Tom Petty Born: Heartbreakers Frontman Enters Rock History

Tom Petty recorded "Don't Do Me Like That" on a four-track in his garage and got turned down by every label before Shelter Records said yes. That was 1976. Born in Gainesville, Florida, in 1950, he dropped out of high school at seventeen to pursue music full time after meeting Elvis Presley on a movie set in Ocala had convinced him at age eleven that rock and roll was the only life worth living. He formed the Heartbreakers in Los Angeles with Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, musicians whose collaborative chemistry would last four decades. Their debut album, released in 1976, was a commercial disappointment in the United States but sold well in England, where Petty's Byrds-influenced guitar jangle fit the emerging new wave aesthetic. "Breakdown" became a hit after being featured on a popular radio show, and the band spent the next decade building a catalog of American rock songs that sounded effortless because they had been meticulously crafted. When MCA Records tried to release his 1981 album Hard Promises at a higher price point, Petty refused to deliver the master tape until they backed down, winning a battle that other artists were afraid to fight. His solo work, particularly Full Moon Fever produced by Jeff Lynne, expanded his audience, and "Free Fallin'" became one of the most played songs on American radio. He joined the Traveling Wilburys with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, and Lynne, a supergroup that produced two albums of surprisingly collaborative songwriting. He continued touring and recording until his death on October 2, 2017, of an accidental drug overdose involving fentanyl and other opioids. He was sixty-six.