Tom Petty Caricature

Tom Petty Caricature, shown here in 1979 age 29, with his vintage Fender Blonde Telecaster.

Thomas Earl Petty was an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, and actor. He was the lead singer of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1976. He previously led the band Mudcrutch. He was also a co-founder of the late 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys.

Petty, born in Gainesville, FL and at age 10 met Elvis Presley on the set of Presley’s film “Follow That Dream”. One of his first guitar teachers was Don Felder, a fellow Gainesville resident, who later joined the Eagles. Petty started a band known as the “Epics”, later to evolve into “Mudcrutch”. The band included future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, but the band failed to get traction.

In 1976, The Heartbreakers were formed, and in 1979, their third album, “Damn The Torpedoes” (named after the famous quote of Civil War Admiral David Farragut: “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”) quickly went platinum, selling nearly two million copies; it includes their breakthrough singles “Don’t Do Me Like That”, “Here Comes My Girl” and “Refugee”.

Over the course of their career, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had super hits like: “The Waiting”, “Don’t Come Around Here No More”, “I Won’t Back Down”, “Free Fallin”, “Running Down A Dream”, “Into The Great Wide Open”, “Learning To Fly”, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”, “Wildflowers”, “You Don’t Know How It Feels”, “You Wreck Me” and “Handle With Care” (Traveling Wilburys) to name a few.

In his career, he sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Unexpectantly, Petty died of a cardiac arrest in Santa Monica, CA on October 2, 2017 at age 66 after completing The Heartbreaker’s 40th Anniversary Tour.