Category: Autobiography & Biographies
Language: EnglishKeywords: Music
Written by Mike Campbell
Read by Mike Campbell
Format: M4B
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
A fast-paced, tender-hearted rock ânâ roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbellâs Heartbreaker is part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, recounting Campbellâs life and times as lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Mike Campbell was the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the bandâs inception in 1976 to Pettyâs tragic death in 2017. His iconic, melodic playing helped form the foundation of the bandâs sound, as heard on definitive classics like âAmerican Girl,â âBreakdown,â âDonât Come Around Here No More,â âMary Janeâs Last Dance,â âLearning to Flyâ and âInto the Great Wide Open.â
Together, Petty and Campbell wrote countless songs, including some of the bandâs biggest âRefugee,â âHere Comes My Girl,â âYou Got Luckyâ and âRunninâ Down a Dreamâ among them.
From their early days in Florida to their dizzying rise to superstardom to Pettyâs acclaimed, platinum-selling solo albums Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers, Petty never made a record without him. Their work together is timeless, as are the career-defining hits Campbell co-wrote with Don Henley (âThe Boys of Summerâ) and with Petty for Stevie Nicks (âStop Dragginâ My Heart Aroundâ).
But few know of the less-than-glamorous background from which Campbell emergedâa hardscrabble childhood on the north side of Jacksonville, often just days ahead of homelessness, raised by a single mother struggling on minimum wage. After months of saving, his mother bought him a $15 pawnshop acoustic guitar for his sixteenth birthday. With a chord book and a transistor radio, Campbell painstakingly taught himself to play.
When a chance encounter with a guidance counselor inspired him to enroll in the University of Florida, Campbellâbroke, with nowhere else to go and the Vietnam draft loomingâmoved into a rundown farmhouse in Gainesville, where he met a 20-year-old Tom Petty. They were soon inseparable. Together they chased their shared dream all the way to Los Angeles, where Campbell would meet his destiny, and the love of his life, Marcie.
It was an at-times grueling dream come true that took Campbell from the very bottom to the absolute top, where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would remain for decades, creating an astonishing body of work.
Brilliant, soft-spoken and intensely private, Campbell opens up within these pages for the first time, revealing himself to be an astute observer of triumphs, tragedies and absurdities alike, with a songwriterâs eye for the telling detail and a voice as direct and unpretentious as his music.
An instant classic, Heartbreaker is Mike Campbellâs heartfelt portrait of one throwaway kidâs lifesaving love of music and the creative heights he achieved through luck, collaboration, humility and extraordinary talent.
A fast-paced, tender-hearted rock ânâ roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbellâs Heartbreaker is part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, recounting Campbellâs life and times as lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Mike Campbell was the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the bandâs inception in 1976 to Pettyâs tragic death in 2017. His iconic, melodic playing helped form the foundation of the bandâs sound, as heard on definitive classics like âAmerican Girl,â âBreakdown,â âDonât Come Around Here No More,â âMary Janeâs Last Dance,â âLearning to Flyâ and âInto the Great Wide Open.â
Together, Petty and Campbell wrote countless songs, including some of the bandâs biggest âRefugee,â âHere Comes My Girl,â âYou Got Luckyâ and âRunninâ Down a Dreamâ among them.
From their early days in Florida to their dizzying rise to superstardom to Pettyâs acclaimed, platinum-selling solo albums Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers, Petty never made a record without him. Their work together is timeless, as are the career-defining hits Campbell co-wrote with Don Henley (âThe Boys of Summerâ) and with Petty for Stevie Nicks (âStop Dragginâ My Heart Aroundâ).
But few know of the less-than-glamorous background from which Campbell emergedâa hardscrabble childhood on the north side of Jacksonville, often just days ahead of homelessness, raised by a single mother struggling on minimum wage. After months of saving, his mother bought him a $15 pawnshop acoustic guitar for his sixteenth birthday. With a chord book and a transistor radio, Campbell painstakingly taught himself to play.
When a chance encounter with a guidance counselor inspired him to enroll in the University of Florida, Campbellâbroke, with nowhere else to go and the Vietnam draft loomingâmoved into a rundown farmhouse in Gainesville, where he met a 20-year-old Tom Petty. They were soon inseparable. Together they chased their shared dream all the way to Los Angeles, where Campbell would meet his destiny, and the love of his life, Marcie.
It was an at-times grueling dream come true that took Campbell from the very bottom to the absolute top, where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would remain for decades, creating an astonishing body of work.
Brilliant, soft-spoken and intensely private, Campbell opens up within these pages for the first time, revealing himself to be an astute observer of triumphs, tragedies and absurdities alike, with a songwriterâs eye for the telling detail and a voice as direct and unpretentious as his music.
An instant classic, Heartbreaker is Mike Campbellâs heartfelt portrait of one throwaway kidâs lifesaving love of music and the creative heights he achieved through luck, collaboration, humility and extraordinary talent.