We forget it now, but when Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers first started recording, it wasn’t clear exactly what genre they represented. (Such things mattered back then.) It’s obvious now that the Heartbreakers are a typical American heartland rock band, though undoubtedly a lot better than most. But at the time, with crazy stuff happening with the Ramones, Elvis Costello, Graham Parker, and punk rock, and then New Wave, Petty & Co. were looped in as some species of this last power-pop division. And that, in turn, was treated with some wariness by the radio gatekeepers of the time.
The group’s first, self-titled album came out in 1976, and it sat around for more than a year with little industry notice. But while no one was looking, its songs were sinking into the country’s collective rock consciousness. It took nearly 18 months for the song “Breakdown” to creep into the American Top 40.
Wish I could have seen him live in concert. 
