This news broke yesterday afternoon. Total bummer. From the RAMP Newsletter...
CBS News is now confirming that musician Tom Petty has died at the age of 66. As TMZ initially reported, Petty had suffered a full cardiac arrest and was found unconscious and not breathing in his Malibu home on Sunday night. He was taken to UCLA Santa Monica Hospital and put on life support. TMZ later updated that Petty had been removed from life support. Petty rose to fame in the 1970s as the frontman for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, putting out radio hits like "American Girl," "Free Fallin'," "Breakdown," "Listen to Her Heart," "Refugee" and many more. The band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2002. Petty was also a member of the 1980s supergroup the Traveling Wilburys, along with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. Petty performed what would be his final show last Monday night at the Hollywood Bowl, the final of three sold-out shows at conclude the Heartbreakers' 40th anniversary tour.
I saw Petty in concert twice, and met him once, and was very bummed out that I missed his concert at Wrigley last summer because I was out of town. He truly was one of the all-time greats. I was a Grammy voter in 1989 and voted for his "Full Moon Fever" album as the Album of the Year that year.
By the way, who would have guessed that Bob Dylan would be one of the last two Wilburys standing?
