Tom Petty was one of rock’s most original voices
Tom Petty, a singer and guitarist who burst onto the scene in 1970s as one of the most original, searching voices in rock and remained a major hitmaker for four decades, writing songs including “Free Fallin’,” “I Won’t Back Down” and “American Girl,” died Oct. 2 at a hospital in Santa Monica, California. He was 66.
Petty’s death was confirmed by Tony Dimitriades, longtime manager of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, on behalf of the family.
Petty and his band, the Heartbreakers, released their self-titled debut in 1976 and soon drew comparisons to the bluesy, guitarheavy rock of the Rolling Stones and the Byrds. Their music was unabashedly sentimental, seeming to speak to striving, everyday Americans no less than the songs of fellow rocker Bruce Springsteen, while featuring clever arrangements that intertwined the fretwork of Petty and lead guitarist Mike Campbell.
The group toured seemingly nonstop for decades, leading boisterous shows as recently as last week, when Petty concluded a nationwide tour that he said may well be his last. “I don’t want to spend my life on the road,” he told Rolling Stone.
Still, Petty seemed to treat rock as a religion, battling with his record label to prevent the cost of one of his albums from rising by $1 and exuding a sense of divine satisfaction while performing onstage. “I don’t think he thought there was a better way to live your life than in a rock band,” said rock historian and Rolling Stone contributor Anthony DeCurtis.
Petty, the group’s leader and principal songwriter, was a musical craftsman who paired polished guitar riffs with lyrics that seemed lifted from barroom conversations in his hometown of Gainesville, Florida. His 1978 single “Listen to Her Heart” begins, “You think you’re gonna take her away with your money and your cocaine.” Petty’s career was marked by personal problems that included a heroin addiction, a tumultuous marriage and a 1987 house fire that burned everything but his basement recording studio. But he remained one of the most durable and distinctive presences in rock for decades, sporting a nasal voice and blond hair that fell to his shoulders.
His 1980s music videos, including an “Alice in Wonderland” inspired video for “Don’t Come Around Here No More” (1985), in which Petty played a sunglasseswearing Mad Hatter, introduced him to some members of the MTV generation. And his recordings with the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that formed in 1988 with Bob Dylan, George Harrison of the Beatles and Roy Orbison (who died later that year), connected him with an earlier era of rock music.
Thomas Earl Petty was born in Gainesville on Oct. 20, 1950, the son of an alcoholic insurance salesperson who beat him relentlessly from the time he was 5.
He escaped the pain of his family life through watching television and then through music. An encounter with rock star Elvis Presley, who was in town to shoot a scene from the 1962 Hollywood musical “Follow That Dream,” was a defining moment of his childhood. Through family connections — an uncle who had been hired to assist the film crew — he managed to get onto the film set and meet the star.
He soon became obsessed with the guitar, the instrument of his musical idol, and his school grades began to drop. He said he preferred the company of his guitar to dates and other teenage rites of passage, and as the Beatles invaded the pop charts his hair grew in length.
Petty played in local rock bands, with musical dates often in topless bars, and left school at 17 to devote himself to the group Mudcrutch, which included two later foundational members of the Heartbreakers, keyboardist Benmont Tench and lead guitarist Mike Campbell.
Mudcrutch had a strong following in Florida, but Petty said he was determined to cast a wider mark, which meant writing his own music and hoping it would catch the attention of a record company in Los Angeles.
They signed with Shelter Records, but the band broke up over artistic and personal clashes. “We did the L.A. freakout,” Petty later quipped. Not until 1975, at a demo session that included Tench, Campbell, drummer Stan Lynch and bassist Ron Blair, did Petty suddenly find the chemistry just right.
Calling themselves Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, they released two major hits the next year, “American Girl” and “Breakdown,” which vaulted them to national attention.
Legal entanglements ensued when his record company changed hands after the release of the band’s second album, “You’re Gonna Get It!” in 1978. Petty said he refused to be “bought and sold like a peace of meat,” and found his career stalled over charges of breach of contract when he wanted out. He declared bankruptcy in 1979, signed with a new label, Backstreet Records, and reached a settlement with his former record company.
The new arrangement would mark a renaissance in Petty’s music. The record “Damn the Torpedoes” (1979) endures as one of the timeless rock albums of the era, oozing tenderness and toughness and a propulsive rock drive on songs such as “Refugee” and “Louisiana Rain.”
Petty’s next several albums with the Heartbreakers — including “Hard Promises” (1981), with a duet with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac on the song “Insider,” and “Long After Dark” (1982) — continued to sell exceedingly well. Critics rhapsodized on his originality and suppleness.
“The music on ‘Long after Dark’ offers the passion, the attention to detail, the delicate balance of originality and love of tradition that have always informed the best rock-and-roll,” Robert Palmer wrote in the New York Times. “ ‘Long after Dark’ also happens to be one of the most gorgeous-sounding rock-and-roll albums in recent memory.”
As the decade progressed, Petty lent his name recognition to benefit concerts such as Live Aid, and he also contributed hitmaking songs for other performers, including “Never Be You” for Rosanne Cash. Worried that the Heartbreakers were becoming too well-oiled for their own good, he ventured into conceptual rock — with touches of psychedelia and soul — for their 1985 album “Southern Accents,” which had the one-off hit “Don’t Come Around Here No More.”
In 1986, he and the Heartbreakers toured as the backing band for Dylan, one of Petty’s chief musical influences. Their next album, “Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough)” in 1987, demonstrated a shaggy freewheeling spirit more. His work with the Traveling Wilburys, and the charttopping success of “Free Fallin’ “and “I Won’t Back Down,” from “Full Moon Fever,” propelled him into the next decade. He was now a household name, an arena-filling act who suddenly became a target for music critics anticipating that he — now on the precipice of fame — would relinquish his mantle as an innovator and leave behind his roots in favour of lucre.
Petty made idiosyncratic guest appearances in the 1997 Kevin Costner film “The Postman” and on TV shows including “It’s Garry Shandling’s Show” and the animated series, “King of the Hill,” plus a celebrated 2002 episode of “The Simpsons.” It was about Homer going to rock n roll fantasy camp and also featured Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Lenny Kravitz and Elvis Costello.
His marriage to Jane Benyo, with whom he had two daughters, ended in divorce. In 2001, he married Dana York. A list of survivors was not available.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Petty and the Heartbreakers in 2002.