If things had worked out instead of falling apart in 1975, the debut Top 40 hit song called "Breakdown" would have been by a group called Mudcrutch.
But they didn't and Mudcrutch broke up that year. A year later, though, some of the members of that band came back together and reformed under a new name.
And thus was born Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. "Breakdown," a slowed down version of a rocker featuring lead singer Petty's moody vocal, debuted at No. 40 this week in 1978. It would spend just that one week in the Top 40, but it gave the band a foundation to build from and ultimately make them one of the top rock groups of the 1980s and ultimately lead them into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame in 2002.
Petty, a Gainesville High School student, met fellow guitarist Mike Campbell, a Jacksonville resident who was going to Jean Ribault High. After high school, the pair hooked up with a lead singer named Jim Lenehan, drummer Randall Marsh and another guitarist/vocalist that Petty knew in high school in Gainesville named Tom Leadon. Leadon was the younger brother of Bernie Leadon, who would be one of the original members of another superstar band, The Eagles.
This would be the group Mudcrutch.
But Leadon and Lenehan didn't last long in Mudcrutch and left in 1972. They would be replaced by bass guitarist and guitarist Danny Roberts and keyboardist Benmont Tench. Once established, the band became the house band at a Gainesville-based club called Dub's. In 1974, though, the band finally got a record deal with Shelter Records and part of the deal was to be near the label's facility in Los Angeles. So the band relocated. But one single called "Depot Street" failed to generate any interest and soon after, Roberts left the band to be replaced by Charlie Souza.
However, making ends meet recording in two different studios owned by Leon Russell, one at his home in L.A., the other in his native Tulsa, was becoming difficult for Mudcrutch. And it was by design from the record label -- not the band -- that Mudcrutch would have to break up. That came in late 1975.
But Petty wasn't giving up on his dreams of being a successful rock musician. He was entrenched in the contract at Shelter Records. Meanwhile, Campbell and Tench invited newcomers Stan Lynch to play drums and Ron Blair to play bass. Petty knew Lynch and Blair from his days of playing in and growing up in Gainesville. Petty, the story goes, saw the other four guys jam and did his best to persuade the four other guys to come back to record under a new name. They agreed.
And this time around, Petty took accountability for this new band, naming them after himself and calling the band The Heartbreakers. This time around, they were able to finish an album. It was a self-titled debut album in November 1976 and though it didn't climb any higher than No. 55, it did get their foot through the door outside of those who knew the band in northern Florida and Los Angeles. One of the tracks on that album was "American Girl," which would become a rock staple of the band for years to come.
And then there was "Breakdown." That song with Petty's low and moody vocals and featuring Campbell's master work on guitar, became a favorite in club and concerts that the band would play in throughout 1977. Slowly, the band began getting a reputation throughout the country. And then Shelter president Denny Cordell, who produced the self-titled debut album for the band, made the decision to release "Breakdown" as a single.
"Breakdown' debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 90 on November 5, 1977. Three weeks later, the song had climbed to No. 65, but on the chart of December 3, 1977, it dropped from No. 65 to No. 100, a crushing blow which meant more than likely the song would be off the chart the very next week.
But something happened. The song got another chance with enough radio stations playing the slow-moving rocker and the single was being bought at the record stores. On December 10, 1977, "Breakdown" leaped back up 11 places to No. 89. Then it moved up another 11 notches to No. 78 and on the final regular Hot 100 on Christmas Eve/Day weekend, it moved up 10 more places to No. 68.
When 1978 began, it continued its steady climb, moving to No. 57 on January 7. But it lost its bullet star on the chart, meaning the song was supposedly losing steam. It moved up two place to No. 55 the next week, then to No. 53, but gained its bullet back on January 28 as it moved up to No. 48. The next week, "Breakdown" continued to move up, going from No. 48 to No. 44. It lost its bullet again on February 11 when it slowed up two places to No. 42.
However, it still had enough steam that in its 16th week on the Hot 100, "Breakdown" inched up two places to land in the Top 40 at No. 40. The next week, "Breakdown" slipped out of its seven-day run in the Top 40 back to No. 60 before dropping of the chart completely the week after that.
The climb was slow and at times painful. But Petty and his band had made it to the big time.
In May 1978, the band released its second album, "You're Gonna Get It!" but it had no Top 40 hits on it, though "I Need To Know" and "Listen To Her Heart" became two more rock classics from the band.
But things soured as 1978 became 1979. Shelter Records, a subsidiary of ABC Records, was bought by MCA Records and they took claim to Petty's work, including his publishing rights, which didn't make him feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Petty soon claimed bankruptcy in attempt to get out of his contract with the new company.
Things may have turned even uglier, but MCA backed down from his threat and gave him his publishing rights back as well as the opportunity to form his own record label called Backstreet Records. In honor of getting his way and moving along in his career with the Heartbreakers, he aptly titled his next album with the band, "Damn The Torpedoes." That featured the Top 15 hits "Don't Do Me Like That" and "Refugee."
The rest, they say, is history.
As for Mudcrutch, Petty helped reform the band in 2008 -- long after he and the Heartbreakers became household names. They, at long last, released a 14-song CD and did a tour with Petty, Campbell, Leadon, Tench and Marsh and in 2014, Petty announced another Mudcrutch project was in the works.
Petty and the Heartbreakers, meanwhile, scored 12 Top 40 hits between "Heartbreaker" and "Mary Jane's Last Dance" in 1994 from the band's greatest hits package. And Petty scored four Top 10 solo hits of his own, one of those songs, "I Won't Back Down," being the basis (maybe unknowingly) behind Sam Smith's breakthrough monster hit that won him multiple Grammys in 2015 called "Stay With Me."
And to think it all started precariously with a barely Top 40 hit called "Breakdown" that didn't break down as it climbed the Hot 100 chart slowly by a band that did break down in a previous incarnation.
It could have easily been Mudcrutch in the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame and not Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
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