The Elvis Presley Encounter That Changed Tom Petty's Life

Singer Tom Petty has enjoyed an outstanding career, first leading his immensely popular band, the Heartbreakers, then scoring numerous solo hits, and, in later years, performing alongside George Harrison and Bob Dylan as part of the rock supergroup, The Traveling Wilburys. Fascinatingly, it was an incident that occurred when he was just ten years old that set him on the road to stardom.

When Tom Petty Met the King

Speaking in an interview with the Independent newspaper, Petty revealed how this early encounter with no less than the king of rock and roll proved to be a pivotal moment in his life. The year was 1962, and Elvis Presley was at the height of his fame. Having returned from a stint in the army, based in Germany, Presley had roared back in the charts with the albums Elvis Is Back! and Something for Everybody. He was then in the process of making his ninth feature film, Follow That Dream.

As luck would have it, Tom Petty's uncle was working on the crew for that movie. Petty's aunt suggested they go to visit the set. As Petty recalls: "So we went and stood down behind this chain link fence. There were thousands of people on the street, mostly girls passing record sleeves up to be autographed. I didn't have a sleeve, and when I got home it became my mission in life to get an Elvis Presley record."

Before the day was over, Petty did actually get the chance to meet with Presley, albeit briefly. As he remembers: "We were in a little backstage area where they had the trailers, and he came in, and arrived in a line of white limos. And, you know, when he came by, stopped and said hello, my uncle introduced my cousins and me. It was very exciting. Changed my life, really, because after that I started collecting records and just went in that direction."

Trading Toys for Vinyl

Back home, Petty traded his prized aluminum slingshot for a box of vinyl 45s: "My life was transformed from that moment on. I just didn't do anything but play these records."

Reflecting on Presley's importance, Petty went on to explain how he'd attempted to inform his own daughters on that subject: "I was telling them how he's such a part of the culture now that I'm not sure people think of him as a great artist, which he was for a long time."

With today's flood of readily available information, any modern kid who wanted to learn about Presley would have an easy time, but back then, Petty remembers, things weren't so easy: "Eventually, I sent off to England for something called The Elvis Presley Handbook. I sent a dollar, I think. Months went by until one miraculous day it showed up, and in it was a discography and a chronology. That made it all start to fall into place.''

More Like This: