Tom Petty
| Videos | |
 |
 |
| Tom Petty Plays "I Won't Back Down" |
Tom Petty Interview |
 |
 |
| Tom Petty Plays The 2008 Superbowl |
Tom Petty Plays "The Waiting" |
| Guitarist Quick-Facts |
| Name: Thomas Petty |
| Born: October 20, 1950 |
| Guitar Gear |
| Guitars: Fender, Rickenbacker |
| Amplifiers: Fender, VOX |
| Bands: Past & Present |
| Mudcrutch, The Sundowners, Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers, The Traveling Wilburys |
Thomas Petty was born on October 20, 1950, in Gainesville, Florida. The young Petty met Elvis Presley at the age of 10 and was fascinated with rock and roll music ever since. Petty's uncle was working on the set of an Elvis movie and introduced his nephew to the performer. After seeing the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show, Petty's interest in rock music grew and he knew from that moment that he wanted to be in a band. His first guitar teacher, Don Felder, would go on to become part of the Eagles.
Petty acted quickly on his desire to play in a band, forming the Sundowners, a band who would later change its name to Mudcrutch. The band was successful in their hometown of Gainesville, but failed to achieve any mainstream success. The band split up and Petty briefly pursued a solo career. Before long Petty collaborated with former Mudcrutch bandmates Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench along with Ron Blair and Stan Lynch. The new group became Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and released a self-titled album in 1976. The record was only a moderate success among American audiences but was considerably more popular in England. In 1978 the band toured the United Kingdom as an opening act for Nils Lofgren.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would get their first top 40 album when their second record, “You're Gonna Get It!”, was released. Their success continued as their third album “Damn the Torpedoes” was a multi-platinum hit. “Damn the Torpedoes” contained several breakthrough tracks for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, including “Don't Do Me Like That”, “Refugee”, and “Here Comes My Girl”. The album faced release problems when Petty's record label, ABC Records was sold to MCA Records. Tom did not want to be transferred to a new label without his consent, and at first refused to work with MCA. Eventually the matter was settled, but it wasn't the end of Petty's problems with MCA.
As the band prepared to release their fourth album, “Hard Promises”, Petty become vocally critical of his new record label. The label was set to release the album at a $9.98 price point, a dollar higher than the going rate for new CDs. It had become a common practice to charge fans extra for what the labels considered 'superstar' albums. Tom Petty objected to the price increase, and in so doing gained a lot of respect from fans. After voicing his concerns to the press and threatening to rename the album Eight Ninety-Eight, the studio relented and sold the album at the standard rate. “Hard Promises” was a top ten hit and went platinum when it was released in 1981.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released three more studio albums and a live album between 1982 and 1987, but took a break for a while as Tom co-founded and played with one of rock music's first supergroups. The Traveling Wilburys featured Tom Petty along with fellow superstars Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison, and Jeff Lynne. The group originally got together to record a B-side to one of George Harrison's singles. The song was “Handle With Care”, and the musicians decided that the result was too good to be relegated to the role of a B-side and decided to record a full album together. The result was named “Traveling Wilburys Volume 1”. The band followed up with a second album, named “Traveling Wilburys Volume 3” after studio session recordings were bootlegged and sold unofficially as “Traveling Wilburys Volume 2”.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers continued to record and perform in the years that followed and gave a 30th anniversary tour in 2006. Also in 2006, Tom Petty released a new solo album featuring the hit single “Saving Grace”. The next year Petty re-united with former members of Mudcrutch and the band recorded their first official album, having released only one single in 1967. Mudcrutch played a small tour of California in support of the album in the spring of 2008.
