As Rolling Stone’s Bob Sheffield notes, rock & roll memoirs have a way of following the same garage-band-to-world-fame plot, starting with the big dreams, then “the sleazy bars, the cheap motels, the shady managers” and finally the hard-earned stardom mixed with lots of sex, drugs and incessant band infighting etc. Michael Campbell’s terrific “Heartbreaker: A Memoir,” which I just finished reading, follows roughly the same trajectory, chronicling the rise-fall-and-rise of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

But Campbell, the Heartbreakers’s legendary lead guitarist and co-writer of many of the band’s hit songs (as well as other non-Heartbreaker hits), covers so much more than rock & roll cliches. His memoir is genuinely kind-hearted, perceptive and honest. It’s not a tell-all per se, but it is candid about Tom Petty’s many faults, as well as the faults and foibles of himself and others. There’s a surprising page-turner drama to the book, as Petty et gang struggle to overcome the latest industry/personal/creative challenge facing the band. The book is also gossipy in a good way, dropping fun stories about Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Stevie Nix, Dan Henley etc. A huge plus: even non-musicians like myself can follow Campbell’s creative thought process as he describes writing new songs, strumming on his guitar and working out things in his mind before handing tapes over to Petty (or Henley etc.).

Like the person who originally recommend the book to me, I’m not a big rock & roll-genre reader (though I have a soft spot for rock documentaries). Nor was I a big Tom Petty fan heading into this book. But after reading Campbell’s highly recommend memoir, I guess I can say I’m now a big fan of both. Suggestions for future rock-memoir reading are welcome. 

Btw – From another friend who also read ‘Heartbreaker’:

I loved the book. Big takeaways:

– TP was not a great person other than with his idols, fans and press. (See the 1982 pay-raise discussion in the memoir).

– The Don Henley/Boys of Summer story is just awesome… loved it. Heard the song in a new way.

– TP accepted as a peer by those he idolized is an incredible story… so sorry for his sudden passing, almost 10 years!