2 weeks Ago
On the Shelf Heartbreaker By Mike Campbell Grand Central Publishing: 464 pages, $32 If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores. In his new memoir, "Heartbreaker," Mike Campbell recalls an afternoon in the early '70s when Tom Petty — Campbell's bandmate in a Gainesville, Fla.
, cover band called Mudcrutch — played one of his songs. As Petty strummed the chords to his future FM radio staple "Don't Do Me Like That," Campbell told Petty, "I'd give my right arm if I could write a song like that." Campbell at the time was a gifted guitarist raised by a single mom, trying desperately to pull himself up from poverty by turning pro.
When he met Petty, he was working awful minimum-wage jobs and seriously thinking about enlisting in the military. "I wanted to play guitar to avoid getting a real job or joining the Air Force," says Campbell. "As long as anyone was going to pay me a buck to play, that is what I was gonna do.
" Campbell also wrote songs — they were good, not great. Petty, in contrast, wrote well and quickly. Years before either tasted any success with the Heartbreakers, Campbell decided to work hard and work smart: Petty was a standout talent, and Campbell would stay the course with him.
Campbell became one of rock's greatest sidemen — the man to the left of Petty onstage during the entire 40-plus-year run of the Heartbreakers' career, right up to their final show at the Hollywood Bowl on Sept. 25, 2017, a week before Petty's death at 66. It was a role he spent years cultivating.
(Grand Central Publishing) "Heartbreaker" is a tale of endurance and patience rewarded. In short order, Petty became, well, Tom Petty, and Campbell became a guitar god. A master of the perfect guitar part, Campbell's ringing solos are tattooed on our brains as indelibly as Petty's playful snarl.
They worked so well together that when Petty made solo albums outside the band, he enlisted Campbell...
Marc Weingarten.
