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

hard promises

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers took it on faith, took it to the heart, and took on his record company. When MCA wanted to release the record at the "star list price" of $9.98, which was a high price at the time, Petty refused, threatening to change the album title to "The 8.98 Album" and actually withhold the album from the label. 'Hard Promises' made it to number five on the US album chart and number one in New Zealand.





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'The Waiting' spent six weeks on the top of the new 'Top Tracks' chart, was a top twenty hit, and propelled the album into platinum status. Petty remembers: "That was a song that took a long time to write. Roger McGuinn swears he told me the line - about the waiting being the hardest part - but I think I got the idea from something Janis Joplin said on television. I had the chorus very quickly, but I had a very difficult time piecing together the rest of the song. It's about waiting for your dreams and not knowing if they will come true. I've always felt it was an optimistic song."

"Well, yeah, I might have chased a couple women around
All it ever got me was down
Yeah, then there were those that made me feel good
But never as good as I feel right now"





'A Woman In Love (It's Not Me)'

"He's gonna break her heart to pieces
But she don't wanna know"





'Insider' is one of two duets the band recorded with Stevie Nicks during the sessions. Tom says, "It's one of those things in a relationship that really is the stinger. You know, you didn't trust me, you couldn't trust me...that's the way it always come out. Trust. When I wrote that song, I wrote it very quickly, I mean maybe in ten, fifteen minutes. I just wrote it all down on paper and then I just picked up the guitar and tried to sing each line out. It took me maybe an hour to do that - it don't happen every day, fans! But the lyrics were real quick."

"I'm an insider, I been burned by the fire
And I've had to live with some hard promises
I've crawled through the briars"





'Hard Promises'
full album:



All songs were written by Tom Petty, except where noted.

Side one
"The Waiting" – 3:58
"A Woman in Love (It's Not Me)" (Petty, Mike Campbell) – 4:22
"Nightwatchman" (Petty, Campbell) – 3:59
"Something Big" – 4:44
"Kings Road" – 3:27
Side two
"Letting You Go" – 3:24
"A Thing About You" – 3:33
"Insider" – 4:23
"The Criminal Kind" – 4:00
"You Can Still Change Your Mind" (Petty, Campbell) – 4:15