(UPDATE: Petty's death was confirmed in the early hours of Tuesday morning.)
(UPDATE: Several sources, including the LAPD, reported that Petty's death remained unconfirmed as recently as 4:45 p.m.)
(1/2)The LAPD has no information about the passing of singer Tom Petty. Initial information was inadvertantly provided to some media sources
— LAPD HQ (@LAPDHQ) October 2, 2017
In comments leading up to the Heartbreakers’ 40th anniversary tour, Tom Petty expressed a desire to perhaps get off the road and spend more time with his grandchildren.
The classic rock icon who rose out of Gainesville to become one of the most iconic figures in American music sadly won’t get the chance as he has passed away today at the age of 66.
The news comes after Petty was rushed to the hospital on Sunday after being found in his Malibu, California home unconscious, not breathing and in full cardiac arrest. He was taken to the UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and placed on life support, but the decision was soon made to pull life support after Petty showed no signs of brain activity.
Petty — who just played Tampa’s Amalie Arena in May 2017 — first made waves in northern Florida with Mudcrutch, a proto-Heartbreakers band that featured Tom Leadon on guitar and drummer Mike Campbell. Leadon would eventually leave Mudcrutch, but Campbell stayed on — and was joined by Benmont Tench on keys — as the band morphed into Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. The band’s self-titled, sorta-punk 1976 album essentially put Petty & Co. on the national map thanks to a young, jangly guitar sound that wasn’t afraid to mix tussled-up guitars with the pop melodies that would eventually land the Heartbreakers on the Billboard charts.
A fine follow-up landed in 1978, but the Heartbreakers’ third full-length (Damn the Torpedoes, released a year later) cemented the band’s place in history thanks to producer Jimmy Iovine, who turned the promises of the band’s first two records into a brawny, focused collection of modern rock classics (“Refugee,” “Don’t Do Me Like That” and fan-favorite “Louisiana Rain” all appear on Torpedoes).
A string of well-liked releases followed (Hard Promises, Long After Dark, the schizophrenic Southern Accents) before the band spent most of 1986 as Bob Dylan’s backing band. That time spent behind Dylan birthed a return to form (1987’s Let Me Up (I've Had Enough)) before another hit-filled album — 1989’s Full Moon Fever, featuring “Free Fallin’” and “"Runnin' Down a Dream” — got the band back to its radio-ready glory days. After a disappointing 1991 outing (Into the Great Wide Open), Petty turned to Rick Rubin, who helped him record and release perhaps his most revered collection of songs, the introspective Wildflowers.
The Heartbreakers soundtracked Ed Burns’ 1991 film She’s The One and released four more albums before its final recording, Hypnotic Eye, in 2014.
This article appears in Sep 28 – Oct 6, 2017.