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Father Knows Best
Gainesville’s Favorite Son, Tom Petty grew up on the north side of town, and fresh out of high school, long before the Heartbreakers, he was the singer in the kick-ass, local band called Mudcrutch.
“Depot Street”
Mudcrutch*
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Tom Petty (1981)
In April, 1974, Tom Petty and Mudcrutch bandmate Mike Campbell left Gainesville, chasing after their Hollywood, California, Rock N Roll dream. Fame and fortune came surprisingly fast. It was out west where Tom and Mike developed their own sound … Still rooted in North Florida, but different and new. It was the sound that came to define the Heartbreakers and earn world-wide respect. Most agree that it was Damn the Torpedoes (1979), that accelerated Petty’s fame.
Gainesville hopes were high after it was announced that Tom had been booked to play HOMECOMING ’81.
“Jaguar & Thunderbird”
1976 — Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
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dave hogerty
EDITOR’S NOTE: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers are appearing tonight at the O’Connell Center.
Meet Earl, Tom’s Dad.
When Tom Petty came home to play UF’s Homecoming ’81, his father Earl still lived in the same Northeast Gainesville house where he had grown up.
By Diane Julin
Alligator Staff Writer
Even though it was a warm night, 16-year-old Betsy Marcus clutched a black jacket tightly around her shoulders. Eyes transfixed on a color TV a foot from her nose, she sang and she cried both at once.
She was singing because Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were singing right there on the screen. She was crying because Tom Petty was breaking her heart.
Every few seconds, when the camera shot a close-up of the lanky rock n’ roll singer with the overbite and the surfer blond hair, Betsy pressed two fingers to her lips and enthusiastically transferred a big kiss to the screen.
Across the living room sat the owner of the TV set. He also owned the black Heartbreakers “roadie” jacket and the Tom Petty baseball cap Betsy was wearing. He had the same. lean build, the same toothy grin, the same laughing blue eyes, and yes, the same big ears as the object of Betsy’s intense affections. And he was chuckling.
“Betsy,” he said in a deep southern drawl, “I might have that boy give you a big, ol’ kiss.”
What hard-core Tom Petty fan wouldn’t love to hear the rock star’s very own father say that? Of course, not all the fans who over the years have turned up on the doorstep of Earl Petty’s northeast Gainesville home have been as lucky as Betsy. While she was visiting two Sundays ago, Tom just happened to call his dad before going on stage in Baton Rouge.
Earl surrendered the phone to Betsy.
But other fans who have tracked down Tom Petty’s dad get thrills from seeing the platinum and gold albums on the living room wall. And watching videotapes of Tom’s performances and interviews Earl recorded with the Beta Max Tom gave him for Christmas. And looking at pictures of Tom as a little kid wearing a cowboy hat at Christmas.
The best part, though, is just being with Earl.
Hospitality and friendliness come naturally to the 57-year-old former insurance salesman. As long as the fans don’t start camping out on his front lawn — like they did on Tom’s in California — he doesn’t mind the company at all.
Do you want to see the shed where Tom’s old band and some friends of theirs — now members of the Eagles — practiced as kids? It’s right out back past the potato patch. They used to drown out the neighborhood. Do you want to see the roadie jacket with the Heartbreakers insignia on the back that Tom gave him?
Earl displays it proudly.
The phone rang the other day, Earl said, and it was another one of Tom’s fans calling. A female voice wanted to know, did Earl ever pick peaches for a living? She’d read that in a magazine. No, he said, the only peach-picking he’d ever done was out in his back yard — seven peaches.
Well, was Tom’s brother Bruce ever a truck driver? she asked. No, Earl said, he drives a brand new station wagon.
OK, well, did Earl ever say he wanted Tom to grow up and have a respectable job like his brother the truck driver? No, for one thing, Tom’s about six years older than Bruce so that wouldn’t make any sense at all, he said.
“I’m going to write Tom a hot letter,” the voice said.”You do that,” said Earl. >>>
“Here Comes My Girl”
Tom Petty
1979 — Damn the Torpedoes
California Dreaming
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dave hogerty
“You Got Lucky“
Two Tickets To Tom Petty Paradise
Father Knows Best
Meet Earl, Tom Petty’s Dad
In 1981 Tom Petty’s dad still lived in the same, small NE Gainesville house his Rock N Roll star son called home, and that year was a most memorable Homecoming.
Mudcrutch
Before The Heartbreakers
At the Second Annual Halloween Festival (1971), Gainesville’s Tom Petty and his band Mudcrutch played a midnight to sunrise set that SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE. The “Festival” had changed into “The Ball,” and Tom had set the standard for all Balls to come. From then on, Halloween was the source of so much legendary, University of Florida lore.
“Little Girl Blues“
Tom’s Long Distant Lover
>>> Why perfect strangers call him up to ask him “frivolous things” Earl doesn’t really understand. Why they come to visit him is more of a mystery.
“I don’t know what the idea is behind it,” he said. “I guess they think it’s the closest they can get to Tom.”
Earl and the rest of the family don’t get much of a chance to see Tom themselves.
Rock n’ roll superstars have to live in California.
It takes him so far away,” laments Tom’s aunt, Evelyn Jernigan, who doesn’t like rock ‘n’ roll anyway.
“It consumes him completely. To me he’s still little Tommy … it robs us of our little boy.”
That’s not to say the family isn’t proud and happy at the “fuss” millions of people have made over Tom and the Heart-breakers. Double-platinum albums. Cover story after cover story in national magazines. Sell-out concerts everywhere. TV appearances. Fans so enthusiastic, that Tom needs two bodyguards for his own protection.
“Every time I see him,” said Mrs. Jerinigan, with a giggle, “I says give me a big hug and a kiss so I can tell all the girls that Tommy Petty kissed me.”
There aren’t many opportunities for hugs and kisses, but Earl says Tom calls regularly to see how he’s doing. Earl has lived alone since his wife passed away last year. Earl may have lost his son to the music business, but he’s gained a house full of young friends who are all crazy about Tom. Once they get to know Earl, they’re crazy about him, too. Seated in a comfortable chair in a living room filled with photos, crocheted pillows and delicate glass knickknacks, Earl smokes a cigarette and prepares to tell his Tom Petty stories one more time.
Earl could sum it all up in one sentence: he had a kid – a good kid, a smart kid – who was determined as hell to be a musician and there was nothing his old dad could do to talk him out of it. That’s it in a nutshell but of course, nobody’s satisfied with a nutshell. They want to know how many girlfriends he had stuff like that.
So Earl smiles and fills in the details.
It all started when Elvis Presley came to Florida to shoot his first picture.”
said Tom’s Uncle Earl Jernigan – who owns a motion picture service in Gainesville, and was working on the film. “His aunt Evelyn took Tom to the movie set in Ocala for a look at the king of rock ‘n’ roll.”
“He saw all that hullaballoo and all those young girls, and he came back all excited about the rock and roll business,” Earl said.
That’s the story Tom himself tells all the magazines, but Earl’s got something to add. Earl thinks a baseball manager deserves a little credit for getting Tom together with a guitar.
The way his dad tells it, Tom wasn’t tall enough to play basketball, not big enough to play football, but pretty good at baseball. That is, except for the batting part. Or so his little league coach thought.
“For some reason or another,” said Earl, the coach didn’t see fit to let him bat. One day he was just so dejected about playing baseball, he was all beside himself.”
So Earl asked his boy what was wrong.
“Well the manager won’t let me bat,” Tom said.
“Well, if I was you,” said Earl, “I would put that little old uniform in a little old sack and I would take it down there, and I would hand it to that manager and I would tell him I had found something I would rather do.”
But what will I do? Tom asked. And Earl said, you’ll find something else.
So Tom quit that very day, and became a rock ‘n’ roll superstar instead. Not quite that fast, but fast enough.
“His mom bought him a little Spanish guitar for about $28,” Earl said. “I told him he could have music lessons if he didn’t let his grades slip.”
Sure enough, after three or four lessons, the grades began to fall, and Earl put his foot down. No more lessons.
You can’t serve two masters,” Earl told him.
As it turned out, three or four lessons were enough. He joined a band in junior high school and another band after that one broke up. Since they didn’t yet have limos to deliver them to their gigs, good old Mom was emploved as chauffeur.
Of course, the boys didn’t want anybody to see Mom drop them off. *She would have to let them off a block before they got there,” said Earl, chuckling. “It was a no-no for their mothers to drive them up.”
The music distracted Tom from his school work and Earl didn’t like it. He always has believed that education was important. He wanted Tom to learn a trade, and have the music as a sideline.
There were so many bands who never made it, Earl thought for sure Tom and his band would never accomplish anything. The family didn’t know any celebrities or entertainers to help him. And according to Tom’s aunt, she and his mother were sure it all would come to no good.
Earl told him, “For you to make it, it’s going to be a hard job because you’re a little old small town kid and you really don’t know anything.”
Earl wanted to see Tom become an architect or an artist. “He could draw tremendously.”
Tom did go to college, a fact Earl wishes the magazines would mention instead of depicting him as a drop-out. After high school, Tom went to an art school in Tampa for six months, and transferred to a junior college in St. Petersburg for another six months.
Finally, Tom came back to Gainesville and went to Santa Fe Community College for almost a year.
Then, the inevitable happened.
“He came to me after his second year of college and told me he knew what he wanted to do and not to discourage him,” Earl said. “So I changed my mind.” From then, Earl had to watch the rest from across the country.
It was 1974 when Mudcrutch* (the top local band Tom was in with fellow Gainesville natives, Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell) left for California.
Soon after making it to Los Angeles, Mudcrutch broke up. Eventually, still on the west coast, Tom, Tench, Campbell, Stan Lynch, and another Gainesvillian, Ron Blair, formed the Heartbreakers.
‘The rest is rock ‘n’ roll legend — legal disputes with the record company, fight with the industry over high record prices.
And, of course, success. Phenomenal success.
Tom hasn’t forgotten his roots, though, said Earl. In fact, he writes a lot of songs about Gainesville.
The song “American Girl” is about a girl who committed suicide by jumping off a sorority house in Gainesville.
Or so Earl thinks. He’s never really just sat down with Tom and asked what all his songs mean. *I thought about doing that a lot of times.” he says, “but I don’t want to foul him up if he’s got his mind on something else.”
Earl makes it a point to stay out of the business aspect of Tom’s life. That’s for him and his managers to work out. But he figures it is his business to see if his boy is keeping healthy and happy.
And he does like to give him one piece of advice. “If you’re making money, save some,” he tells Tom, “because if you save some, then you’ll always have some.”
When Tom was a kid, he obviously appreciated money. Earl recalls the first time Tom made an honest wage. He was 12, and mowed a neighbor’s lawn.
“They paid him $2, and he got so excited, he lost one on the way home.”
Tom may be saving some money now, but he’s spent some, too. He drives a Mercedes 450SL. *I told him to give it to me when it wore out, or when the ashtray got full,” says Earl.
You get the impression Earl isn’t really interested in driving a Mercedes, though. He seems more interested in the wild rabbit that hides in his potato patch, and sometimes almost comes close enough to pet. A fish fry with the neighbors on a Sunday evening can really light up his grin. And he likes to do what he can to make Tom’s fans happy — since there just isn’t enough of his boy to go around.
“I’m proud of Tom,” Earl says. “That people think as much of him as they do.”
—30—
a.lligator music
ALLIGATOR MUSIC PAGES [1980]
GAINESVILLE PLAYLIST
NORTH FLORIDA PLAYLIST
PAT TRAVERS (PLAYING GAINESVILLE)
University Avenue
BLUES AT NIGHT
AFTER MIDNIGHT (UF NIGHTLIFE)
Johnny Hines
MUDDY WATERS (GAINESVILLE LOVE STORY)
BO DIDDLEY
BB KING (THE COTTON CLUB)
THE FLORIDA THEATER (GREAT SOUTHERN)
PAGE 1.
I’m Gonna Follow You
On Campus
The Mysterious Murphree Stones
New Student Edition ’81
Gator Country
Blues In The Night
UF (75 YEARS AFTER)
1970s REMINISCING
1980 (THE YEAR EVERYTHING CHANGED)
moving still pictures
“Trailer”
Tom Petty
Mudcrutch (1971)
“Living in a trailer for two, and dancing to Lynyrd Skynyrd.
I gave it all up for you, babe.”
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MTV “Hometown”
Betsy by dave hogertyEarl Petty photographs by dave hogerty
MOVIES (ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW)
THE MOVIE WITH NO END
Dub’s Steer House
MUDCRUTCH (BEFORE THE HEARTBREAKERS)
MUSIC IN A SMALL, NORTH FLORIDA TOWN
TOM PETTY (GAINESVILLE’S FAVORITE SON)
FATHER KNOWS BEST (EARL PETTY)
TWO TICKETS TO TOM PETTY PARADISE
TOM’S LONG DISTANCE LOVER
MUSIC IN A SMALL NORTH FLORIDA TOWN
MEMORABLE GAINESVILLE SHOWS
EAGLES w/ JIMMY BUFFETT
FRANK ZAPPA (KISS MY ASS) HALLOWEEN 1979
PAT BENATAR @ THE FLORIDA GYM
TALKING HEADS (ART PUNK) @ THE BANDSHELL
QUEEN OF THE BALL ’81
GATOR FROM ANOTHER PLANET (SWIMMING POOL Qs)
BLONDIE (1981) @ THE FLORIDA GYM
JIMMY BUFFETT (KEY DREAMING) 1978
THE POLICE (ROADTRIP TO TOMORROW LAND)
DIRE STRAITS (VINNY’S NIGHT IN JACKSONVILLE)
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN (TICKET QUEST)
ROLLING STONES (STONED IN ORLANDO)
road trips
MOVIES (ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW)
THE MOVIE WITH NO END
Goin’ Down to Georgia (Tom Petty)
PLAYING GAINESVILLE
Blues In The Night
HOMEGROWN ROCK N ROLL (BO DIDDLEY)
MUDDY WATERS (PAINT IT BLACK)
Gainesville Love Story
GAINESVILLE MUSIC LIST
GREGG ALLMAN (1974)
Songs of the North Florida South
ALLMAN BROTHERS (FLORIDA NATIVES)
@ THE BANDSHELL
SEA LEVEL (CHUCK LEAVELL)
DIXIE DREGS (SOUTHERN FUSION)
STEVE FORBERT
COWBOY
LES DUDEK
FAT CHANCE BAND
OUTLAWS
LYNYRD SKYNYRD
BLACKFOOT
.38 SPECIAL
MOLLY HATCHET
ATLANTA RHYTHM SECTION
SWIMMING POOL Qs
PYLON
MOTELS
ROAD TURKEY
“Atomic Cafe”
Motels
1979 — “Living in a trailer for two and dancing to Lynyrd Skynyrd. I gave it all up for you, babe.”
((( >>> )))
Marty Jourard
Just published is Marty Jourard’s “Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town.” This is a definitive history of the world class musicians who grew up in Gainesville, FL. Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, the Jourard brothers (Motels), Don Felder and Bernie Leadon of the Eagles, and Stephen Stills are all from the small, North Florida town. Of the group, eight have been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. If you played the North Florida/Southeastern circuit, you most certainly played Dub’s Steer Room, Gainesville’s once topless venue that regularly hosted The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cowboy, and it and Lillian’s Music Store, downtown, could have been Tom Petty’s home clubs, often playing week-long gigs at both.
OPENING FOR THE PLASMATICS: A TESTAMONIAL)
tom petty (FAVORITE SON)
FATHER KNOWS BEST (MEET EARL, TOM’S DAD.)
In 1981 Tom Petty’s dad still lived in the same, small NE Gainesville house his Rock N Roll star son called home, and that year was a most memorable Homecoming.
“YOU GOT LUCKY” (TWO TICKETS TO TOM PETTY PARADISE)
“A LITTLE GIRL’S BLUES” (TOM’S LONG DISTANCE LOVER)
wednesday
october 7, 1981
vol 75 no 32
“Restless”
Before the Heatbreakers, Tom Petty called his band Mudcrutch, always known as Gainesville’s hot-shit, local band. But different than the Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, the Outlaws, and other Southern Rock bands, Petty found his fame and fortune out west in Hollywood. (FM / ECHO CANYON).
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TOM PETTY (GAINESVILLE’S FAVORITE SON)
MUDCRUTCH (TOM PETTY INTERVIEW 1971)
“YOU GOT LUCKY” (TWO TICKETS TO TOM PETTY PARADISE)
Tom Petty
Mudcrutch
1971 — “Living in a trailer for two, and dancing to Lynyrd Skynyrd. I gave it all up for you, babe.”
((( >>> )))
Just out of high school, Tom, Mike Campbell, and Bentmont Tench called themselves Mudcrutch, and they had the reputation as the hot shit, local Rock N Roll band. Downtown at Lillian’s (Music Store), out on NW 13th Street at Dub’s Lounge, on UF’s fraternity row, and on the outskirts of town, in the backwoods, next to a spring or clear running river, on whatever North Florida beach, and at any number of joints along the way.
Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers
Damn the Torpedoes
Hard Promises
“Heartbreaker’s Beach Party”
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
1983 — Playback
((( Florida Summer )))
“Get In Get Out”
Randall Bramblett
“On the (North Florida) Road To Jacksonville.
((( Sea Level )))
Randall Bramblett’s tells of being “On the (North Florida) Road To Jacksonville.
a.lligator music*
After his fast rise to Rock N Roll royalty, MTV featured Tom Petty in an episode of a program in which they visit music and pop stars in the towns they had grown up in. For Tom, of course, that town was Gainesville, and high school in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In it, the MTV crew rides along with Tom, as he narrates a Gainesville and University of Florida drive-thru, including stops at Lake Alice, Devil’s Millhopper, WGGG, and of course DUB’S STEERHOUSE LOUNGE* the legendary bar where a beer was a nickel, and the GoGo dancers wore no tops. Out on 441 (13th Street), on the outskirts of town bar where it all began, not only for Tom, but for so many local musicians who grew up, went to high school, and started their careers in Gainesville. [FRATERNITY ROW, “THE GREEKS DON’T WANT NO FREAKS,” DON FELDER, THE PEACEMAKER]
Gator Growl ’81
HOMECOMING
When the Gators Growl Loudest
RODNEY DANGERFIELD
Face(s) In The Crowd
Tom Petty 1981*
DENNIS QUALMANN (SGP)
LUNA(CY)
THE HALLOWEEN BALL
A.A. Murphree’s Night(mare) UF’s Night of Insidious Temptation.
Dub’s Steer House
MUDCRUTCH (Tom Petty Before The Heartbreakers)
TWO TICKETS TO TOM PETTY PARADISE