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. He previously led the band Mudcrutch. He was also a co-founder of the late 1980’s super group the Traveling Wilburys.
Petty has sold more than 80 million records worldwide, making him one of the best selling music artists of all time. He and the Heartbreakers were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
Petty was a Gainesville, Florida native whose interest in rock and roll music ignited at age ten when he met Elvis Presley in 1961. Petty knew he wanted to be in a band when he saw the Beatles performance on the Ed Sullivan Show.
After embracing his musical aspirations Petty started a band known as the Epics, later evolving into Mudcrutch which included future Heartbreakers Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench. While popular in Gainesville, their recordings went unnoticed by mainstream audiences. Their only single, “Depot Street” released in 1975 failed to chart.
After Mudcrutch’s dissolution Petty collaborated with Campbell and Tench to form the Heartbreakers. Their eponymous debut album gained minute popularity. The single “Breakdown” became a hit a year after its 1977 release. It was the Heartbreakers third album, Damn the Torpedoes that broke the band into the mainstream.
The album quickly went platinum selling more than two million copies and spawning the hit singles “Don’t Do Me Like That,” “Here Comes My Girl,” and “Refugee.” Their fourth album, the platinum top ten charting, Hard Promises, introduced the hit single “The Waiting” and featured Petty’s first duet, “Insider,” with Stevie Nicks. The band continued to release hit albums throughout the 1980’s and toured with the Grateful Dead and Bob Dylan.
In 1988, Petty joined with George Harrison to form the Traveling Wilburys, which also included Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. The band had a hit single with Harrison’s “Handle with Care” from their debut album Traveling Wilburys Vol.1. A second album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 without the recently deceased Orbison followed in 1990. Petty incorporated Wilburys songs into his live shows consistently playing “Handle with Care” and “End of the Line” into his set lists.
Petty’s first solo album 1989’s Full Moon Fever featured the hits “I Won’t Back Down,” “Free Fallin,” and “Runnin’ Down a Dream.” While nominally a solo album several Heartbreakers played on the Mike Campbell produced album.
Before leaving MCA Records, Petty and the Heartbreakers recorded two new songs for a greatest hits package one of which was “Mary Jane’s Last Dance.” The album went on to sell more than ten million copies and received diamond certification.
Petty’s first album for the new label was 1994’s Wildflowers (Petty’s second of three solo albums) and included the hit singles “You Don’t Know How It Feels,” “You Wreck Me,” and “It’s Good to Be King,” going on to sell more than three million records. In April 1996, Petty received the UCLA’s George and Ira Gershwin award for Lifetime Musical Achievement. The next month Petty won the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ Golden Note Award. Petty received the Billboard Century Award, the organization’s highest honor for creative achievement, at a ceremony on December 6th, 2005.
In 2005, Petty began hosting his own show “Buried Treasure” on XM Satellite Radio on which he shared selections from his personal record collection. In 2007 Petty reunited with his old Mudcrutch band mates along with Heartbreakers Tench and Campbell to record an album along with a brief tour of support. In 2014 The Heartbreakers thirteenth studio album Hypnotic Eye was released debuting at number one and becoming the first Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers album to ever top the chart. In 2017 the Heartbreakers embarked on a 40th anniversary tour with their Hollywood Bowl concert which would be their final show with a performance of “American Girl.”
Petty died of an accidental drug overdose on October 2, 2017, one week after the end of the Heartbreakers’ 40th Anniversary Tour.
Nearly one year after Petty’s death, on September 28, 2018, An American Treasure was released. The 60-track, career-spanning box set features dozens of previously unreleased recordings, alternate versions of classic songs, rarities, historic live performances and deep tracks. The box set was preceded by the first single, “Keep A Little Soul,” in July 2018. The song is an unreleased outtake originally recorded in 1982 during the Long After Dark sessions.
The album, Wildflowers, released in 1994, is commonly vaunted as Tom Petty’s most personal, most heartfelt, and most revealing artistic statement of his career. Recorded over the course of two years and originally intended to be a two-disc album, it was perhaps the most creative period in his life. The release of Wildflowers & All The Rest on Oct 16, 2020 will finally gather together all 25 songs from the original recording sessions – the 15 songs from Wildflowers, plus the 10 songs that were left off the original release.
Finding Wildflowers ( released 5/7/2021: “You Saw Me Comin’,” a previously unreleased song and recording from 1992 and the final track on the collection, is premiering alongside a video directed by Joel Kazuo Knoernschild and Katie Malia. Reflecting upon recording “You Saw Me Comin’” for Wildflowers, Benmont Tench notes, “There’s this kind of longing in the song, in the way that he wrote the chord structure, the melody and the lyrics. It’s wistful, and it would have been the perfect way to end the disc.”
2022 update-Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers famously played 20 nights at the legendary Fillmore venue in San Francisco in 1997. 6 of the shows were professionally recorded and this release features many of the high points of the residency. The small venue allowed the band to vary their sets each night; they included re-arranged and distinctive versions of their hits, deep cuts, and many cover versions – paying tribute to the artists that Tom and the band had been influenced by. The 4 CD deluxe edition of Live at the Fillmore (1997) includes 58 tracks, 35 of which are covers – over 4 hours of music. The 4 CDs are packaged in a box with a 32-page booklet (with previously unseen photographs), 3 custom guitar picks, a replica All Access laminate, and an embroidered patch (“The Fillmore House Band” – a term that was bestowed on The Heartbreakers during the shows at the Fillmore). Out 11/25/2022
2023-Tom Petty’s cover of “Help Me” by Sonny Boy Williamson II previews Extra Mojo Version, an upcoming expanded edition of 2010’s Mojo. Check it out below. The reissue is available now for pre-ordering in both digital and vinyl forms. It’s set for release on Oct. 20, 2023 which would have been Petty’s 73rd birthday. “Mystery of Love” is the other unreleased song.
Read More: Expanded Reissue of Tom Petty’s ‘Mojo’ to Include Two New Tracks | https://ultimateclassicrock.com/tom-petty-mojo-reissue/?utm_source=tsmclip&utm_medium=referral
Reference – https://store.tompetty.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Petty
Tom Petty Discography:
Solo
Full Moon Fever (1989)
Wildflowers (1994)
Highway Companion (2006)
with the Heartbreakers
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers (1976)
You’re Gonna Get It! (1978)
Damn the Torpedoes (1979)
Hard Promises (1981)
Long After Dark (1982)
Southern Accents (1985)
Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) (1987)
Into the Great Wide Open (1991)
Songs and Music from “She’s the One” (1996)
Echo (1999)
The Last DJ (2002)
Mojo (2010)
Hypnotic Eye (2014)
An American Treasure(2018)
Wildflowers & All the Rest (2020)
Finding Wildflowers (5/7/2021)
Live at The Fillmore (1997)- 11/25/2022
Mojo-Expanded Version (10/20/2023)
with the Traveling Wilburys
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 (1988)
Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3 (1990)
with Mudcrutch
Mudcrutch (2008)
2 (2016)
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