Timeline Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes

From Gainesville to the Traveling Wilburys and Full Moon Fever — four decades of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

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Dashed left edge = started before this timeline · Dashed right edge = still ongoing

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Damn the Torpedoes 17

1950 Tom Petty born in Gainesville, Florida Thomas Earl Petty Decides to be a musician after meeting Elvis Presley on a film set in 1961.
1970 Tom Petty forms Mudcrutch Gainesville With Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, the core of the later Heartbreakers.
1976 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release their debut album American Girl A slow start in the US, success in Britain first.
1979 Tom Petty fights his record label Bankruptcy Files for bankruptcy to escape a contract that sold him on.
1979 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release Damn the Torpedoes Refugee Their breakthrough, with Refugee and Don't Do Me Like That.
1981 Tom Petty and Stevie Nicks release Stop Draggin' My Heart Around Duet A top-three duet with Fleetwood Mac's singer.
1985 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release Southern Accents Don't Come Around Here No More With the Alice in Wonderland video for Don't Come Around Here No More.
1986 – 1987 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers back Bob Dylan True Confessions Tour Tour the world as Dylan's band.
1988 Tom Petty joins the Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1 A supergroup with Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne.
1989 Tom Petty releases Full Moon Fever Free Fallin' A solo album with Free Fallin', I Won't Back Down and Runnin' Down a Dream.
1991 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release Into the Great Wide Open Learning to Fly Produced by Jeff Lynne.
1994 Tom Petty releases Wildflowers Produced by Rick Rubin A solo album often seen as his best.
2002 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Hall of Fame Inducted in their first year of eligibility.
2008 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play the Super Bowl halftime show Super Bowl XLII A greatest-hits set in Glendale, Arizona.
2014 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers release Hypnotic Eye First number one album Their first album to top the Billboard 200.
2017 Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers play their last show Hollywood Bowl The end of their 40th anniversary tour.
2017 Tom Petty dies Aged 66 Dies a week after the tour ends.