Gainesville’s Favorite Son
In the early 1970s, before the Heartbreakers, Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch, were known to most University of Florida students and Gainesville residents as the most entertaining Rock band in town.
High School Rockin’
Tom Petty
((( Mudcrutch )))
alligator file
When editor Ron Sachs and the Alligator staff revolted against president O’Connell and the UF administration, there was a guy named Tom Petty, living on the other side of town. Tom Petty and his band, Mudcrutch, were the long-hair hippies, who were, without a doubt, the best Rock N Roll band in town. And that was next to Don Felder and Stephen Stills, who both had Gainesville bands of their own.
If it hadn’t been for (Don) Felder stepping in, I would have gotten my ass kicked.”
— Tom Petty
Recalling a memorable Saturday night, playing a party on fraternity row.
The greeks don’t want no freaks
1970 — Most weekend nights,Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch were playing a gig somewhere in North Florida, and many of those weekends were home, on the University of Florida campus, Fraternity or Sorority Row. They also frequented Lillian’s Music Store, a still-popular club downtown, and Dub’s Lounge & Liquor Bar, still open on the outskirts of town, although without the topless go-go dancers.
At the time, the Eagles’ Don Felder and Tom were neighborhood friends, both playing the frat-house, football-weekend, alcohol-charged scene.
Felder wrote the Eagles’ “The Greeks Don’t Want No Freaks” about such Saturday night gone wrong. When Felder sings “She was the perfect little sister/ Until Somebody Missed Her/ And Found Her In The Bushes With The Boys In The Band,” Tom Petty and Mudcrutch was the band that Felder is singing about.
Tom tells the story as part of an MTV interview in 1985, in which he narrates as he drives around Gainesville, describing what it was to grow up there.
Depot Street
Mudcrutch
1975 — “Depot Street” is Tom’s reminiscence of a high school girl friend who lived on the other side of town.
((( Rural Romeo )))
1971 — Tom Petty and Mudcrutch headlined the (now legendary) Second Annual Halloween Festival (“Ball”). Petty’s midnight-sunrise performance set the “high” standard to which all future Balls would be compared. Annual efforts to live up to the Halloween Ball’s notorious reputation were many, and noteable, all contributing to the colorful lore of the historic, University of Florida event. (1971-1983)
In the beginning, the “Masquerade” Ball started late, around midnight, and featured local bands, including Mudcrutch, Tom Petty’s band before he left Gainesville for Los Angeles.
At the Second Annual Halloween Ball, under a near Full Moon, Mudcrutch took the stage, and played the dark night until dawn.
Homecoming ’81
FATHER KNOWS BEST
MEET EARL PETTY, TOM’S DAD
It had been five years since Tom Petty had left Gainesville looking to find fame and fortune in Los Angeles. He found what he was looking for faster than even he had imagined. Already on top of the Rock N Roll world, Tom coming home to play UF’s 1981 Homecoming was a big deal all around. For Student Government Productions, in the middle of one of its best years ever, for Tom and the Heartbreakers, all Gainesvillians, and maybe most of all, for those UF students lucky enough to be a Gator at the monumental time.
The Alligator’s Diane Julin called Tom’s father, Earl Petty, who still lived in the NW Gainesville house where Tom grew up, and asked if she could talk to him about being a Rock N Roll star’s dad.
TOM PETTY (COMING HOME)
MUDCRUTCH INTERVIEW (1971)
TEN YEARS AFTER TOM PETTY INTERVIEW (1983)
TWENTY YEARS AFTER TOM PETTY INTERVIEW (1993)
MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THESE (“BEST OF” TOM PETTY)
HOMECOMING ’81
HOMECOMING ’83
HOMECOMING ’93
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
Damn The Torpedos
1979 — “Casa Dega” is a song Tom Petty wrote about a small, Central Florida town, south of Ocala and west of Daytona Beach. Cassadaga, the town, is known for it being home to a number of psychics, fortune tellers, and spiritual mystics who do personal readings in their homes, for anyone daring to ask. [ALLIGATOR ROAD TRIPS]
((( psychic-delic )))
yT.
As he did in 1981 for the first Gator Homecoming he played, Tom invited Stevie Nicks to play his second historic Gainesville Homecoming in 1993. Again, of course, they played by then the memorable “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around.” Tom and guitarist Mike Campbell had written the song, intending it to be made for a Heartbreakers’ record, but instead Tom chose to let Stevie released it on her Bella Donna album, that had debuted just three months before Tom’s first Homecoming performance, October 8, 1981.
Tom Petty’s recollection of taking the 100-mile ride to Cassadaga, is reminiscent of any number of road trips taken by Alligator writers and photographers on a journalistic hunt for the interesting people, places, and things in and around (all of Florida) Gainesville. Of such North Florida expeditions, the destination was often an art show, a food festival, a sporting activity, and of course a concert, a specific band, or some sort of musical event. In Gainesville, at the turn of the (’80s) decade, the musical events were plentiful …
Tom Petty
@ The O’Connell Center
PAT BENATAR
FRANK ZAPPA (KISS OUR ASS ’79)
EAGLES
HALLOWEEN BALL
LUNA: A NIGHT OF INSIDIOUS TEMPTATION
THE INAUGURAL BALL (BALLS OF OLD)
WENDY O WILLIAMS (QUEEN OF THE BALL)
TALKING HEADS
LITTLE RIVER BAND @ REITZ UNION LAWN
U2 @ THE RATHSKELLER
playlists*
FLORIDA
FLA/GA JAM
TOM PETTY (HOMETOWN BOY)
INDEPENDENT FLORIDA ALLIGATOR
GAINESVILLE (1980)
sandy felsenthal and dave hogerty (O’Connell Center Security)
TOM PETTY
@ THE O’CONNELL CENTER
ELVIS COSTELLO
THE CARS
AL DI MEOLA w/Tim Weisberg
CHARLIE DANIELS
MARSHAL TUCKER BAND w/B.B. King
Grateful Dead
Music
On Campus
FLORIDA FIELD
EAGLES
w/ JIMMY BUFFETT
LINDA RONSTADT
O’CONNELL CENTER
Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, The Cars, Al Di Meola, Tim Weisberg, Andy Kaufman,
FLORIDA GYM
FRANK ZAPPA
PAT BENATAR
Lake Alice
Sea Level, Dixie Dregs, Steve Forbert (w/Martha and Meredith)
The Bandshell
Allman Brothers, Talking Heads, Weather Report (w/Jaco Pastorius), Peter Tosh (“Legalize It”), Eddie Money, Wendy O Williams (Halloween Ball)
Reitz Union
Little River Band on the lawn
Halloween and Aliens at the Reitz Union Theater
The Rathskeller
U2
Downtown
FLORIDA THEATER
RETURN TO FOREVER
ROY BUCHANAN
SPYRO GYRA
MUDDY WATERS
BO DIDDLEY
FLORIDA THEATER — Later called the Great Southern Music Hall, hosted both local and national and world touring bands. Alligator photographer John Moran was the Great Southern’s house photographer, who “shot” dozens of musicians who played the theater in 1974, including Return to Forever, Muddy Waters, and local, from nearby Archer, Bo Diddley. [SCOTT FREE, GEORGE CLINTON, MUNKEEZ STRIKING MATCHES]
LILIAN’S MUSIC STORE (Downtown)
HIPPODROME THEATER
RICKENBACKER’S (“Gainesville’s Only Jazz Club”)
Sea Level, Philadelphia Fusion “Boys today don’t know what it’s like to drive a real man’s car” Guitarist playing a blue Stratocaster, and using a Philip’s head screwdriver as a most rigid whammy bar.
MAIN STREET
Romantics, Artificial Ingredients Bob Block Mike Brennan Joel Benjamin Daryl Pinsky Patty Avick Local (ALLIGATOR) Improv.
DUBS LIQUOR LOUNGE DANCING
On the Outskirts of Town (13th Street). At times (1970), Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch would play five nights a week, five sets a night. The “DANCING” on the sign referred to the sometimes topless GoGo dancers around the club.
PLAYING AT HOME
JOHNNY HINES
BO DIDDLEY DAY (ARCHER, FLORIDA)
Outskirts Of Town
The Outlaws (Tampa, Florida)
Live (1978)
((( homegrown )))
North Florida Locals
Not only did many of the world’s most influential musicians of the late 1970s and early 1980s play Gainesville (one of Florida’s most open-minded towns), Locals had frequent access to bands from North Florida and Georgia that were defining what became known as “SOUTHERN ROCK.”
Homegrown Southern:
ALLMAN BROTHERS (Bandshell)
SEA LEVEL (Lake Alice/Rickenbacker’s)
DIXIE DREGS (Lake Alice)
STEVE FORBERT (Lake Alice) Pensacola from Mississippi
COWBOY (with Chuck Leavell)
OUTLAWS (Orlando Sportatorium)
FAT CHANCE BAND (Thirsty Turtle Cocoa Beach)
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
Les Dudek
Stillwater
Molly Hatchet
Atlanta Rhythm Section
ONE WEEK IN ORLANDO: Sea Level, Billy Cobham, and Spyro Gyra, all at Orlando’s Great Southern Music Hall, part of CHURCH STREET STATION, downtown.
Met PAT TRAVERS (“BOOM BOOM OUT GO THE LIGHTS”) when working at Cocoa TODAY, and doing a story on his recording Live! Go for What You Know at the Great Southern Music Hall in Orlando. When Pam asked Pat a question, comparing Pat’s playing to George Benson and his smooth jazz, fusion style. of guitar. Without being defensive or offended, Travers simply said he liked and appreciated Benson, but he played straight Rock N Roll, and didn’t bother himself with jazz. After the show (SILHOUETTED CRUTCHES PICTURE) Pam and I stepped into a small club called Valentine’s that was just down the street from the Great Southern. There we met the leader of the Fusion band that was playing when we walked in. He was an electric jazz flautist, who blew us away with a tune that I remember had “Pancakes” in the title. When he sat down between sets, he said he was from Baltimore, that he and the band had been out for a month, and he was worried about the arthritis in his fingers and hands that was making it more and more difficult to play. Sad, considering how well and hard he was playing that night at Valentine’s in downtown Orlando. (MOFRO @ SOCIAL with Valentine’s stained glass “V” in the rafters.
On The Road
Mayport Jazz Festival
Dizzy Gillespie Maynard Ferguson “Chamelon”
Suwannee Bluegrass Festival
Sunday Afternoon Jam At Kevin’s
Rolling Stones (Orlando Tangerine Bowl)
The Police (Disney World Tomorrowland)
Dire Straits (Vinny’s overnight in Jacksonville)
Bruce Spingsteen (Lakeland Civic Center)
Finding a ticket (Kevin Turley)
Rolling Stones
The Police
Orlando @ Disney World (Tomorrowland)
Terrazzo Cafeteria Hydraulic Stage Dry Ice Entrance
Dire Straits
Jacksonville @ The Jacksonville Coliseum
Vinny spends the night in jail
Bruce Springsteen
Lakeland @ The Lakeland Civic Center
Kevin Turley looks to buy a ticket
Rolling Stones
Orlando @ The Tangerine Bowl
Mike Szymanski and Joe Burbank
HYDE & ZEKE’S
CABLE RADIO
AND THEN CAME BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
MIKE BRENNAN
KEVIN TURLEY
DIRE STRAITS
URBIE GREENSenor Blues
After Art Show Jam @ Kevin’s
MAYPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL
DIZZY GILLESPIE (with mom in Hartford)
MAYNARD FERGUSON
The General’s Daughter
JACKSONVILLE JAZZ @ THE GATOR BOWL
Three years before:
The Who
w/ LaBelle (Nona Hendryx and the Sailor)
Black Oak Arkansas
Miami Baseball Stadium (Next Day)
Montrose and the Monsoon
SUWANNEE RIVER BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL
1977 — Voyager
Pink Floyd at Tampa Stadium
WKRP “Animals”
FM Tom Petty Jimmy Buffett
Saturday Night Fever
TGIF Donna Summer
Rick James
Kool and The Gang
GATOR GROWL HISTORY
1977 — Gabe Kaplan
1978 — Helen Reddy
1979 — Bob Hope
1980 — George Burns
1981 — Rodney Dangerfield
1982 — Robin Williams
1983 — Bob Hope, Irene Cara
FLASHDANCE (MOVIE)
Miami Light Project
1984 — Bill Cosby, Herbie Hancock
1985 — The Smothers Brothers
1986 — Billy Crystal
1987 — Jay Leno
1988 — Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld
1989 — Richard Jeni, Paula Poundstone
1978 — Animal House
1979 — Hip Hop Happens (Vanity Fair)
yT.
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN @ THE LAKELAND CIVIC CENTER
w/ Kevin Turley Looking for a Ticket.
1982 — No Nukes
“Faggots Against Killing Men In War”
“Jews for Jesus”
New York City Excursion (Time Magazine)
NO NUKES RALLY (800,000) CENTRAL PARK
Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bella Abzug … Montreal (Ken Regan Camera 5, Pete Rose and Carl Yastrzemski, over-40 baseball All-Stars, Prime Rib and Brussel sprouts with Howard Cosell, Gainesville Green, Photo Lab, Iran v. Iraq, first pictures with Arnold Drapkin, delivered to three networks. Sunday stroll in the Bronx, Yankees v. Angels, Right Field Bleachers, $2, Puerto Ricans, boomboxes, Reggie Jackson #44 Stand Up between innings … Skating at The Roxy.
Steve Kahn @ Seventh Avenue South, Animation (Jon Anderson, David Sancious) @ Roseland Ballroom, King Crimson, Jean Luc Ponty and Loose Joints @ The Pier, David Sanborn, Hiram Bullock, Will Lee @ Lincoln Center
Ritchie Blackmore (Rainbow) @ Madison Square Garden
David Letterman (Late Night Bands), Jaco with Hiram Bullock, David Sanborn (Night Music), Will Lee, Steve Jordan
Johnny Hines
Bo Diddley
Tom Petty
Eagles w/Jimmy Buffett
Linda Ronstadt w/Livingston Taylor
Allman Brothers
Sea Level
Dixie Dregs
Steve Forbert
Pat Benatar
Frank Zappa
Talking Heads (w/Bernie Worrell)
Weather Report (w/Jaco Pastorius)
Peter Tosh (“Legalize It”)
Marshall Tucker Band (w/B.B.King)
The Cars
Elvis Costello
Al Di Meola (w/Tim Weisberg)
Romantics
Little River Band (Reitz Union Lawn)
Spyro Gyra
Roy Buchanan
Return to Forever
Muddy Waters
“21st Century Schizoid Man” — visiting high school friend at his Cin City apartment (just behind convenience store), listening to his roommate’s King Crimson Court of the Crimson King album.
Johnny Hines
Bo Diddley
Muddy Waters
Return to Forever (John Moran)
Frank Zappa
Pat Benatar
Talking Heads
Tom Petty
Eagles
Linda Ronstadt
Jimmy Buffett
Allman Brothers
Sea Level
Dixie Dregs
Cowboy
Fat Chance Band
Outlaws
Weather Report
Peter Tosh
Little River Band
The Cars
Elvis Costello
Andy Kaufman (Wrestling)
Al Di Meola
Tim Weisberg
Spyro Gyra
Roy Buchanan
Wendy O. Williams
Eddie Money
U2 at The Rathskeller
1979— The Police @ Disney World (Tomorrowland)
1980 — Music at The University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Jam at Kevin’s
Tom Petty
& The Heartbreakers
“Gator On The Lawn”
Mudcrutch, Dub’s, Depot Street, Crystal River, “Out on 441, Like Waves Crashing on The Beach,” “Heartbreaker Beach Party” (Crescent Beach)
Earl Petty (b/ Diane Julin) Tom’s father still living in the small house in southwest Gainesville. He lives alone now, tending to the garden out back, and entertaining the teenage girls from Orlando, who make the 50-mile trip up I-75 to Gainesville to watch Tom’s videos with his dad. They feel that much closer to Tom himself.
Mayport Jazz Festival
1982 — New York City Excursion (Time Magazine)
NO NUKES RALLY (800,000) CENTRAL PARK — “Jews for Jesus” “Faggots Against Killing Men In War” Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, Jackson Browne, James Taylor, Bella Abzug … Montreal (Ken Regan Camera 5, Pete Rose and Carl Yastrzemski, over-40 baseball All-Stars, Prime Rib and Brussel sprouts with Howard Cosell, Gainesville Green, Photo Lab, Iran v. Iraq, first pictures with Arnold Drapkin, delivered to three networks. Sunday stroll in the Bronx, Yankees v. Angels, Right Field Bleachers, $2, Puerto Ricans, boomboxes, Reggie Jackson #44 Stand Up between innings … Skating at The Roxy.
Steve Kahn @ Seventh Avenue South, Animation (Jon Anderson, David Sancious) @ Roseland Ballroom, King Crimson, Jean Luc Ponty and Loose Joints @ The Pier, David Sanborn, Hiram Bullock, Will Lee @ Lincoln Center
Ritchie Blackmore (Rainbow) @ Madison Square Garden
David Letterman — Late Night Bands, Jaco with Hiram Bullock, David Sanborn (Night Music)
Flashdance (Movie)
1985 — Miami Light Project
GATOR GROWL HISTORY
1979 — Bob Hope (Not A Man Of Hip-Hop)
1980 — George Burns (God As His Witness)
1981 — Rodney Dangerfield (Respecting The Alligator)
1982 — Robin Williams (“I’d like to fertilize her buds.”)
1983 — B•O•B H•O•P•E (“Eat Lead”)
Irene Cara (Movie Star and a boom box)
1977 — Gabe Kaplan
1978 — Helen Reddy
1979 — Bob Hope (Not A Modern Man)
1980 — George Burns (God As His Witness)
1981 — Rodney Dangerfield (Respecting UF)
1982 — Robin Williams (Meet Me at the Old College Inn)
1983 — Bob Hope, Irene Cara (Boom Box No Band)
FLASHDANCE (MOVIE)
Miami Light Project
1984 — Bill Cosby, Herbie Hancock
1985 — The Smothers Brothers
1986 — Billy Crystal
1987 — Jay Leno
1988 — Steven Wright, Jerry Seinfeld
1989 — Richard Jeni, Paula Poundstone
1990 …
First road trip out of Gainesville. Orlando. Halfway between home and Gainesville. Not driving home for laundry. Some how appropriate, being next to Space Mountain. Before, downtown on Church Street, one week we saw Sea Level, Billy Cobham, and Spyro Gyra, all at the Great Southern Music Hall.
The Outlaws and The Fat Chance Band Call-in, free tickets, WORJ radio, at the dirt-floor, wooden bleechers, Orlando Sportatorium, rodeo the night before. Blow By Blow, not Beck Bogert & Appice, Jean-Luc Ponty, Imaginary Voyage, Deep Purple, “Soldier of Fortune.” LET THE COLLISION BEGIN.
GAINESVILLE MUSIC
Soundtrack to a Higher (University of Florida) Education.
TOM PETTY (COMING HOME)
MUDCRUTCH (1971) INTERVIEW
TEN YEARS AFTER TOM PETTY INTERVIEW (1983)
TWENTY YEARS AFTER TOM PETTY INTERVIEW (1993)
MEMORIES ARE MADE OF THESE TOM PETTY’s BEST
THE POLICE
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN
PAT BENATAR
FRANK ZAPPA (KISS OUR ASS ’79)
EAGLES
HALLOWEEN BALL
LUNA: A NIGHT OF INSIDIOUS TEMPTATION
THE INAUGURAL BALL (BALLS OF OLD)
WENDY O WILLIAMS (QUEEN OF THE BALL)
TALKING HEADS
((( Gator On The Lawn )))
yZ.
In his describing his earliest days of playing professionally, Tom Petty tells of a time when they played DUBS LIQUOR LOUNGE, with its topless go go dancers, sometimes five-nights a week, five sets a night.
•The Sound of Gainesville
MUSIC (79-82)
ON CAMPUS
Florida Field
O’Connell Center
Lake Alice
Bandshell
Plaza of The Americas
Reitz Union Lawn
The Rathskeller (RAT)
UNIVERSITY AVENUE
Florida Theater (Great Southern Music Hall)
Rickenbacker’s
Main Street
DOWNTOWN
Lillian’s Music Store
Hippodrome Theater
OUTSKIRTS OF TOWN
Dub’s Liquor (GoGo) Dancing Lounge
HALLOWEEN BALL 1981
Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics)
HOMECOMING 1981
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
MAYPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL
Dizzy Gillespie and Maynard Ferguson
SUWANNEE RIVER BLUEGRASS FESTIVAL
1974 (Acey Harper)
JAM AT KEVIN’s
Bat Cave Watercolors and family (wife and two toddlers)
Kevin’s friend church (standup) piano, stomp dacing on the worn, hardwood floor. Barbara Hansen, room over garage, Uelsmann print with tire track.
The Police @ Disney World (Tomorrowland)
Dire Straits @ Jacksonville Coliseum
Bruce Springsteen @ Lakeland Civic Center
Eagles @ Florida Field (Eagles Live 1980)
w/Jimmy Buffett
Linda Ronstadt @ Florida Field
Frank Zappa @ Florida Gym
Pat Benatar @ Florida Gym
Tom Petty @ O’Connell Center
The Cars @ O’Connell Center
Elvis Costello @ O’Connell Center
Al Di Meola @ O’Connell Center
w/ Tim Weisberg
Marshall Tucker Band @ O’Connell Center
w/ B.B. King
Andy Kaufman @ O’Connell Center
wrestling with woman (letters)
David Letterman
Hiram Bullock
w/ Will Lee
w/ David Sanborn (Lincoln Center)
w/ Jaco Pastorius (Knitting Factory)
1982 — NO NUKES IN NYC
(Time Magazine) Steve Khan, Seventh Ave. South, King Crimson and Jean-Luc Ponty, Loose Joints at th
(Time Magazine) Steve Khan, Seventh Ave. South, King Crimson and Jean-Luc Ponty, Loose Joints at the pier, Animation, Roseland Ballroom, David Sanborn, Lincoln Center, street/subway musicians, Ritchie Blackmore, Rainbow, Madison Square Garden, Yankees, Reggie Jackson, #44, Right Field Stand Up, Puerto Rican Boom Box, $2 Bleechers, Long Walk Home, The Bronx and Harlem, Long Looks, North of 108th Steet, Ken Regan, Camera 5, Bob Dylan and the Stones, Montreal, all-things-crepe, underground, Over-40 All-Stars, Carl Yastrzemski, Pete Rose, back-to-back private jets, Prime-Rib and Brussel sprouts with Howard Cosell. …
Frank Zappa @ Florida Gym
Pat Benatar @ Florida Gym
Talking Heads @ Bandshell
The Plasmatics @ Bandshell (Halloween Ball 1980)
Allman Brothers @ Bandshell
Peter Tosh @ Bandshell
Weather Report @ Bandshell
Sea Level @ Lake Alice
Dixie Dregs @ Lake Alice
Steve Forbert @ Lake Alice
Little River Band @ Reitz Union Lawn
U2 @ The Rathskeller
Romantics @ Mainstreet Lounge
Spyro Gyra @ The Great Southern Music Hall
Roy Buchanan @ The Great Souther Music Hall
Return to Forever (Space Age Travelers) @ The Great Southern Music Hall
Muddy Waters “Deep Down In Florida” @ The Great Southern Music Hall
Bo Diddley (Gainesville’s first hometown boy)
Mudcrutch @ Lillian’s / Dub’s
NORTH FLORIDA (SOUTHERN) ROCK
Allman Brothers Band
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Outlaws
Molly Hatchet
Sea Level
Dixie Dregs
Cowboy
Fat Chance
Grinderswitch
Les Dudek
Blackfoot
Atlanta Rhythm Section
Marshall Tucker
Charlie Daniels
Wet Willie
Elvin Bishop
ATHENS, GA
Swimming Pool Q’s, Pylon, B-52s, R.E.M.
Dickey Betts and Great Southern
HALLOWEEN BALL 1981
Wendy O. Williams (Plasmatics)
HOMECOMING 1981
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers