Tom Petty TShirTS

Tom Petty PosTerS

Thomas Earl "Tom" Petty (born October 20, 1950) is a singer and guitarist. A prolific songwriter, Tom Petty has also produced numerous hit singles, such as "American Girl", "The Waiting", "Free Fallin'", "I Won't Back Down", "Into the Great Wide Open", and "Mary Jane's Last Dance", most of which remain heavily played on mainstream radio. Tom Petty is also a vocal critic of the modern recording industry and the disintegration of independent radio stations (e.g. The Last DJ).

Tom Petty has been supported by his band, The Heartbreakers, for the majority of his career. Tom Petty has occasionally released solo work, as is the case with his most recent effort, 2006's Highway Companion, on which Tom Petty performed most of the backing instrumentation himself. However, members of The Heartbreakers have played on each of his solo albums and the band has always backed him when touring in support of those albums. In addition, Tom Petty has had the same manager, Tony Dimitriades, since 1976.


Tom Petty, known in his early years as "Tommy", was born in Gainesville, Florida and grew up in Gainesville. As a teenager he often practiced at home with friends and sometimes even in the family fallout shelter located in his back yard. Tom Petty graduated from Gainesville High School in 1968. Tom Petty did not have any musical aspirations until Elvis Presley came to Ocala, Florida, 40 miles south of Petty's hometown, to work on a film, "Follow That Dream". Tom Petty went down to watch him and was inspired.

After working with his early bands The Sundowners, The Epics and Mudcrutch (the latter with ace drummer Randall Marsh and future Heartbreakers members Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) Tom Petty began his recording career with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers when the band broke onto the national music scene with their 1976 debut album. Still, it took America a full year to catch up to the album. "Breakdown" was re-released to radio and became a Top 40 hit in 1977. This was after word filtered back to the States that the band was creating a firestorm in the UK. The debut album was originally released by Shelter Records, which at that time was distributed by ABC Records.

Their 1978 second album You're Gonna Get It! proved the debut album's intensity was no fluke. Marking the band's first gold album, it featured the singles "Listen To Her Heart" and "I Need To Know". Shortly after its release, the band was dragged into a legal dispute, when ABC Records was sold to MCA Records. Tom Petty refused to simply be transferred to another record label without his consent. Tom Petty held fast to his principles for nine long months, which eventually led to him filing for bankruptcy. Under terms of the settlement Tom Petty was allowed to release his recordings on the new Backstreet Records label, manufactured and distributed by MCA.

After the dispute was settled, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers released their third album Damn the Torpedoes (1979) which rapidly became triple-platinum. It includes "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee", their U.S. breakthrough singles.

Tom Petty was appealing to a wide range of musical tastes, as New Wave, Punk and Rock and Roll fans alike were taking notice.

Though he was already extremely successful, Tom Petty ran into record company trouble again when he and the Heartbreakers prepared to release Hard Promises (1981), the follow-up album to Damn the Torpedoes. MCA wanted this to be released at a list price of $9.98, one dollar more than the standard industry price at the time. Tom Petty refused to comply to their wishes, threatening to use his artistic control to change the album title to "$8.98." He withheld the album from the label and organized a fan protest. Rather than risk further negative publicity the record company compromised on a list price of $8.98.

When eventually released, Hard Promises became a Top Ten hit, going platinum and spawning the hit single "The Waiting." Tom also recorded his first duet "Insider," with Stevie Nicks.

On their fifth album Long After Dark (1982) bass player Ron Blair was replaced by Howie Epstein, giving The Heartbreakers their line-up until 1994. However, Tom Petty had problems coping with the stress of success and decided to slow things down.

On their comeback album, Southern Accents (1985), Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers picked up where they had left off. The recording was not without problems — Tom Petty became frustrated during the mixing process and broke his left hand after punching through a wall. The album includes the hit single "Don't Come Around Here No More," which was produced by Dave Stewart. The video for the single featured Tom Petty dressed as the Mad Hatter, mocking and chasing Alice from the book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, then cutting and eating her as if she were a cake. This caused some controversy after it was criticized by feminist groups.

A successful concert tour led to the live album Pack Up the Plantation: Live! (1986). The band's live capabilities were put to the test when Bob Dylan invited Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers to join him on his True Confessions tour in addition to select dates with the Grateful Dead through the U.S., Australia, Japan (1986) and Europe (1987).

Also in 1987, the group released Let Me Up (I've Had Enough), a studio album made to sound like a live recording, using a technique they borrowed from Bob Dylan. It includes "Jammin' Me", which Petty wrote with Dylan.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' 1989 tour featured college rock band The Replacements opening every show. Tom Petty eventually borrowed Paul Westerberg's line "rebel without a clue" from "I'll Be You" for the title track of the Into the Great Wide Open album.

Tom Petty also appeared in several episodes of It's Garry Shandling's Show (1987 - 1990), playing himself as one of Garry Shandling's neighbors. This show appeared on the then-fledgling Fox network.

In 1989, Tom Petty released the album Full Moon Fever. Though nominally a solo project, other Heartbreakers and well-known musicians participated in the album's production. Mike Campbell co-produced the album with Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra. It was in the Billboard Top Ten chart for over 34 weeks and earned triple-platinum status, along the way spawning such hits as "I Won't Back Down", "Free Fallin'" and "Runnin' Down A Dream", the video of which was based on several episodes of the classic comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland by Winsor McCay. It can be seen in the video for "I Won't Back Down" that backing musicians and singers include Campbell, Lynne and George Harrison. Ringo Starr appears in the video on drums; however, they were actually performed by Phil Jones.

Prior to Full Moon Fever, Lynne and Petty worked together in the all-star band, The Traveling Wilburys, which also counted Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Roy Orbison as members. The Traveling Wilburys started as a joke in order to record a B-side for a George Harrison single, but the song "Handle With Care" was such a success that the group decided to record a full album, Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 (1988). However, Roy Orbison's sudden death cast a shadow on the success of The Traveling Wilburys. A second Wilburys album, called Traveling Wilburys Vol. 3, followed in 1990.

Tom Petty rejoined with the Heartbreakers for his next album, Into the Great Wide Open in 1991. It was produced by Lynne and included the hit singles "Learning To Fly" and "Into The Great Wide Open", the latter featuring Johnny Depp, Gabrielle Anwar, Faye Dunaway, and Matt LeBlanc in the video.


In 1994, Tom Petty released his second solo album, Wildflowers, which includes the singles "You Don't Know How It Feels", "You Wreck Me", "It's Good to Be King", "A Higher Place" and "Honey Bee". The album was produced by acclaimed producer Rick Rubin. A year later, a six CD box-set was released, entitled Playback. Approximately half of the tracks were previously available on albums, while the rest were B-sides, demos and live tracks. Two notable tracks are a solo version of Tom's 1981 duet with Stevie Nicks, "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" and the song "Waiting For Tonight," which features vocals from The Bangles. The latter song also appeared on the two CD anthology released in 2000.

In 1996, Tom Petty "reunited" with the Heartbreakers and released a soundtrack to the movie She's the One, starring Cameron Diaz and Jennifer Aniston. Three singles were released from this album; these were "Walls (Circus)" (featuring Lindsey Buckingham), "Climb that Hill" and a song written by Lucinda Williams, "Change the Locks". The album also included a cover of a song by Beck, "Asshole".

In 1999, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released their penultimate album with producer Rick Rubin at the helm, Echo. Two songs were released as singles in the U.S., "Room at the Top" and "Free Girl Now". The album reached number 10 in the U.S. album charts. A Tom Petty Anthology was released in 2000, with liner notes by film director Cameron Crowe.

In 2002, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers released The Last DJ. Many of the tracks are stinging attacks on the music industry, criticizing the greediness inherent within it, as well as the tendency of record companies to water down popular rock acts and release throwaway pop music made by scantily-clad young girls. The album reached number 9 in the U.S. charts.

In July 2006, Tom Petty released a new solo album titled Highway Companion. It debuted at number 4 on the Billboard charts, becoming Tom Petty's highest chart positioning in the SoundScan era.

from Wikipedia licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Tom Petty And The Heartbreakers Face T-Shirt