Heartbreaker by Mike Campbell
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A fast-paced, tender-hearted rock 'n' roll memoir for the ages, Mike Campbell's Heartbreaker is part rags-to-riches story and part raucous, seat-of-the-pants adventure, recounting Campbell's life and times as lead guitarist of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
"An exhilarating account ... an exemplary music memoir." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Mike Campbell was the lead guitarist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers from the band's inception in 1976 to Petty's tragic death in 2017. His iconic, melodic playing helped form the foundation of the band's sound.Together, Petty and Campbell wrote countless songs, including some of the band's biggest hits. From their early days in Florida to their dizzying rise to superstardom to Petty's acclaimed, platinum-selling solo albums Full Moon Fever and Wildflowers, Petty never made a record without him. Their work together is timeless, as are the career-defining hits Campbell co-wrote with Don Henley.
But few know of the less-than-glamorous background from which Campbell emerged--a hardscrabble childhood on the north side of Jacksonville, often just days ahead of homelessness, raised by a single mother struggling on minimum wage. After months of saving, his mother bought him a $15 pawnshop acoustic guitar for his sixteenth birthday. With a chord book and a transistor radio, Campbell painstakingly taught himself to play.
When a chance encounter with a guidance counselor inspired him to enroll in the University of Florida, Campbell--broke, with nowhere else to go and the Vietnam draft looming--moved into a rundown farmhouse in Gainesville, where he met a 20-year-old Tom Petty. They were soon inseparable. Together they chased their shared dream all the way to Los Angeles, where Campbell would meet his destiny, and the love of his life, Marcie. It was an at-times grueling dream come true that took Campbell from the very bottom to the absolute top, where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would remain for decades, creating an astonishing body of work.
Brilliant, soft-spoken and intensely private, Campbell opens up within these pages for the first time, revealing himself to be an astute observer of triumphs, tragedies and absurdities alike, with a songwriter's eye for the telling detail and a voice as direct and unpretentious as his music.
An instant classic, Heartbreaker is Mike Campbell's heartfelt portrait of one throwaway kid's lifesaving love of music and the creative heights he achieved through luck, collaboration, humility and extraordinary talent.
The Sector Skills Development Agency's Director of Policy and Research is Professor Mike Campbell. He was the Director of Leeds Metropolitan University's Policy Research Centre, one of the UK's top institutes for applied social and economic research, until recently. For several years, he has worked on the book's themes for the Department of Education and Skills, the European Commission, Regional Development Agencies, and local partnerships. He was also a member of the Skills Research Group, which supported the National Skills Task Force, and the academic panel working on workforce development with the Cabinet Office.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780306833199 |
| ISBN 10 | 0306833190 |
| Title | Heartbreaker |
| Author | Mike Campbell |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Grand Central Publishing |
| Year published | 2025-03-18 |
| Number of pages | 464 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |