tom petty and the heartbreakers

When this Gainsville rocker released his assured debut album, it combined the attitude of punk with a classic rock and blues sound. Building on the sound of the Byrds and the Stones, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers had to find their own identity. Petty says their inability to embrace the Southern rock that was popular in Florida created tension: "It was a problem for us. We went up to Capricorn Records and made the drive up. I remember hanging around the studio with this band called the Marshall Tucker Band. They were making their first record, and they invited us in, and we sat around all day and waited for someone to listen to our tape. And the answer was, 'It's too British. It sounds too English.' So we decided then we were going to California. Florida just wasn't the place for us. We'd done everything we could do there. We had a huge following there. We could do a thousand people there. It had gotten to that when we left. But it wasn't going anywhere for us. So in 1974 we packed up and moved."

'Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' was recorded and mixed at Shelter Studios in Hollywood with English record producer Denny Cordell. The album first made waves in the UK after a tour, rising to number twenty four on the British album chart. It peaked at number eighteen in New Zealand, and, after almost a year, hit number fifty five in the US, going gold.







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'Breakdown' just cracked the top forty in Canada and the US.

"It's all right if you love me

It's all right if you don't

I'm not afraid of you running away

Honey, I get the feeling you won't"

'American Girl' hit number forty in the UK.

"Well she was an American girl

Raised on promises

She couldn't help thinkin'

That there was a little more to life somewhere else

After all it was a great big world

With lots of places to run to

And if she had to die tryin'

She had one little promise she was gonna keep"

'Anything That's Rock 'N' Roll' rose to number thirty six in England.

'Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' 
full album:




All tracks written by Tom Petty, except where noted. 


1. "Rockin' Around (With You)" (Petty, Mike Campbell) 2:29
2. "Breakdown"   2:43
3. "Hometown Blues"   2:14
4. "The Wild One, Forever"   3:03
5. "Anything That's Rock 'n' Roll" (Petty, Campbell) 2:24
6. "Strangered in the Night"   3:34
7. "Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)"   3:50
8. "Mystery Man"   3:03
9. "Luna"   3:58
10. "American Girl"   3:34