Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers

One of the most enduring - and most successful - rock 'n rollers in Florida music history, Gainesville native Tom Petty's career began rather inauspiciously, playing a guitar he bought from a Sears mail order catalog in the Petty family's bomb shelter … which also served as a makeshift recording studio.

Thirty years later, few Florida musicians can match the success that Petty and his band "The Heartbreakers" have enjoyed, selling more than 50 million albums over a career that has spanned three decades. Along the way, he's garnered nearly two dozen Grammy nominations, won the George & Ira Gershwin Lifetime Achievement Award, been honored for producing MTV's "Best Male Video" on two different occasions, and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.

Hindsight, of course, is 20-20. But for a while back in the late 1960s and early '70s, Tom Petty's future was anything but a "sure thing" … at least in the eyes of the American music industry.

Of course, Petty himself never doubted that one day he'd hit the big time, and who can blame him? He began his career by playing the Gainesville club circuit at the ripe old age of 14 - jumping on-stage to jam with groups that featured future Eagles Bernie Leadon and Don Felder, among others. He eventually dropped-out of high school at 17 to join Mudcrutch, a popular country-rock band that featured guitarist Mike Campbell and keyboard player Benmont Tench.

According to Florida music historian Kurt Curtis, Petty's first gig with Mudcrutch was backing topless dancers at Gainesville's infamous Dub's Lounge. From there, the band recorded a pair of singles for legendary producer Mac Emmerman at Criteria Studios in Miami, but they went nowhere. Next, the group ventured north to Macon, Georgia, where again they met with failure, as Capricorn Records guru Phil Walden judged that Petty and crew didn't fit the mold forged by the Allman Brothers, Marshall Tucker Band and the rest of his Southern-rock stable.

Finally, Mudcrutch traveled cross-country to California in 1974 with drummer Randall Marsh and guitarist Danny Roberts and in early '75 with bass player Charlie Souza seeking fame and fortune, and they immediately signed a contract with the up-and-coming L.A. based Shelter Records label. As the first single on Shelter, "Depot Street" was released, the band lived in Leon Russell's recording studio for months recording an album of the early catalog of Tom Petty songs. However, being confined to the studio took its toll, and the band members went their separate ways.

Petty continued to work the L.A. scene as a solo act, while Campbell and Tench teamed up with bass player Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch to produce a demo that they eventually brought back to Petty … and suddenly The Heartbreakers were born. The band's self-titled first album, released in 1976, was initially received coolly by the American media.

All that ended late in '76 when the group - touring England as an opening act for Nils Lofgren - started upstaging the veteran rock .n roller on a nightly basis, and began headlining shows and dominating the British airwaves with songs like "Breakdown," "American Girl" and "I Need to Know."

Disenchanted with the American music industry and its attempts to manipulate his career, Petty declared bankruptcy in 1979 in an effort to escape the shackles of ABC Records. He eventually signed with Backstreet Records - an affiliate of MCA - and released the wildly popular Damn the Torpedoes LP later that year. Torpedoes went all the way to #2 on that year's Rock LP list, powered by a pair of Top-20 singles: "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee."

Petty's frustration with the music industry establishment surfaced again in 1981, when he threatened to stop work on his Hard Promises LP because MCA executives wanted to price the album at $9.98 … at that time an unheard-of price for a pop music LP. Faced with protracted litigation - or an album title of $8.98 - MCA again relented, and the record was released at a price of $8.98 per copy … and subsequently sold more than two million copies. Petty's success throughout the .80s is well documented, as the Florida native collaborated with a number of music industry notables on a variety of solo and group projects.

He teamed up with Fleetwood Mac lead singer Stevie Nicks in 1981 to notch a #3 hit - "Stop Draggin' My Heart Around" - then spent the next four years in a personal struggle to deal with his Southern heritage … including the rejection he faced in the early years of his career.

"Back during the Dub's Lounge Go-Go days," said Kurt Curtis, "Petty couldn't wait to escape what he considered to be a dead-end road. "(But) after reaching superstar status, the restless, blond-haired rebel finally found peace with himself and his Florida heritage - a message he brought home with Southern Accents, perhaps his finest (LP) since Damn the Torpedoes."

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Released in 1985, Southern Accents features some of the most poignant and poetic song writing of Petty's career … and it yielded at #13 single in "Don't Come Around Here No More." The following year, Petty and Heartbreakers embarked on a world tour with the legendary Bob Dylan and were - once again -firmly ensconced at the top of the rock 'n roll world.

Petty used that tour as a platform to work with three of the most influential performers in rock music history - Dylan, ex-Beatle George Harrison and Roy Orbison. The foursome came together as the "Traveling Wilburys," recording a pair of albums that won accolades from music fans and critics alike … though the acclaim admittedly was more a result of the "legends" who comprised the Wilburys, and not their work together. The album went all the way to #3 in 1988, though its highest-charting single, "Handle With Care," rose only to #45 on the Billboard charts.

Petty released a highly successful solo effort in 1989 - Full Moon Fever - which included a trio of his best-known hits: "I Won't Back Down," "Free Fallin'," and "Runnin' Down a Dream," then in 1991 re-united with The Heartbreakers to record Into the Great Wide Open, featuring the hit single of the same name.

Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers continue to be among the top-grossing recording artists and concert attractions of all time in the state of Florida. Petty hosts his own weekly show on XM (satellite) Radio, has appeared in episodes of FOX-TV's The Simpsons and King of the Hill, and wrote/performed the music for ABC-TV's NBA Playoffs coverage in 2007.