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Heartbreaker: A Memoir
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
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, as heard on definitive classics like 'American Girl', 'Breakdown', 'Don't Come Around Here No More', 'Mary Jane's Last Dance', 'Learning to Fly' and 'Into the Great Wide Open'.
Together, Petty and Campbell wrote countless songs, including some of the band's biggest 'Refugee', 'Here Comes My Girl', 'You Got Lucky' and 'Runnin' Down a Dream' among them.
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 ('The Boys of Summer') and with Petty for Stevie Nicks ('Stop Draggin' My Heart Around').
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 counsellor inspired him to enrol 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 twenty-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 gruelling 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.
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.
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, as heard on definitive classics like 'American Girl', 'Breakdown', 'Don't Come Around Here No More', 'Mary Jane's Last Dance', 'Learning to Fly' and 'Into the Great Wide Open'.
Together, Petty and Campbell wrote countless songs, including some of the band's biggest 'Refugee', 'Here Comes My Girl', 'You Got Lucky' and 'Runnin' Down a Dream' among them.
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 ('The Boys of Summer') and with Petty for Stevie Nicks ('Stop Draggin' My Heart Around').
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 counsellor inspired him to enrol 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 twenty-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 gruelling 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.
465 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 18, 2025
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5 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 11, 2026
Learning about Mike’s story and all the hardships we went through and his ability to still persevere and achieve greatness was very inspiring. I enjoyed discovering that Mike wrote the music to many of the Heartbreakers hits that I love and I was happy that he mentioned the Mudcrutch tour of 2016 that I had the chance to see at the Observatory in Santa Ana.
His stories really captivated me, inspiring me to become a better guitar player, and his moments of self-doubt really resonated with me and let me know that even icons have the same struggle. I became fixated on all the stories and his writing allowed me to step into his life and take a break from everything happening in my own, which made it hard to put the book down for the night.
This is an essential book for any Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fan and even just rock and roll music fan in general.
His stories really captivated me, inspiring me to become a better guitar player, and his moments of self-doubt really resonated with me and let me know that even icons have the same struggle. I became fixated on all the stories and his writing allowed me to step into his life and take a break from everything happening in my own, which made it hard to put the book down for the night.
This is an essential book for any Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers fan and even just rock and roll music fan in general.
February 8, 2026
I gained a better appreciation for Mike's contribution to Tom's songwriting process. I had no idea he was his better half like Bernie Taupin to Elton John and Paul McCartney to John Lennon. What a force!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews