The unlikely reason Tom Petty was grateful for signing a record deal: “I just thought it was heaven”
For most musicians, a record deal is something of a golden ticket. After months, even years, of struggling as an independent artist for funds, a record deal is a sure-fire sign that, at least for a little while, everything will be financially fine. However, for an artist like Tom Petty, signing a record deal came with an impressive range of perks, which render the actual details of the deal itself almost superfluous in comparison.
An everyman of 20th-century rock and roll, Petty had his sights set on musical greatness from a very young age. Spurred on by early influences like Elvis Presley and The Beatles, he soon realised that anybody could become a successful musician if they were determined enough. Like many young men of the 1960s and 1970s, Petty got his start in a variety of teenage rock bands, following in the wake of garage rock and this idea of adolescent DIY music making.
Although, in the present day, it is difficult to envision Tom Petty being anything other than a globally successful icon of rock music, he was once a virtual unknown simply trying to make a name for himself in an otherwise oversaturated scene. During these early days, Petty played with the likes of Mudcrutch, a southern rock outfit that released only one single before fading into obscurity.
It must have come as something of a saving grace, therefore, when Petty signed a record deal for his new group, The Heartbreakers. Originally, the group were signed to Leon Russell’s Shelter Records, with whom they released their first three LPs. Although the success of these records was largely limited to the United Kingdom, rather than Petty’s home nation of the United States, they seemed to do enough to attract the attention of more major record labels, like MCA.
Being signed to MCA, first through their subsidiary Backstreet Records, before being moved onto the main label output, came with a variety of perks. Most obviously, The Heartbreakers’ music was being delivered to a much wider audience, and the band had a stronger sense of security. However, one of the greatest perks for Petty was the abundance of free records he could nab from the MCA offices.
Petty had been a vinyl obsessive since his childhood, and took any opportunity to expand his record collection. In those early days, however, his financial status was at risk of endangering his impressive collection. “We couldn’t really afford expansive record collections,” Petty later told Sound & Vision, “but that was one good thing about getting a record deal – we got free records! I had never been around anything like that. I just thought it was heaven to get to go home with a stack of albums.”
The deal sounds all the sweeter when considering the incredible range of artists on MCA Records’ roster. Over the years, the conglomerate fostered everybody from Gladys Knight to Alice Cooper—even Afrobeat progenitor Fela Kuti had a few releases on MCA before the company folded into the Universal Music Group during the early 2000s.
Not only did MCA help to bring the timeless music of Tom Petty to a wider audience, the record deal struck with The Heartbreakers also seemingly boosted Petty’s record collection tenfold. If there is a better example of ‘a win-win situation’ in music, it certainly does not spring to mind.
