Five guitars vanished from a locked rehearsal space in 2010, and the theft barely slowed Tom Petty down. Police recovered the instruments within days, and the Heartbreakers carried on as if nothing had happened. That resilience defined Thomas Earl Petty, born October 20, 1950 in Gainesville, Florida, a musician who spent four decades turning setbacks into fuel. By the time he died on October 2, 2017 in Santa Monica, California at 66, the catalog he left behind had moved more than 80 million records worldwide.
From slingshot to rock and roll
The obsession started early and never really stopped. As a boy in Gainesville, Petty traded a slingshot for a stack of Elvis Presley records, a transaction that pointed him toward rock and roll before he understood what it meant. Meeting Presley on a film set sealed the deal. Then The Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show, and Petty decided he would build his own band. Don Felder, later of Eagles, gave him guitar lessons, while day jobs at a cemetery and the University of Florida kept him afloat.
His first serious group, The Epics, eventually became Mudcrutch, a band that recorded at The Church Studio in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The sole Mudcrutch single, 'Depot Street,' went nowhere on the charts, and the project dissolved. Petty regrouped with Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench to form Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Their self-titled debut found a warmer reception in Britain than at home, though 'American Girl' and 'Breakdown' each climbed to 40 on the US charts.
Breakthrough and activist stages
The breakthrough came with 'Damn the Torpedoes,' a platinum album built on 'Don't Do Me Like That' and 'Refugee.' In 1979 the band played Musicians United for Safe Energy at Madison Square Garden, sharing a stage with the era's activist wing. 'Hard Promises' followed with 'The Waiting,' and Petty recorded the duet 'Insider' with Stevie Nicks. By 1985 the group had joined Live Aid in Philadelphia, and 'Southern Accents' produced 'Don't Come Around Here No More' with Dave Stewart shaping the sound.
The video for that single cast Petty as the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland, a surreal turn that matched the song's psychedelic edge. Bob Dylan tapped the Heartbreakers for his True Confessions Tour, pulling them deeper into rock's inner circle. Then came 1988 and the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup with George Harrison, Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Jeff Lynne. Their first album emerged after 'Handle with Care' was judged too strong for a B-side, and the second was titled 'Vol. 3' because bootleggers had already claimed 'Vol. 2.'
Solo work and the Wilburys
Petty's solo work ran parallel to the band. 'Full Moon Fever' arrived in 1989 with 'I Won't Back Down' and 'Free Fallin',' featuring Orbison and Harrison on backing vocals. That same year Petty quietly signed with Warner Bros. Records. In 1991 the Heartbreakers released 'Into the Great Wide Open,' whose title-track video starred Johnny Depp and Faye Dunaway. The Greatest Hits compilation, anchored by 'Mary Jane's Last Dance,' eventually went diamond with more than 10 million copies sold.
The 1990s brought Rick Rubin into the fold for 'Wildflowers,' which sold over 3 million copies in the US alone. The band recorded the soundtrack for the film 'She's the One' in 1996, then backed Johnny Cash on 'Unchained,' the album that earned Cash a Grammy. 'Echo' closed the Rubin era in 1999. On September 21, 2001, the group performed 'I Won't Back Down' during America: A Tribute to Heroes, and in 2002 they appeared at Concert for George honoring Harrison.
Reinventing the machinery
Petty kept reinventing the machinery around him. 'The Last DJ' took aim at the music industry's consolidation, while his XM Satellite Radio show 'Buried Treasure' ran from 2005 onward. 'Highway Companion' debuted at 4 on the Billboard 200 in 2006. Two years later he reunited Mudcrutch for an album and California tour, and the Heartbreakers played the Super Bowl XLII halftime show. 'Mojo' reached 2 on the Billboard 200 in 2010, and 'Hypnotic Eye' finally gave the band its first chart-topping album in 2014.
The 40th-anniversary tour began April 20, 2017 in Oklahoma City and ran through the summer. The final show came on September 25, 2017 at the Hollywood Bowl, closing with 'American Girl' — the same song that had announced the band's arrival four decades earlier. A week later Petty was gone, the result of an accidental overdose of medication. In 2018 the box set 'An American Treasure' collected 60 tracks, including unreleased material, and in 2024 his heirs signed a catalog deal with Warner Chappell Music.
Petty voiced Lucky Kleinschmidt on 'King of the Hill' from 2004 to 2009, a side gig that revealed his deadpan comic timing. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted the Heartbreakers in 2002, and MusiCares named Petty its Person of the Year in February 2017. Nine years after his death, the records still circulate in every format collectors chase — the Wilburys vinyl with its deliberate numbering gap, the diamond-certified Greatest Hits, the Rubin-produced 'Wildflowers' pressings. The slingshot trade in Gainesville turned out to be one of the better deals in rock history.
The slingshot trade in Gainesville turned out to be one of the better deals in rock history.