Growing up Gainesville, Florida, Tom Petty lived among some of rock’s future guitar greats. Former Eagles guitarist Don Felder lived in the area and says he gave Petty guitar lessons (although Petty said Felder taught him piano). Another future (and founding) Eagle, Bernie Leadon, also hailed from the area, and his brother Tom played in Mudcrutch, Petty’s pre-Heartbreakers band.
But the one Gainesville artist Petty admired most was Stephen Stills. Five years older than Petty, Stills had been a founding member of Buffalo Springfield, the psychedelic folk-rock group Petty once called “the coolest band in America” for its influential blend of acoustic and electric guitar styles and tones.
Petty had certainly been aware of Stills as one of the older members of the Gainesville scene, and he held him in high esteem, not only for his songwriting and vocals talents but for his guitar wizardry. Those only grew after Stills moved to Los Angeles, befriended Duane Allman — then working with his brother Gregg in the group Hour Glass — and, eventually, began following and learning from electric guitar icon Jimi Hendrix, the musician he called “my guru.”
By the time Petty emerged on the U.S. charts in 1977 with “Breakdown,” Stills had risen to fame with one of the biggest acts of the early 1970, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Their success was so great that, in 1974, they launched one of the biggest rock stadium tours of its kind, establishing a format to be followed by acts like Fleetwood Mac and Peter Frampton.
So it was a stunning turn for Petty when Crosby, Stills and Nash opened for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on a string of dates in the summer of 2010. By then Petty had established himself as a superstar with hit records and successful tours under his belt. Petty was the consummate professional onstage, always prepared and cool headed.
But his first night with CS&N was a completely different trip.
“This is heavy for me,” the guitarist said, according to Warren Zanes’ book, Petty: The Biography. “I walked out and watched a little from the side of the stage, and they were really good that night, really hitting it, and the place was going crazy. I got nervous, thinking to myself, ‘God, I can’t follow that. I can’t possibly follow that.’
“So I go to my dressing room and pull myself together. Then the door opens and it’s Stephen and he wants to rap. And that just makes me more nervous.”
Despite having worked with his idols George Harrison and Bob Dylan, in the Traveling Wilburys, and Roger McGuinn, on the latter’s 1991 solo album, Back From Rio, Petty was starstruck.
My voice started to kind of quiver. It was driving me mad. I was thinking, 'I can't sing in vibrato through the whole show.’”
— Tom Petty
By the time Petty was onstage, he was a wreck, aware that Crosby, Stills and Nash were on the side of the stage, watching him.
"I felt like I couldn't sustain a note," he said. "My voice started to kind of quiver. It was driving me mad. I was thinking, 'I have to pull this together. I can't sing in vibrato through the whole show.’”
Afterward, Petty pulled it together and finished the two-week run with CS&N without incident.
Six years later, Petty got another thrill when Stills joined the newly revived Mudcrutch as a surprise guest on June 26 at the Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. The guitarist was from all accounts cool, calm and collected that night. As Stills dialed in his guitar tone prior to their performance of “The Wrong Thing to Do,” from Mudcrutch’s 2008 debut, Petty joked: “Don’t worry. We practiced backstage.”
