Tom Petty, Rock Musician

Side One: On October 20, 1950, Thomas Earl Petty was born to Earl and Kitty Petty at Alachua General Hospital. In 1954, the family moved to a house on NE 6th Terrace. Petty played in this park and bicycled to the Duckpond Neighborhood where he looked for crawfish in the pond. He was in the Boy Scouts at the First United Methodist Church and attended Sidney Lanier Elementary School.

Petty’s love of music began when his uncle, Earl Jernigan, took him to the filming of Follow that Dream in Ocala, where he met Elvis Presley. At age 13, Petty’s father bought him an electric guitar. He learned to play from friends and from future Eagles’ guitarist Don Felder at Lipham’s Music. He formed his first band, the Sundowners, to play at a dance at his middle school, Howard Bishop.

They later won a Battle of the Bands at the Moose Club. Petty joined the Epics and was a professional musician at age 15. He was in the Gainesville High School class of 1968, though he often missed school. He worked for the University of Florida (UF) and the City. His next band, Mudcrutch, played for the Rose Community at UF and performed nightly shows at Dubs and other venues in Florida and Georgia.

Petty moved to California to seek a recording contract in 1974. Side Two: In 1974, Mudcrutch signed with Shelter Records but broke up after recording one single. Petty’s new band, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, formed in 1975. Their debut album earned little notice in the US, but was a hit in the UK and the band toured Europe in 1977.

When Shelter sold the band’s contract to MCA without Petty’s permission in 1979, he refused to release the third album, Damn the Torpedoes, and declared bankruptcy. MCA sued and Petty won, a milestone victory for artists’ rights. In 1981, MCA tried to raise the price of the album, Hard Promises, to $9.

98. In protest Petty tried to name the album “$8.98.” MCA sued and Petty won again. In 1988, he joined the Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. He won his first Grammy with them in 1989. He won his second in 1995 for Best Rock Vocal Performance.

Over his career, Petty received numerous accolades, including induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2002 and Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2016, and was named the 2017 MusiCares Person of the Year. The band’s 40th Anniversary Tour of 44 shows in 36 cities sold 637,671 tickets. On October 2, 2017, a week after the last concert, Petty passed away at age 66.