“He gave everything he had to every show. Gainesville’s musical activity centred on the music store Lipham’s Music, where Petty, Bernie Leadon and the future Eagles guitarist Don Felder all worked at various times. "I don't think Stan knows what we went through with Howie," says Petty. Mudcrutch also included the future Heartbreakers Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell. It sounded profound. Petty suggested they join forces and since he was already signed to Shelter there was no need to hunt for a new record deal. But it was after forming Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in L.A. with keyboardist Tench, lead guitarist Campbell, bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch in the 1970s that he first found major success. They fared better in the US with You’re Gonna Get It! I don’t want to spend my life on the road.”. After Prince died last year, Petty was among those who remembered the performance—which was punctuated by a three-minute Prince solo—to the New York Times. Now there’s a book in itself.” Any book about the fifty-two-year-old Lynch would surely be an entertaining, fairly hilarious read. She was telling me the story of that, of how she came to have that song and meet Prince. Tom Petty wasn't supposed to be done yet. Let Me Up (I’ve Had Enough) from 1987 was a commercial disappointment for the Heartbreakers – this was also the year Petty’s house in Encino, California, was burned down by an arsonist – but he found huge success as part of the Traveling Wilburys, a collaboration with Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Jeff Lynne whose debut album (1988) was a triple-platinum hit, spinning off the singles Handle With Care and End of the Line. They also found room for Petty’s solo hits from his 1989 album Full Moon Fever, such as I Won’t Back Down, Free Fallin’ and Runnin’ Down a Dream. Petty formed his first band, the Sundowners, when he was 14, then on his 16th birthday joined the Epics, which later became Mudcrutch. He and I had incredibly good communication onstage; he could read the movement of my shoulder. Your source for entertainment news, celebrities, celeb news, and ​celebrity gossip. "It's very likely we'll keep playing, but will we take on 50 shows in one tour? Benmont called Tom Petty, also from Gainesville, to ask for some help with some vocals. 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The week before they left, Petty married Jane Benyo, who was also from Gainesville. "I remember he accused me of stealing an amp from him. They further endeared themselves to the 1990s-era MTV crowd by contributing most of the soundtrack to the 1996 teen comedy She's the One, which is considered the band's ninth studio album. “I’m a team player.”. My father looked at me as if I were going to wear a dress and dance in the circus. “It felt like a very real, honest, joyful moment.”, That genuine love for rock ’n’ roll permeated Tom’s life, which ended tragically on Monday, Oct. 2 when he suffered cardiac arrest at the age of 66. And he sang as well. "We'll see.". Entertainment Television, LLC A Division of NBCUniversal. Wildflowers (1994) was Petty’s first solo disc under a new deal with Warner Bros and another multimillion seller, but after a bout of extended touring his marriage fell apart and divorce followed in 1996. While speaking at Fleetwood Mac’s MusiCares Person of the Year induction ceremony, Nicks mentioned Petty, who won the honor the previous year. All rights reserved. “We had a great life,” Tom’s first wife, Jane Benyo, told Closer. But I will say that I miss him all the time. Though the 66-year-old rocker, who'd been filling arenas for the better part of 40 years, had said that his just-concluded tour with his longtime band the Heartbreakers would likely be their last, he wasn't planning on packing it in. “There was the way to do it,” he recalled. The last tour that they had Howie on, in the days prior to the tour, he was stopped by police in a stolen car with [country singer] Carlene Carter with black tar heroin. It's an ugly f---ing thing. Tom Petty, at age 66, rushed from his Malibu compound to a hospital and it didn’t look good. He graduated to an electric instrument and began writing his own songs (his first composition was called Baby, I’m Leaving). ", Brandon Marshall/Rex Features/ZUMAPRESS.com. Petty mused to the Los Angeles Times when Hypnotic Eye came out. His last gig with the Heartbreakers was on October 2, 1994, at the Bridge School Benefit Concert in Mountain View, California. Loyalty was always key for Tom, whether to his bandmates in the Heartbreakers (Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch, and Ron Blair) or to his family. When he was 11, Tom had the life-changing experience of meeting Elvis Presley, when his aunt and uncle took him to see Presley filming Follow That Dream in Ocala, Florida. Forty years after he formed Mudcrutch in 1967, Tom Petty reunited his first band to rehearse for a new album and tour. You keep this band together. I have a granddaughter now I'd like to see as much as I can. 'Why would I buy another one?' The band was the subject of Peter Bogdanavich's 2007 documentary Runnin' Down a Dream, but it wasn't until the release of the 2015 book Petty: The Biography that the extent of the singer's battle with drugs came to light—with his permission, though he was worried that his addiction story might come off as a by-product of the glamorous rock star life. The mark these artists left on all of pop culture, let alone the music world, has assured them a prominent place in history, but no one is ever ready to be left with just their body of work. Lynch moved to Los Angeles, and hooked up again with fellow Floridian Ron Blair, during a recording session set up by Benmont Tench in 1976. 1994-95; Mary Janes Last Dance was 1993 and Stan’s on there. "And I had just been talking with Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles—he wrote their 'Manic Monday' song. Petty’s first post-lawsuit release was the celebratory Damn the Torpedoes (1979), which sold 3m copies in the US, reached No 2 in the album charts, and broke Petty through to the mainstream. The Heartbreakers' 1976 self-titled debut album—featuring "Breakdown" and the inescapable future classic "American Girl"—was a hit in the U.K. before it made much noise in the U.S., which is ironic since the band would end up helping to define the sound of American rock in the 1970s and '80s. We were all just knocked out.". I was a marginal student. But it was after forming Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers in L.A. with keyboardist Tench, lead guitarist Campbell, bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch in the 1970s that he first found major success. Thus Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was born, and their debut album of the same name was released in 1976. "Is there an example of Stan Lynch being behind the beat on a Tom Petty song?" Jimmy Iovine likely can't clap his hands and chew gum at the same time. He is survived by his second wife, Dana York Epperson, whom he married in 2001, his daughters Adria and AnnaKim from his first marriage, his stepson, Dylan, from Dana’s previous marriage, his brother, Bruce, and granddaughter, Everly. They tried to help him. I know that Jimmy Iovine didn't think much of Stan back during the Damn The Torpedoes sessions, and probably past that. Hard Promises (1981), released after Petty fought another battle with MCA to get the price reduced from $9.98 to $8.98, went Top 5 and delivered a Top 20 singles hit with The Waiting, though Long After Dark (1982) saw sales slacken despite a Top 10 placing. The session also included Jacksonville native Mike Campbell. Because, instead of having time to reflect on the adulation that followed him all over the country from one sold-out show to another, Tom Petty died Monday.