described his father as a "wild, gambling drinker guy." He stayed close to his mother and his brother, Bruce.

  Petty married Jane Benyo in 1974, and they had two daughters, Adria, a director, and Annakim, an artist. Benyo once told their mutual friend Stevie Nicks that she met Petty at "the age of seventeen." Nicks misheard Benyo's North Florida accent, and the mix-up inspired the title of her song "Edge of Seventeen." The couple divorced in 1996.

  On the 17th of May 1987, an arsonist set fire to Petty's house in Encino, California. Firefighters saved the basement recording studio, the original tapes stored there, and his Gibson Dove acoustic guitar. His signature gray top hat was destroyed, and the arsonist was never caught.

  After the divorce, Petty struggled with heroin addiction and cited the emotional pain of the split as a cause. He got clean after rehab in 1999 and credited his then-girlfriend Dana York with saving his life by helping him seek treatment. They married in Las Vegas on the 3rd of June 2001 and again at their home in Malibu on the 21st of June. Little Richard officiated, and an all-female mariachi band performed. York had a son from a previous marriage, Dylan. In 2014 Petty spoke about the benefits of his Transcendental Meditation practice.

  On guitar, he mostly played a sunburst 1964 Fender Stratocaster owned by Mike Campbell. From 1979 onward he often played Rickenbackers, and a Rickenbacker 660/12TP neck of his own design carried his signature from 1991 to 1997. He also played several Fender Telecasters and a Guild D25 12-string acoustic. Later in his career his amplifier setup was two Fender Vibro-King 60-watt combos.

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• 8. Final Days and Legacy

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  On the 1st of October 2017, Dana York found Petty not breathing and in cardiac arrest at their home. He was resuscitated and taken to the UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, California, where he was placed on life support. He died at 8:40 p.m. PDT on the 2nd of October, at the age of 66. Premature reports of his death had circulated throughout the day. A memorial service was held on the 16th of October 2017 at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades, Los Angeles.

  On the 19th of January 2018, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner ruled the death an accidental overdose, caused by mixed drug toxicity. The drugs included several opioids, two benzodiazepines and an antidepressant. His wife and daughter said on his website that he had several medical problems, including emphysema, knee difficulties and, most significantly, a fractured hip. They wrote that in their feeling, "the pain was simply unbearable."

  In an interview with Billboard on the 23rd of September 2018, Dana said Petty had put off the hip surgery his doctors recommended. He felt the tour might be his last and that he owed it to his crew and his fans. She said he was in a good mood the day before he died, and that he had never been "so proud of himself, so happy, so looking forward to the future."

  Gainesville answered quickly. A week after his death, a tribute appeared on the Southwest 34th Street Wall. It reads, "Love you always, Gainesville No. 1 Son, Thanks, Tommy." Starting on the 7th of October 2017, "I Won't Back Down" has played at every Florida Gators home game at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium after the third quarter. In October 2018, on what would have been his 68th birthday, the city renamed Northeast Park as Tom Petty Park, and a historical marker was placed in the Duckpond. In December 2021, the University of Florida board of trustees voted unanimously to award him an honorary PhD. In October 2022, the Pride of the Sunshine marching band dedicated its halftime show to his music for the university's first Tom Petty Day.

  The honors had started long before. Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers received the keys to Gainesville in October 1981 and again in September 2006, and a Hollywood Walk of Fame star in 1999. Petty won UCLA's George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin Award for Lifetime Musical Achievement in April 1996, followed a month later by the ASCAP Golden Note Award. Billboard gave him its Century Award on the 6th of December 2005. Peter Bogdanovich's documentary Runnin' Down a Dream premiered at the New York Film Festival in October 2007. In February 2017, MusiCares named him Person of the Year for his music and his philanthropy. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Heartbreakers and later showed an exhibit of his items from July 2006 until 2007.

  Rolling Stone ranks him 91st on its list of the Greatest Artists of All Time. Three of his albums made its 500 Greatest Albums list: Wildflowers at No. 214, Damn the Torpedoes at No. 231, and Full Moon Fever at No. 298. Two songs made its 500 Greatest Songs list, "American Girl" at No. 169 and "Free Fallin'" at No. 219.

  New music kept arriving. The 60-track box set An American Treasure came out on the 28th of September 2018, preceded in July by the single "Keep A Little Soul," an outtake recorded in 1982 during the Long After Dark sessions. In July 2024, his estate signed a deal with Warner Chappell Music to distribute his entire catalog.

  In December 2023, "Love Is a Long Road" was used in the first trailer for Grand Theft Auto VI. The trailer gained over 90 million YouTube views in its first 24 hours. In that same span, the song gained a 36,979 percent increase on Spotify, drew almost 250,000 Shazam searches and ranked second on the worldwide iTunes chart.

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