Imagine you’re an 11-year old kid and out of the blue one sunny day, you get to meet a contemporary music idol like Elvis Presley. Pretty heady stuff, wouldn’t you say? That exact thing happened to a young Tom Petty, who was instantly smitten with Presley and his music. With that potent inspiration, Petty went on to create some of the best folk rock, easily shifting from solo artist to group musician.

One of his band projects was the Heartbreakers, started in the mid-70s after Petty did time with other local Florida bands. One of those bands, Mudcrutch, moved lock, stock and barrel to Los Angeles but their debut single “Depot Street” went nowhere and the band called it quits. Mudcrutch members Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench, along with bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch started a new band, the aforementioned Heartbreakers. Their self-titled album passed unnoticed in America, but found more than a few fans in England. The Heartbreakers even toured the UK as the opening act for Nils Lofgren, which increased their popularity and eventually their fellow Americans came around.

Their second album You’re Gonna Get It! had better luck in the charts, climbing to the Top 40, with singles like “I Need to Know” and “Listen to Her Heart.” The next album, Damn the Torpedoes, was an even bigger success, going platinum.

Early in his career, Petty had strongly supported musicians’ rights to their music, over the rights of record labels and throughout the 70s he was involved in a lengthy dispute with his own record company, MCA. After disagreeing with them over pricing of the Heartbreakers’ 1981 album, Hard Promises, Petty organized fan protests and delayed the record’s release, forcing MCA to lower the price. Tom, the little people thank you.

Other than his work with the Heartbreakers, Petty also produced Del Shannon’s comeback album that year and performed his own “Stop Dragging My Heart Around” as a duet with Stevie Nicks.

The band’s next album, Southern Accents, proved an ornery cuss and its production dragged on for three long years. Petty became so frustrated with recording one day that he punched a wall, badly breaking his hand and endangering his music career. It took a metal rod to make his hand better but Petty and his playing was soon good as new. The hit single from that album, “Don’t Come Around Here No More,” featured a hugely successful video with Petty as the Mad Hatter in Wonderland, tormenting poor Alice.

Petty took a break from the Heartbreakers to join The Traveling Wilburys, a supergroup that included Roy Orbison, George Harrison and Bob Dylan. He went solo after that, with a string of commercial successes like “I Won’t Back Down” and “Free Fallin’.” In 1991, Petty reunited with the Heartbreakers and released Into the Great Wide Open, another album jam-packed with hits. The band followed that with the soundtrack to She’s the One, a movie starring Cameron Diaz and then played with Johnny Cash on his award-winning album Unchained.

More recently, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers continue to drift apart and come together, releasing albums and performing at different events. They have earned a prominent place in the pages of rock n’ roll history and influenced dozens of musicians with their unique brand of folk rock.