Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Receive Lifetime Achievement Award
The band reunited with Chris Stapleton at Nashville’s 25th annual Americana Honors & Awards.
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers received the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 25th Annual Americana Honors & Awards in Nashville on Wednesday night, September 16.
The honor was presented at the Ryman Auditorium, where the original and surviving Heartbreakers lineup — Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch and Ron Blair — reunited for a special performance alongside Grammy-winning superstar Chris Stapleton. They kicked off with “American Girl” and “Breakdown” before the group’s later-era drummer Steve Ferrone and multi-instrumentalist Scott Thurston swapped in for Lynch to perform “You Wreck Me.”
The night marked the first time the original members had performed together in nearly 25 years, and their first performance together since Petty’s death in 2017. It also marked a rare appearance by Lynch with his former bandmates, as he left the group in 1994. The group opened the ceremony with Stapleton before returning to the stage later in the evening.
The reunion arrives as the band celebrates its 50th anniversary. Earlier this week, the Tom Petty Estate and UMe announced Origins 1971-1978, a box set tracing the group’s formative years and early recordings. Due November 6, the collection will be available in three configurations: a 5LP box set, a 4CD box set, and an uber deluxe edition. Each format will come complete with Blu-ray and DVD.
The vinyl editions will also have a major collector’s item: an 88-page fanzine featuring liner notes by David Fricke and Bud Scoppa, track-by-track annotations from the original band, complete album credits for the first two albums, archival photos and memorabilia, as well as polaroids, postcards, and more.
Origins 1971-1978 features 51 tracks spanning Petty’s earliest recording sessions through the Heartbreakers’ first years in Los Angeles. The set includes 27 unreleased, live, extended and previously unheard tracks, with all of the material newly mixed from the original multitrack tapes by longtime producer and engineer Ryan Ulyate.
Among the highlights is No Sleep Til L.A., a 12-track collection documenting the band’s journey from its first studio sessions in 1971 through its early years as Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Seven tracks on the collection have never been released, while “Parade of Loons,” a previously unheard song from 1978, arrived this week with a new video.
The anniversary campaign also includes 50th anniversary editions of the band’s first two albums, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers and You’re Gonna Get It!, as well as the previously sought-after Live From The Record Plant 1977 and a collection titled The Cut Out Bin. The deluxe editions also feature the band’s 1978 performance on the BBC’s “The Old Grey Whistle Test.”
The Heartbreakers’ individual members still remain active. Campbell is continuing to tour with his band The Dirty Knobs throughout the fall, while Tench released his second solo album The Melancholy Season last March. Lynch’s band The Speaker Wars also dropped its self-titled debut album last May.
Shop Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers’ Origins 1971-1978 here.
