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UNCOVERED: Heartbreakers | History Defined

“I got a hold of a little psychedelic substance and tripped out all night. By morning, I said, ‘I’m a bass player!’” How a psychedelic-fueled studio session set Ron Blair on the path to becoming a founding member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

Ron Blair played bass on the band’s first four albums before quitting and rejoining 20 years later

Guitar World

“I played that lick and went home. An hour later, the phone rang. Tom said, ‘You’ve got to come back. We want to put that lick you played at the front of the song’”: How Mike Campbell's throwaway lick shaped a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers classic

Campbell's guitar noodling and Petty's ear for a good hook resulted in their first Top 40 hit

Guitar World

"You can't deny Henley's chops as a lyricist, but they are wasted here on trite tunes and lifeless production." Don Henley closes out the 1980s on the all-star The End Of The Innocence

The End Of The Innocence was a poignant reflection on Reagan-era America from Eagles drummer Don Henley

Louder

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“I miss my brother… But I’d always had it in the back of my mind that if the Heartbreakers ever retired, I would make this my purpose”: Mike Campbell on finding a new life in The Dirty Knobs, and why we should listen to what our guitars are telling us

With a title track inspired by Brian Wilson, Mission of Mercy is the sound of Campbell piecing his heart – and ours – back together again

Guitar World

“I didn’t like it, but Tom said, ‘No, it’s great. Now you’ve got to double it’”: Mike Campbell on the riff he wanted to ditch – but Tom Petty made him double down

Campbell was forced to get creative to make a Heartbreakers classic

Guitar World

“It was just in my closet, and one day I pulled it out, turned it on, and thought, ‘Wow… this is a sound that I’ve been missing’”: How Mike Campbell ended up reconnecting with a classic piece of Heartbreakers gear

Turns out, the missing piece of his ideal tone was closer than he thought...

Guitar World

"He meant so much to me." The verses on Peter Frampton's new single Buried Treasure are crafted entirely from Tom Petty song titles

Peter Frampton's first album of all-new rock material in 16 years stars Sheryl Crow, Bill Evans, H.E.R., Tom Morello, Graham Nash and Benmont Tench

Louder

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"She steps in the room with us, a rock'n'roll band that's fronted by a guy she adores": How a song from Tom Petty's reject pile unwittingly became the massive hit single that launched a Fleetwood Mac icon's solo career

Unhappy with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album, Stevie Nicks gravitated towards a band whose music she preferred

Louder

"Wildflowers scared him, because he's not really sure why it's as good as it is": As Tom Petty’s world fell apart, he took refuge in the studio and made his most deeply personal album

The story of Tom Petty's classic Wildflowers, an album full of sadness, humour and hope

Louder

“We all blamed each other, but we never doubted the song”: It took Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers more than 100 takes to nail one of their greatest songs – and it still ended up being “an albatross” around their necks

When Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers teamed up with a hotshot new producer for a 1979 classic, it nearly broke the band

Louder

"The last thing I remember, Iwas playing at atopless bar and had aVolkswagen bus and a hundred bucks": What former Heartbreaker Stan Lynch did next

Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers’ drummer is back behind the kit for an album from his new Americana collective, The Speaker Wars

Louder

“The way we played guitar, the way I voiced against Tom, we found it on American Girl. I thought, ‘This is us.’ Those two guitars helped make it happen”: Mike Campbell on how his lifelong musical connection with Tom Petty was forged in a matter of days

As he celebrates the release of his memoir, Heartbreaker, Tom Petty’s right-hand man and dear friend reflects on a career’s worth of enduring hits, and why he “never doubted the music”

Guitar World

The sacred duty of playing the hits

Founding members of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, hold the notes of memory

Salon

“I had no inkling Tom would go so early. I always wondered who would go first. I’m still grieving”: Mike Campbell on life as Tom Petty’s right hand man and the highs and lows of being a Heartbreaker

The life and times of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell

Louder

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Guitar World

“He mostly played bass. I had a ’64 Strat that I got for $200. Tom didn’t really have a good electric, so I let him use that one”: How Mike Campbell and Tom Petty developed their Heartbreakers sound – with the help of some choice early gear picks

Though Petty was in need of a decent electric, the two Heartbreakers quickly landed on a sound that would define their guitar partnership

Louder

"It could have been the end, but it became a new beginning": Fleetwood Mac and the game-changing arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks - only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: Joe Walsh, Don Airey, Those Damn Crows, Pete Townshend, Lollapalooza 92, Luke Spiller, Mike Campbell, Yngwie Malmsteen, Samantha Fish and more

Guitar World

“I brought a musicality that Tom wasn’t capable of. I had techniques that I could express to him in his songs that he couldn't have done on his own”: Mike Campbell on what he brought to the Heartbreakers as Tom Petty’s guitar foil

The Heartbreakers guitarist will release his career-spanning memoir next week

The Conversation

From Jewish summer camp to gospel to Chabad, Bob Dylan’s faith doesn’t fit in a box − but he’s long had a connection to Israel

James Mangold’s film “A Complete Unknown,” nominated for eight Oscars, captures the elusive, enigmatic quality of Bob Dylan in the early 1960s: the years he emerged as a major musical and cultural phenomenon. A scant few years after he came to New York from Minnesota, and legally changed his name…

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Louder

"I woke up three days later, in France, in this stupid castle, and I'm thinking: 'What just happened?'": How Stevie Nicks escaped the chaos of Fleetwood Mac and soared solo

In 1980 Stevie Nicks stepped out of Fleetwood Mac with a hit-laden debut solo album that showed she could fly just as high on her own

Guitar World

“Mick Fleetwood asked me to join the band, but I don’t think Stevie voted against me… I don’t play like Lindsey, but I was able to do the songs justice”: Mike Campbell on the challenge of joining Fleetwood Mac and what he learned from Tom Petty

He could always write songs, but spending all those years by Tom Petty's side taught Campbell a thing or two about fronting a band. He tells GW how these lessons are shaping the sound of the Dirty Knobs and what life was really like in Fleetwood Mac

Louder

"An exercise in restrained elegance": Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers' Long After Dark, perhaps as it was always meant to be

A remastered Tom Petty classic, with previously unreleased and extra tracks

MusicRadar

“Why are you doing this?”: Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell recalls his conversation with Tom Petty after he’d sent him the songs he’d written for his side project

“Well, if they’re really good, why don’t we do them?” Petty asked him

The Guardian - UK

Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party review – 80s solid-rock nostalgia fest is a trip

Fans of the singer’s hits, fluffy mullets (and young Cameron Crowe) are well-served by unseen and remastered footage as this sweet look back ticks all the relevant rock doc boxes

Guitar World

“I sold 120 of them because I don’t have room for them anymore”: Mike Campbell says he's quit buying guitars, despite his continuing “obsession”

“At this point,” the Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers guitar-slinger tells GW, “buying them is kind of pathetic”

Guitar World

“I use a lot of chords with open strings. The guys in the Heartbreakers used to laugh at me, saying, ‘You’re doing the bagpipes again!’” Mike Campbell on his unorthodox guitar style – and how Tom Petty saved his definitive Breakdown lick

With Vagabonds, Virgins & Misfits out now, Campbell reflects on a life in music, from first guitars to success with the Heartbreakers and the Dirty Knobs, and lessons learned along the way

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