Tom Petty's Florida
Dreamville Ghosts: The Other Sides
Lillian's Music Store, where Petty bought the black diamond strings
Lillian's Music Store, where Petty bought the black diamond strings
Lillian's Music Store, where Petty bought the black diamond strings
112 SE 1st St, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/pitaxYV95uxodhkN7
Today this is a bar that retains the name of the music store that once was located here. In the music store, which sold sheet music and some equipment, Tom Petty frequented in his youth. The historic sign for the business remains.
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' song "Dreamville," from the 2002 album "The Last DJ," contains this lyric:
"Goin' down to Lillian's Music Store
To buy a black diamond string
Gonna wind it up on my guitar
Gonna make that silver sing
Like it was Dreamville
A long time ago
A million miles away
All the trees were green In Dreamville"
Keith Harben, who was Tom Petty's lifelong friend and lived in Tom's neighborhood through their child and teen years, recalled to me that he was with Tom when he purchased from the store a set of black diamond strings, which were hung on the wall to the left as you walked through the front door. Keith noted that his mother drove him and Tom to Lillian's Music Store that day. Tom would later strum these strings on his acoustic guitar.
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Dub’s Steer Room, where Petty's Mudcrutch was repeated 'house act'
Lillian's Music Store, where Petty bought the black diamond strings
Lillian's Music Store, where Petty bought the black diamond strings
4562 NW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32609
https://maps.app.goo.gl/uKThcBxytdzKhdxq7
Today this is the site of a Social Security building, but from 1966 to 1991 it was where Dub’s Steer Room was located (the building was eventually razed). The steak restaurant transitioned into a lounge known for its live music -- and, for awhile, its topless dancers. Starting in 1969, James Wayne "Dub" Thomas, the owner, hired the dancers to entertain along with the bands, as noted in Marty Jourard's 2016 book Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town. The topless dancers were discontinued in January 1972.
The 600-capacity club is where Mudcrutch was the "house act" in the fall of 1970, playing four hours a night, with five sets, for six nights a week.
Prior to Mudcrutch's standing gig at Dub's in fall 1970, which gave each band member a steady salary of $100 per week, Tom Petty and Tom Leadon worked during the stifling summer of 1970 for the Plants and Grounds Department on the campus of the University of Florida where they helped maintain lawns, benches, crosswalks and roads. During this time, they would labor all day in the oppressive heat and humidity, then quickly head home to shower and eat, go to Mudcrutch Farm for rehearsals, and then on to Dub's for a show. On top of that, late-night parties at the Farm were sometimes in store.
Mudcrutch also had a six-night-per-week, five-sets-per-night residency here in summer 1972.
At times, Mudcrutch would alternate sets with Road Turkey (including future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch).
To learn more about Dub's read these two articles from the Gainesville Sun: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2004/05/26/the-one-only-dub-s/31461419007/ https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2018/09/29/gainesville-where-tom-pettys-dreams-began/9740920007/
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Law office where Tom Petty and Mudcrutch's first attorney met them
Lillian's Music Store, where Petty bought the black diamond strings
Florida Theater, where Tom Petty and friend would watch Sat. matinee
607 NE 1st St., Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rDqNf3cRouCdYhMs8
Tom Petty, while he was in Mudcrutch in 1971, hired his first attorney. His name was Jeffrey Meldon, whose practice was at the time located at 607 NE 1st St., home today to the Primary Care Institute. Back then, the building was split into units for various businesses. Meldon’s law practice occupied a unit on the south side of the building, facing NE 6th Avenue. This is where the Mudcrutch band members at the time would go to meet with their lawyer.
Fresh out of law school in the class of 1969, Meldon in 1970 moved to Gainesville from Cleveland, where his enterprising grandfather and father had established successful businesses. The following year he opened the law practice that remains today, yet in a different location. At 703 North Main St., you will find Meldon Law – that sports a logo with the notation that the firm “won’t back down.”
Before Meldon passed the Florida Bar and started his law firm in 1971, becoming Petty’s first attorney, he came into Mudcrutch’s orbit in 1970 by facilitating donations from local businesses for a free food service at Mudcrutch Farm festivals. Closely aligned with Gainesville’s hippie culture, the legal-minded Meldon was able to negotiate working relationships with government officials and business owners.
Meldon told me during an interview in March 2025 that Tommy Petty and Tommy Leadon “worked in tandem” at sponsoring the Mudcrutch Farm festivals. As for the Mudcrutch band members and the festival attendees, Meldon, a hippie himself who was six years older than Petty, called them all “middle class hippies.”
Meldon shared with me his memories and thoughts about Tommy Petty during the time that he represented him and the band. Petty told Meldon that Mudcrutch wanted to play and record their own music, that they wanted to retain the rights to it, and they wanted to be a well-known band.
“He was one of the most determined, focused young men,” Meldon told me. “He was a serious, focused musician.”
Now, about the enterprising Jeffrey Meldon and the Candle People…
“In the early seventies, Jeffrey Meldon was one of several liberal activists who collectively called themselves the Candle People and whose interaction with Gainesville’s music scene stemmed from their desire to contribute to local counterculture through community involvement and organization,” wrote Marty Jourard in his 2016 book, Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town.
Meldon and a group of friends, the Candle People, as they called themselves, lived at the Candle Farm, as they called it, which consisted of “a riding stable with about two hundred acres of wood and a rundown cabin.” Meldon told Jourard: “We’d buy giant blocks of wax from the Gulf Oil Company, buy crayons from Toyland, and we’d make hippie candles, over a fire. Then we’d go to the college campus and sit outside the girls’ dorms and flirt with the girls, put our candles on a picnic blanket, and sell them.”
They then organized the Hogtown Food Co-op, which provided for those attending the free Mudcrutch Farm festivals free food from area organic farmers. In addition, they organized an alternative newspaper. And they started an unstructured high school, the Windsor Learning Community, at the old Baird House (305 SE 7th St.).
Eventually, Meldon, who had experience booking bands while a college student who served as his fraternity’s social director, started helping Mudcrutch book shows. Meldon told me he collaborated with Rose Community Center, a concert production enterprise formed by Bruce Nearon and Charles Ramirez, eventually assisted by Jeff Goldstein, which produced many concerts with local and national acts in and around Gainesville during the early 1970s. Meldon said they worked together to book concerts at the Plaza of the Americas and the University Auditorium at UF, as well as at the original Santa Fe Junior College (note that these venues are already mapped at the Tom Petty Trail website).
When Meldon passed the bar in the fall of 1971, he informed Petty and Leadon that he was now a lawyer, so he could represent them. Around this time, Meldon told me that he had been reading about the law in the entertainment business, and he was thinking about being a music lawyer. Perhaps it was in the blood, as his father had once owned a successful jazz and blues club in Cleveland (614 Prospect Ave.) where were booked local acts as well as a who’s who of national acts, such as Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday and Charlie Parker.
To learn about the Loop Lounge, go here to read this Cleveland State University’s Center for Public History citation:
https://greenbookcleveland.org/locations/loop-lounge/
“I got my law license in November of 1971. At that point Mudcrutch was still trying to get dates, play places, so I started working with Mudcrutch in my law office. They’d come in every week or so, and we’d talk about where they could play,” Meldon told Jourard.
Meldon lined up Mudcrutch residency in Lake City at the Holiday Inn. And he tried to line up shows in Miami and elsewhere, although hit roadblocks in the form of “the roster rule” in which booking agents and venues – and sometimes record labels – worked in cahoots to book and promote only the bands that were on their “roster.”
“I was their booking agent for some gigs, and I was a lawyer, so they came to me for advice,” Meldon told Jourard.
In 2023, Meldon was interviewed on WIND-FM in Gainesville about the annual Tom Petty Weekends, of which he is a supporter – and not just because he’s “a fan of his songs.” He recalled his impressions of Tom Petty when he first met the 20 year old.
“He was an amazingly focused young man,” Meldon said. “He was very serious about where he was heading.”
This radio interview with Meldon can be heard here:
https://windfm.com/2023/10/jeffrey-meldon-talks-about-tom-petty/
Meldon eventually opened his own concert venue with a fellow investor. They bought the shuttered Florida Theater (233 W. University Ave.). This was the same theater where, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Tom Petty and his neighborhood friend Keith Harben would go on Saturdays to watch movies. It was also here that the movie theater showed local newsreels produced by Tom Petty’s uncle, Earl Jernigan, who ran Jernigan’s Motion Picture Service for half a century – and who introduced Tom Petty to Elvis Presley. To read more about that encounter, find that Tom Petty Trail stop here:
https://tompettytrail.com/buried-treasure
But once Meldon and his partner purchased the shuttered Florida Theater, it was rehabbed into a concert hall named the Great Southern Music Hall. Opened April 7, 1974, it featured live music by diverse national and regional artists through the late 1970s. To learn more about this Tom Petty Trail stop, go here:
https://tompettytrail.com/dreamville-ghosts
Mudcrutch never played on the GSMH stage, though, since the band had already left town to drive across the country to pursue a record contract. It had driven out of Gainesville six days before, on April Fools Day.
Jeffrey Meldon’s profile on the Meldon Law website can be found here:
https://www.meldonlaw.com/member/jeffrey-meldon/
Meldon told me that he hoped to one day write his autobiography, which would cover his forebears' lives as well as his, both of which were intriguing for me to hear about. But since everything I heard did not have a connection to Tom Petty, that material was left on the cutting room floor. If Meldon’s book is ever published, it will be worth reading. I think you will be as fascinated as I was hearing the stories.
Photo of former law office of Jeffrey Meldon by Shawn Murphy
Florida Theater, where Tom Petty and friend would watch Sat. matinee
Florida Theater, where Tom Petty and friend would watch Sat. matinee
233 W University Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/DdnKJYSyijTmYVK37
Once the site of the Florida Theater, where in the late 1950s and early 1960s Tom Petty and his childhood friend Keith Harben would go on Saturdays to watch movies.
After the movie theater ceased operations, this became the site of the Great Southern Music Hall, which featured live music by national and regional artists from 1974 to 1981. A long list of diverse national acts performed here, among them America, The Band, Dave Brubeck, Jimmy Buffet, Bo Diddley, Ray Charles, Cheech and Chong, Jimmy Cliff, Count Basie, Dan Fogleberg, Patti LaBelle, Richie Havens, Howlin’ Wolf, Waylon Jennings, B.B. King, Keo Kottke, Kraftwerk, Jerry Lee Lewis, Taj Mahal, Chuck Mangione, Steve Martin, John Mayall, Molly Hatchet, Randy Newman, The Outlaws, John Prine, The Ramones, Leon Redbone, Minnie Ripperton, Rush, Earl Scruggs, Bob Seger, Steppenwolf, Peter Tosh, Grover Washington, Muddy Waters, Johnny Winter and Frank Zappa.
On one concert bill in June 1974 was Road Turkey as an opening act. The band included Stan Lynch, a future member of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, and Marty Jourard, a future keyboardist and saxophonist for the Motels.
The Matheson History Museum, located at 513 E. University Ave. in Gainesville, hosted a 50th anniversary retrospective exhibit in 2023 and 2024 called “Return to Forever: Gainesville’s Great Southern Music Hall." To learn more about the exhibit's opening night, read this article from The Independent Florida Alligator:
https://www.alligator.org/article/2023/02/matheson-70s-gainesville-music-exhibit
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Trader's South, where Tom Petty & an underaged Stan Lynch played
2212 SW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/5YoFwWsSJRzrfvkV6
During the summer of 1969, the Epics had a residency at a smoke-filled topless club, Trader’s South (2212 SW 13th St, Gainesville). Soon the band’s name morphed into Mudcrutch, during an era when other bands were picking different-sounding names. Tom Petty and Tom Leadon, and for a while Jim Lenahan, made up the lasting core of Mudcrutch.
Road Turkey, which included future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch, also played at Trader’s South. (In this three-piece band were also Marty Jourard and Steve Soar). Lynch was still a high school student when he played here as Road Turkey’s drummer.
“I worked there as a boy,” Lynch said during an interview promoting the self-titled debut album by The Speaker Wars, a band with Stan Lynch and Jon Christopher Davis at its core, which was released in 2025. “I had to put on a fake moustache because I wasn’t old enough to play there.”
Lynch said he had three birthdays during his high school years at Trader’s South, which he said “was a dive, all the way.”
As a teenager, he’d play in Road Turkey at Trader’s South until 2 a.m. on a school night, then go to school drowsy the next morning. (Lynch graduated in the class of 1973 from the the P.K. Yonge Developmental Research School, 1200 SW 6th St. in Gainesville).
“I can’t even tell you how bad the place was, but it was a job,” Lynch said.
To watch this interview, go to the following link and click play on the video embedded into the story. You will see Lynch talking about Trader’s South, the place and the song, from time stamp 19:37 until 22:46.
One of the songs on The Speaker Wars’ album is about Trader’s South, where its customers are referenced in the lyrics this way:
“Drifters and grifters, preachers and punks
Handsome young cowboys, sad married drunks”
It is suitably titled “Trader’s South.”
Trader’s South opened in 1968 as a bar that featured topless dancers and live music. It was otherwise known as Trader Tom’s, named after the colorful owner, Tom Henderson, who once told Petty to “turn the music down.” The Speaker Wars’ “Trader’s South” pays homage to Tom Henderson, about whom Lynch has fun with its lyrics in the first verse:
“Tom was an outlaw a criminal man
He won Trader’s South on a high poker hand
When his dancers needed music that's how l came to be
Working his shithole back in ’73”
Later in the song there is a hint we should hoist our whiskey glasses as we sing along with its referent lyric: “Here’s to that bastard, Old Trader Tom.”
Tom Henderson died in 2019 at the age of 89. Joey Henderson, Tom’s youngest son, told a reporter from The Gainesville Sun that “the bar business was in his blood,” and that “when he went to work and from work, he carried a sawed-off double-barrel shotgun openly, to protect his money bags” because “that was his character.”
Following Henderson’s death, Marty Jourard posted to Gainesville Rock History, a Facebook group his administers: “He was so funny. He used beer metaphors: ‘Hey, Road Turkey, I need a band next Friday, just calling to see if you boys are on tap.”
To learn more about Henderson’s life and his bar businesses in Gainesville, read Kevin Brockway’s article from The Gainesville Sun, found here:
If a paywall prevents you from reading it, and you don’t subscribe to the newspaper, this article can also be found in this post to Gainesville Rock History by Jourard:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/159046777481720/posts/2276061812446862/
Trader’s South closed in 2006. The building was eventually leveled. As of December 2024, there was nothing but a vacant lot here.
The last line of the song is, “I bought the sign.” In actuality, Stan Lynch did buy the large yellow Trader’s South sign that advertised the business from its parking lot. That sign now resides in a barn adjacent to Stan Lynch’s house near Melrose, Fla., 20 miles east of Gainesville. In the interview promoting the album, Lynch said about the sign, “ It’s really my diploma because that’s when I graduated high school.”
To listen to “Trader’s South” by The Speaker Wars, you can stream it on South Cloud here:
https://soundcloud.com/thespeakerwars-music?id=1103228860
Better yet, purchase the album. See the Merch tab at the band’s website, found here:
https://www.thespeakerwars.com/
And to see Stan Lynch sing this song with The Speaker Wars on Heartwood Soundstage at the 2024 Tom Petty Weekend in Gainesville, find that video uploaded by Glenn Richards to Gainesville Rock History, a Facebook group, here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/159046777481720/posts/8618032534916393/
Photo from 2013 by Marty Jourard
The Place, where Petty & Leadon went, the Epics played in late '60s
809 W University Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/FhUhCj2iy82DjW8o9
Among what was once a cluster of local businesses along the south side of West University Avenue, there was in the late 1960s a dance club and concert venue located here called The Place. Teens Tom Petty and Tom Leadon came here to watch some of the shows by the many bands who performed here, as Leadon talked about in 2018 for Tom Petty Weekend when he recalled going here together as teens to see bands. But Petty and Leadon also performed on its stage with the Epics in 1969, shortly before the Epics morphed into a renamed band, Mudcrutch.
Mike Campbell makes note of this in his 2025 Heartbreaker book when he talks about the two Toms, who were neighborhood friends, joining the Epics.
"They played dances and teen clubs in Gainesville," Campbell wrote. "They got a regular gig at a place called The Place, a teen hangout, and a bar on the south side called Trader Tom's" (pg. 58).
With street addresses of 807, 809 and 811 in this business cluster was once located The Place, the White Rabbit, and Rebel Lanes. All of them have since been razed, as I discovered in March 2025 during a website research trip to Gainesville, when I saw a large corner vacant lot.
An article from The Gainesville Sun on July 22, 1967, written by Paul Ashdown, profiles The Place as an alcohol-free “teen-style night club” owned by A.D. Chambless and Charles Steeger. The article notes that Chambless wanted to have a place that his own teenager could safely go on weekend nights, so opened The Place with that in mind. The article notes that it had opened 3.5 months before it was published, which would have roughly been around the beginning of April 1967. So, it would have been sometime in the last few years of the sixties that Petty and Leadon went to The Place, on both the floor as paying customers and on its stage as part of a hired band.
Ashdown’s article is rich in description of the music and clientele. His overview of the teen’s clothing in 1967 is a particular time capsule: “Boys with checked slacks, long hair and print shirts clustered in groups and talk with long-haired girls attired in various degrees of ultra-mod clothes suggested by ‘turned on’ London fashions.” To read this archived article (for which I thank Marty Jourard for unearthing), go here:
An entry from an online database called “The Live Music Venues of Gainesville,” which was compiled by Marty Jourard while working on his 2016 book, Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, lists the following bands that performed here (make note of the Epics being among the bands listed):
“Acts that played there included The Candymen, Billy Joe Royal, John Fred and the Playboy Band, The Tropics, The Swingin’ Medallions, The Epics (w/Tom Petty on bass), Ron and the Starfires, the Maundy Quintet, Gingerbread (w/Don Felder on guitar), The Classics IV, The Outsiders, The Night Crawlers, The Zombies.” (Note that the version of The Zombies that played here was not the actual band, which was part of some unscrupulous concert promoter at the time, according to a discussion thread on Gainesville Rock History, a Facebook page administered by Marty Jourard.)
As an interesting footnote for The Place, one of my trusted sources on Facebook, David Hammer, shared the following: “My dad and his colleagues in the Department of Communicative Disorders in UF’s College of Health Related Professions published the first peer-reviewed journal article on the deleterious effects of loud rock music on teenagers’ hearing. Their data collection happened there, at The Place.”
Photo of vacant lot where once stood The Place and other business by Shawn Murphy, taken March 2025
Big Daddy's Cin City Lounge, a venue where Mudcrutch played
Tom Petty apartment, Mudcrutch hangout, feature in '73 Sun article
Apartment where Tom Petty wrote, sang "Don't Do Me Like That"
1625 SW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32609
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1Xg5Dq7qhMjM5SUU8
Long before there was a CVS drug store on the corner of SW 13th Street and 16th Avenue in Gainesville, there was the popular Big Daddy’s Cin City Lounge, a multi-level establishment from 1970 to 1973 that featured live music with local bands, among them Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) and Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch), according to Marty Jourard’s compiled list of live music venues in Gainesville.
“The bar was very popular with the vast student population in the apartments lining 16th Avenue, an area known as ‘Sin City,’ which accurately described the combination of affordable student housing, swimming pool keg parties and cheap alcohol, such as the Tuesday Night ten-cent drink specials at Cin City, where a dollar could get you knee-walkin’, commode-huggin’ drunk,” Jourard wrote.
To browse Jourard’s “The Live Music Venues of Gainesville” compilation, go here: http://gainesvillerockhistory.com/Venuesweb.htm#:~:text=The%20location%20at%20SW%2016,DJ%20named%20Rudi%20spinning%20records
Photo of Mudcrutch performing at Big Daddy’s Cin City Lounge by Red Slater, courtesy of The Gainesville Sun
Apartment where Tom Petty wrote, sang "Don't Do Me Like That"
Tom Petty apartment, Mudcrutch hangout, feature in '73 Sun article
Apartment where Tom Petty wrote, sang "Don't Do Me Like That"
1618 NW 1st Ave, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/DDnhkEGcjLqDkmrRA
While today you will find a modern four-story apartment complex at 1618 NW 1st Ave. in Gainesville, this was where once stood a not-so-modern two-story building in which the top floor was an apartment and the ground floor was a business named Gator Groomer where one could get their hair cut and/or launder dirty clothes. For a while in the early 1970s Tom Petty and girlfriend Jane Benyo lived in the apartment, where they would host friends.
One of the invited friends was Mike Campbell, who wrote about it in his 2025 autobiography, Heartbreaker. Campbell writes about going here after Benmont Tench joined Mudcrutch, which was in 1973. He recalled being here when Petty first played “Don’t Do Me Like That,” a song that both Mudcrutch as well as Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers would later record.
“I used to go over to their apartment above the Gator Groomers all the time, Everybody did. Everybody they let, anyway. They were quite exclusive. Tom had this cool old Zenith record player and tons of records. Tom would play records, hosting, and we would all smoke weed and listen and talk about the band, talk about music,” Campbell wrote.
“During the day I would go over and he would play me songs he liked. I would listen and play along. I brought my Wollensak (recorder) once and he made me a tape of all our favorites, because I couldn’t afford to buy the records.
“I remember sitting at the kitchen table with him one hazy, sunny afternoon when he started playing a new song he was working on. It was very simple, but it bounced and swung as it stopped and started from G to F to C to D. He sang the chorus as he played the changes.
“‘Don’t do me like that. Don’t do me like that.’”
“I thought that was one of the best songs I had ever heard. He read the look on my face. He waved it away.
“‘That’s my dad’s line. That’s what he always says to me.’
“‘I’d give my right arm if I could write a song like that.’
“‘Well, you couldn’t play guitar then.’
“I laughed” (pgs. 122-123).
About the song, Petty told Paul Zollo for the 2005 book Conversations With Tom Petty: “That was something my dad used to say, ‘Don’t do me like that.’ I always thought it was a humorous thing to say” (pg. 230).
To listen to the Mudcrutch version of “Don’t Do Me Like That,” go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuEdZVX4B-8
To listen to the Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers version of “Don’t Do Me Like That,” go here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFkJ_BOz88E
In an interview that Tom Leadon did with Marty Jourard for his 2016 book, Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, he mentions the Gator Groomer apartment, although his timeline is different than that of Mike Campbell.
“We spent the spring and summer of 1971 in Earleton, then we moved back to town in the fall of ’71 and that’s when Tom and Jane got the place above the Gator Groomer and I met my girlfriend there and moved with her into what they called the Celebration House, over by Steak ‘n’ Shake on SW 13th Street. Celebration had moved out and there were a group of students living there, one of them was my girlfriend, and Mike Campbell lived there above us, so we lived there during the fall of ’71 to May of ’72 and then I got a house over near the university on NW 7th Terrace, a kind of U-shaped street there, and Tom had moved out and got an apartment somewhere near Dub’s and we started playing Dub’s again.”
Jourard shares the Leadon interview transcript here on his Gainesville Rock History website, should you wish to read it:
http://www.gainesvillerockhistory.com/TLeadon.htm
Note that when Leadon mentions Earleton, he is referring to the waterfront cottage at Lake Santa Fe that served as Mudcrutch’s home base for a while. That Tom Petty Trail stop can be found in the Buried Treasure section here: https://tompettytrail.com/buried-treasure .
Jean Sullivan (now Jean Porter), Randall Marsh’s girlfriend who lived at Mudcrutch Farm (2203 NW 45th Ave.; https://tompettytrail.com/teen%2B-years ) and at the Lake Santa Fe cottage, recalled for me being at the Gator Groomer apartment while Tom Petty had something to eat and the band talked about music.
“One thing T.P. loved was a McDonald’s hamburger – no fancy one, just a plain burger, large fries, and a Coke,” she notes. “When Jane lived over Gator Groomer she would go over to McDonald’s on 13th Street and get this lunch or dinner for him. I can so clearly see him stuffing a fist full of fries in his mouth, while talking music with Mike or Randall.”
For the Jan. 28, 1990, issue of The Gainesville Sun, Bill DeYoung reported on the Gainesville homecoming of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, during which Mayor Cynthia Chestnut gave Petty a key to the city before the band’s performance at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on the University of Florida campus. During the concert, Petty put things into perspective, saying: “I never dreamed when I was living over the Gator Groomer that one day I’d be sitting down talking to the mayor. People ask me how does it feel to be back in Gainesville. Well, it feels really good.”
To read this Sun article, you can find it here at The Petty Archives:
https://www.thepettyarchives.com/archives/newspapers/1990s/1990-01-28-gainesvillesun
The 1971 Polk’s Directory, which lists business information, notes that Gator Groomer Barber Shop and Gator Groomer, the self-service laundromat, both had the same street address and the same phone number. Over the years, businesses naturally changed. As for the building itself, Google Earth satellite time-lapse images show the change to this property in recent years. An image from September 2019 shows the one-story business part of the building still facing NW 1st Avenue and the connected two-story apartment behind it, with a dirt parking lot behind it, along NW 2nd Avenue. But by January 2021 nearly a whole block was leveled and construction was underway for the large apartment complex that currently is located in the footprint of Gator Groomer and the surrounding property.
Thank you to Steve Fasnacht for initially reaching out to try to help figure out where Gator Groomer was located. Steve was helpful in providing June 2019 Google Street View photos of the view from the front and back of 1618 NW 1st Ave. And thanks to Library West at the University of Florida Libraries, where a team of reference librarians were able to nail down its location by unearthing a 1971 Polk’s Directory. But a special thank you is given to Michael Dietz, the point of contact here.
Photo of front of business along NW 1st Avenue, with second-story apartment above it, from 2019 courtesy of Google Street View
Tom Petty apartment, Mudcrutch hangout, feature in '73 Sun article
Tom Petty apartment, Mudcrutch hangout, feature in '73 Sun article
1976 NW 2nd St, Gainesville, FL 32609
https://maps.app.goo.gl/3XVoqhfn8o5vJLCK7
One of the places in which Tom Petty resided in the early 1970s, while Tom was the bass guitarist in Mudcrutch, is here, according to Marty McKnew and Scott Monroe. McKnew told me they lived in the back apartment for a short while. At the time, he served as Mudcrutch’s “unpaid roadie,” utilizing a van from his job at a downtown flower shop, toting the band and its equipment to various gigs in and around Gainesville. Monroe, who was part of an extended friend-group, recalls hanging out here prior to shows across town at The Keg.
“We had a lot of fun at their apartment,” Monroe told me. “We’d all meet there and then head out from there to The Keg.”
The Keg (203 SW 16th Ave.), a convenience store that was converted into a bar in 1972, was on the Mudcrutch circuit. This included a 12-night residency in late July and early August 1973. Joining Mudcrutch for that residency was Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch, along with Marty Jourard, later in the Motels). The two bands performed alternating nightly sets for four hours. While the building still stands, it is currently a vacant building. To see the trail stop for The Keg, go here:
https://tompettytrail.com/dreamville-ghosts
In late June 1973, The Gainesville Sun profiled Mudcrutch in a feature story showcased in the Sunday paper. The reporter, John Bartosek, hangs out with the band in this apartment, which is presented as its home base. Later in the article, he shadows them to a show at The Keg, where he describes what’s happening on and off the stage. The profile was written at a time when Mudcrutch had established a name for itself in Gainesville, across Florida and elsewhere in the Deep South, and toured extensively throughout this circuit. But this regional fame had not yielded the fortune that comes with national fame. Bartosek hangs out with the band in a “standard two-bedroom apartment on the northwest edge of the city.”
Bartosek’s story is a time capsule. It is a fascinating fly-on-the-wall piece that combines overheard conversations and observations of the band members off and on the stage. He introduces us to the band, which then consisted of Tom Petty, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench (although the article misspells the first name as Ben Mont), Randall Marsh and Danny Roberts. It’s clear from the story’s lead that Tom Petty is the band’s leader:
“Tom Petty has a one-track mind. It’s on music.
Bass guitarist for ‘Mudcrutch,’ that seemingly eternal Gainesville rock and roll band, Tom talks about everything. But somehow it all gets back to music.
‘It's our life,’ he says quietly.’”
To read his article, you can find the original as a PDF along with the digitized version, thanks to The Petty Archives, here:
https://www.thepettyarchives.com/archives/newspapers/1970s/1973-06-24-gainesvillesun
Nine months later, in early April 1973, a Mudcrutch entourage left Gainesville to drive to California, focused on landing a record contract.
Just 2/10ths of a mile south of this apartment, a five-minute walk, is located Sidney Lanier Elementary School, where Tom Petty was a pupil. Today you will find the “you belong among the wildflowers” sunburst mural on the side of the school. It is located on the end of one of the buildings, facing east – along NW 2nd Street. To see the trail stop for this mural, go here:
https://tompettytrail.com/tributes-%26-troves
Should you go to see this apartment, remember that this private home, located in a residential neighborhood, so must be treated with respect for the property owner, its occupants, and the neighbors. That includes no trespassing on private property!
Photo by Shawn Murphy
The Keg, site of Mudcrutch residency in '73, cited in Sun article
203 SW 16th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xDSUVvu4Q4RC7Z5f9
Currently a vacant building, this was once a convenience store that was converted into a bar called The Keg here in 1972. From July 30 through Aug. 11, 1973, there was a 12-night residency by Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench), which had recorded "Up In Mississippi" and "Cause Is Understood" as a demo 45. Both songs were on their set lists.
Joining Mudcrutch was Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch, along with Marty Jourard, later in the Motels). The two bands performed alternating nightly sets from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., Monday through Saturday.
In June 1973, The Gainesville Sun profiled Mudcrutch. The reporter, John Bartosek, hangs out with the band in an apartment that seems to serve as the band's home base. Later in the article, he shadows them to a show at The Keg, where he describes what's happening on and off the stage. To read his article, you can find the original as a PDF along with the digitized version, thanks to The Petty Archives, here:
https://www.thepettyarchives.com/archives/newspapers/1970s/1973-06-24-gainesvillesun
Photo by Shawn Murphy
'Stone Castle,' wooded property where Petty lived, Mudcrutch played
'Stone Castle,' wooded property where Petty lived, Mudcrutch played
1007 SW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/cKRky9dza8Yf2eqV6
While the apartment complex here today post-dates Tom Petty's footprint in Gainesville, it is fittingly named Wildflower, although perhaps coincidently. That's because Petty once resided here, and because his band at the time, Mudcrutch, performed here.
Lots of woods and two houses once comprised this five-acre property. In one of them, Petty lived in 1972. The house would have been located adjacent to the railroad bridge (now an elevated bike path) at SW 13th St., according to this Gainesville Sun article by fellow musician Marty Jourard: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2018/09/29/gainesville-where-tom-pettys-dreams-began/9740920007/
Entering the heavily wooden property down its tree-lined driveway was the first house, where Petty lived in the attic. Prior to him, residing here were members of the band Cowboy, who once played a free concert here.
The second house on the property had stonework on the outside, thus taking the name Stone Castle, a casual way to refer to the property as a whole. One of the occupants of this house at the time was David T. “Lefty” Wright, who in January 1971 at the WUFT studios on the campus of the University of Florida videorecorded what is believed to be the earliest known film of Mudcrutch. The video was shot on Super 8 film using a silent film camera, which Wright borrowed from his friend Jim Lenahan, a founding member of Mudcrutch and later a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ tour lighting director as well as a director of some of the iconic music videos in the 1980s. (To watch this video and learn more, see the mapped Trail Stop on the Tom Petty Trail here: https://tompettytrail.com/uf-early-years )
In Jourard's 2016 book, Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, he notes that Mudcrutch once played a concert here.
A two-minute walk to the north is 1298 SW 9th Road. Tom Petty “allegedly lived in this house after high school when he regularly performed with Mudcrutch," according to the following short-term home rental website:
There are other places in Gainesville that proclaim to have been where he lived, including this Airbnb rental: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/754382579475515901?source_impression_id=p3_1719770571_P3R_qEPLx4N5QADZ
Photo of Stone Castle courtesy of David T. Wright
The Surburbia, former drive-in theater where Mudcrutch played
'Stone Castle,' wooded property where Petty lived, Mudcrutch played
2801 NW 13th St, Gainesville, FL 32609
https://maps.app.goo.gl/uRMzbVqGE75B1DfE7
Currently the site of Rural King, a retail box store where one could purchase farm supplies and hunting gear. Yet, it was once the site of the Suburbia Triple Drive-In, according to Cinema Treasures:
https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/19505
Known simply as the Suburbia, it is where, depending on the year, one could see the latest Hollywood blockbuster, a seedy X-rated film, or a concert -- including those held for two nights in September 1973 by Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench) and Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch). The Suburbia was open from 1952 until it was destroyed by a tornado in 1978.
Photo by Alex Ojeda, courtesy of Cinema Treasures
Forest Meadows Cemetery-East, where Tom Petty's parents rest
3700 SE Hawthorne Rd, Gainesville, FL 32641
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Pw3fHnGfo49aW9zn7
Forest Meadows Cemetery-East is the site of gravestones for Tom Petty's parents and maternal grandmother (found in the southwest portion of the cemetery).
Father Earl Alvin Petty: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/7936151/earl_alvin_petty
Mother Katherine Johney (Avery) Petty, known as "Kitty": https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29479496/katherine_johney_petty
Maternal grandmother Troas Frances (Hale) Avery: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/174013512/troas_frances_avery
In Warren Zanes' 2015 book, Petty: A Biography, it is noted that Troas did not like Earl (p. 16).
If you are to visit this site, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite!
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Graves of Tom Petty's aunt and uncle, who introduced him to Elvis
Azalea Section, 401 SE 21st Ave, Gainesville, FL 32641
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JepeRZPfvMunR54PA
Located in the sprawling Gainesville-owned Evergreen Cemetery, which is billed as “this wondrous place,” there are some graves with a connection to Tom Petty. There is the grave of Harry Green, a fellow student at Gainesville High School who died in a car crash in 1966 and who would become the subject of a Tom Petty song. There is the grave of Tom Leadon, the guitarist from the Epics and Mudcrutch. There are the graves of three generations of Benmont Tench’s family, including Judge Tench, who Petty persuaded to allow his son to pursue a music career rather than return to college at Tulane University. And there are the graves of Tom Petty’s maternal aunt and uncle – the person who introduced him to Elvis Presley and inspired him to be a musician.
Evelyn Louise (Avery) Jernigan is one of two sisters of Katherine “Kitty” (Avery) Petty, Tom Petty’s mother. According to her obituary, for 20 years she worked for the state DMV. In a separate Tom Petty Trail stop on the website, it is noted and mapped that Kitty Petty also worked for many years in the downtown Gainesville government complex where is located the Alachua County Tax Collector’s office and the Driver License and Motor Vehicles Service Center, along with other county administrative offices (22 SE 1st St.). Evelyn’s obit also notes that she was a bookkeeper for Jernigan’s Motion Picture Service. Another Tom Petty Trail stop on the website pinpoints where this was located in Gainesville and gives background information about it.
To read Evelyn Jernigan’s obituary and to learn more about the family genealogy, consult this Find a Grave entry:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/92498205/evelyn_louise_jernigan
Evelyn was married to Earl Ramon Jernigan, who Tom called Uncle Jernigan. Earl Jernigan ran for decades a successful film production business, Jernigan’s Motion Picture Service, out of a nondescript building in the northeast quadrant of Gainesville (3019 NE 20th Way). The company, Jernigan’s Motion Picture Service, took on many videography projects over its 49 years in business (1938 to 1987), including to help scout filming locations for Hollywood movies – one of which was “Follow That Dream,” which starred Elvis Presley. The movie was shot on location throughout Florida, including downtown Ocala at the then-named Commercial Bank & Trust Co. (203 East Silver Springs Blvd.), where 10-year-old Petty met Presley – and sparked his interest in living a musical life.
Uncle Jernigan invited Tom to go to Ocala one day in the summer of 1961 to watch filming and to meet Elvis. When Jernigan introduced Tom to him, Elvis briefly nodded and shook his little hand. Tom stood still, stunned and speechless, yet smiling. Petty told Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography: “I caught the fever that day, and I never got rid of it. That’s what kicked off my love of music. And I never thought much about rock ‘n’ roll until that moment.”
To learn more about Earl Jernigan, who died in 1998, read this Gainesville Sun article (paywall fee may apply):
https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2004/05/26/lights-camera-history/31666625007/
To learn more about Earl Jernigan’s family genealogy, consult this Find a Grave entry:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/92498070/earl_ramon_jernigan
In Evergreen Cemetery, you will find the Jernigan family buried in Section EG 5, Block N6E, Space 3, on the north side of the cemetery. To navigate here, follow these directions: Starting from 901 SE 21st Ave., which is essentially where you will find the entrance gates for the cemetery, drive in on Magnolia, then take first left onto Azalea, a short thoroughfare that ends at Olive when it turns to the right. The Jernigan family gravesites are in the middle of Azalea on the left. The fence that borders the cemetery is nearby.
If you have a smartphone, you can use these mapped directions using Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JepeRZPfvMunR54PA
Alternatively, you can use Evergreen Cemetery’s website to navigate here. To do that, go to their website, found here:
https://www.thiswondrousplace.org/
Then click Burial Search in the upper right of the screen. Then type in the name of the person you are searching for.
If you are to visit this site, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite!
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Grave of Harry Green, who was tributed by Tom Petty in a song
Gravesites for three generations of pianist Benmont Tench's ancestors
Evergreen Four, 401 SE 21st Ave, Gainesville, FL 32641
https://maps.app.goo.gl/xNmBvxFyF3GzuouL6
Located in the vast Evergreen Cemetery in Gainesville are gravesites with a Tom Petty connection. There is the grave of Tom Petty’s maternal uncle who introduced him to Elvis Presley, which inspired him to become a musician. There is the grave of Tom Leadon, the guitarist from the Epics and Mudcrutch. There are the graves of three generations of Benmont Tench’s family, including Judge Tench, who Petty persuaded to allow his son to pursue a music career rather than return to college at Tulane University. And there is the grave of Harry Green, a fellow student at Gainesville High School who died in a car crash in 1966 and who would become the subject of a Tom Petty song.
Harris Harding Green was the inspiration for Petty’s biographical song “Harry Green,” which was recorded in 1994 during the sessions for the “Wildflowers” album yet not released until 2020 in the ‘Wildflowers & All the Rest’ box set. Petty’s GHS peer died in a car crash Nov. 7, 1966, at age 16, the same age as Tom.
Here are excerpts of that song lyric:
“Harry Green was my old friend
We met in Spanish class
Helped me out of a spot I was in
He stopped a redneck from kickin’ my ass...
Harry Green was strong and tall
Played on the football team...
Well, them high school halls can sure get rough
when you ain’t like everyone else...
Sounded like rumor or lie
Pontiac wrapped around an old oak tree
Vehicular suicide, Harry Green had died
Sometimes I wish I was still a boy
With life ahead of me
One day I’ll go back and say
a few words over Harry Green...
Harry Green was alright with me
Harry Green was alright by me”
To listen to the song, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEv2RsXo6qY
The gravemarker gives his full name, Harris Harding Green Jr., along with the birth and death dates. And Harry’s parents inscribed this onto the tombstone: “To Our Beloved Son Little Harry.” They are buried next to each other.
In Evergreen Cemetery, you will find the Green family buried in Section EG 4, Block 67NE, Space 1, under a large weeping willow tree. To navigate here, follow these directions: Starting from 901 SE 21st Ave., which is essentially where you will find the entrance gates for the cemetery, drive in on Magnolia, then take first left onto Azalea, a short thoroughfare that you follow to the end, then turn right onto Olive when it turns to the right. Follow Olive until you reach the intersections of Hibiscus and then Lily. The Harris family gravemarkers are on the left side of Olive, clustered near the weeping willow.
If you have a smartphone, you can use these mapped directions using Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/aRvmhBn62VtiX9Y7A
Alternatively, you can use Evergreen Cemetery’s website to navigate here. To do that, go to their website, found here:
https://www.thiswondrousplace.org/
Then click Burial Search in the upper right of the screen. Then type in the name of the person you are searching for.
If you are to visit this site, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite!
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Gravesites for three generations of pianist Benmont Tench's ancestors
Gravesites for three generations of pianist Benmont Tench's ancestors
Old Yard section, 401 SE 21st Ave, Gainesville, FL 32641
https://maps.app.goo.gl/noYyUYFHEjKnKLhW8
Located in the vast city-owned Evergreen Cemetery in Gainesville are gravesites with a Tom Petty connection. There is the grave of Tom Leadon, the guitarist from the Epics and Mudcrutch. There is the grave of Tom Petty’s maternal uncle who introduced him to Elvis Presley, which inspired him to become a musician. There is the grave of Harry Green, a fellow student at Gainesville High School who died in a car crash in 1966 and who would become the subject of a Tom Petty song. And there are the graves of three generations of the family of Benjamin Montmorency Tench III, or Benmont, the keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Mudcrutch. This includes Judge Tench, Benmont’s father, who Petty persuaded to allow his son to pursue a music career rather than return to college at Tulane University.
Benmont’s father, Benjamin Montmorency Tench II, an attorney and circuit court judge for nearly 50 years, was buried here in 2005. To learn more about his life, read the obituary from The Gainesville Sun, found at this Find a Grave website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91200655/benjamin-montmorency-tench
Benmont’s mother, Mary Catherine McInnis “Katie” Tench, an “avid painter,” was also buried in this cemetery, in 2003. To learn more about her life, read the obituary from The Gainesville Sun, found at this Find a Grave website: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91200580/mary_catherine_tench
Benmont’s paternal grandfather, Benjamin Montmorenci Tench Sr. (note difference in spelling of middle name with his offspring), was buried here in 1956. To see his place in the family tree, peruse the Tench genealogy here at the Find a Grave website:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27360650/benjamin_montmoranci_tench
Benmont’s paternal grandmother, Frances (Darby) Tench, was buried here in 1974. See her in the Tench family tree here at the Find a Grave website:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/91200714/frances_tench
Benmont’s paternal great-grandfather, John Walter Tench, was buried here in 1926. A Georgia native, he rose to the rank of Major during the Civil War before moving to Gainesville where he would spend the second half of his life. To learn more about him, see the obituary in a newspaper clipping from the Gainesville Daily Sun, found at this Find a Grave website:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27232371/john_walter_tench
Benmont’s paternal great-grandmother, Nancy Elizabeth (Dawkins) Tench, was buried here in 1928. To learn a bit about her, see the obituary in a newspaper clipping from the Gainesville Daily Sun, found at this Find a Grave website:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/27360578/nancy_elizabeth_tench
In Evergreen Cemetery, you will find the Tench family plots in the Old Yard section. Among the 16 designated plots, you will find Benmont’s parents, paternal grandparents, and paternal great-grandparents, as well as other relatives. You will find them in Section OY, Block B.M. Tench, located close to the southern border of the cemetery. To navigate here, follow these directions: Starting from 901 SE 21st Ave., which is essentially where you will find the entrance gates for the cemetery, drive in on Magnolia, then take first right onto Azalea, a short thoroughfare that you follow to the end, then turn left onto Holly. Continue driving straight as you head toward the cemetery’s southern border. Once Holly crosses Rose, know that you are close to your destination. About two-thirds of the way down Holly on the left, you will find the Tench family gravesites among many older trees.
If you have a smartphone, you can use these mapped directions using Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/76wLbWUUzLMCd1MD9
Alternatively, you can use Evergreen Cemetery’s website to navigate here. To do that, go to their website, found here:
https://www.thiswondrousplace.org/
Then click Burial Search in the upper right of the screen. Then type in the name of the person you are searching for.
If you are to visit here, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite!
Photo of the gravesite for Benmont Tench's father by Shawn Murphy
Grave of Tom Leadon, childhood friend; Epics, Mudcrutch bandmate
Childhood home Tom Leadon, member of Epics and Mudcrutch with Tom Petty
Evergreen 3 section, 901 SE 21st Ave, Gainesville, FL 32641
https://maps.app.goo.gl/TDhNJ6DMLqb1AXCQA
Located in Gainesville’s Evergreen Cemetery are graves with a connection to Tom Petty. There are the graves of Tom Petty’s maternal aunt and uncle – the person who introduced him to Elvis Presley and inspired him to be a musician. There is the grave of Harry Green, a fellow student at Gainesville High School who died in a car crash in 1966 and who would become the subject of a Tom Petty song. There are the graves of three generations of Benmont Tench’s family, including Judge Tench, who Petty persuaded to allow his son to pursue a music career rather than return to college at Tulane University. And there is the grave of Tom Leadon, a close childhood friend of Tom Petty who was in the Epics and Mudcrutch with Petty.
The Leadon family home (412 NE 13th Ave.) is four-tenths of a mile via streets to the Petty family home (1715 NE 6th Terrace), although it's likely half that distance when Leadon cut across Northeast Park (renamed Tom Petty Park in 2018). Tom and Tom met after the Leadons moved from California to Florida so that the father, Bernard, could start his job as an aerospace professor at the University of Florida.
The introduction came via his older brother Bernie (later a member of the Eagles), who had been in a band back in California with high school friend Chris Hillman (later a member of the Byrds). Bernie helped teach Tom to play guitar; he proved to be a quick study. One day after school, Bernie invited home two of his friends, Ricky and Rodney Rucker. While there, the 17-year-old Ruckers heard 13-year-old Tom Leadon playing. Impressed, they asked him to join the Epics. Tom got permission to do so from his parents, yet had to take a hiatus until his slipping grades rebounded. It was during this time that the Ruckers got 15-year-old Tom Petty to join the Epics. By then, Petty had made a name for himself as the bass player in the Sundowners, his first band.
The two Toms first met at the Petty home when Leadon walked there one day on summer vacation. In a backyard wooden warehouse attached to the house, the Epics were practicing the Byrds’ song “I’ll Feel a Whole Lot Better,” which he had learned from brother Bernie. On break, while Tom Petty was working out the song with drummer Dicky Underwood, Ricky Rucker requested that Tom Leadon help him perfect the chord progression. This led to Dicky and Ricky making the initial introduction of Leadon and Petty.
The next day, Leadon cut across the park to the Petty house in an attempt to get to know each other better. They wound up smoking cigarettes and listening to records on an enclosed porch. They continued to create a bond of friendship over music as they got together the next day, and on every day after that. On one of these days, Tom Petty persuaded his new friend to rejoin the Epics, which he did (presumably Leadon’s grades had improved by then so that he had his parents’ blessing).
“I was fascinated with Petty,” Leadon wrote in an overview of his upbringing in Gainesville and the city’s music scene at the time, which you can read in full here: http://www.gainesvillerockhistory.com/TLeadon.htm
For Warren Zanes’ 2015 book, Petty: A Biography, Leadon talked about his friendship with Petty. Leadon recalled that during their teen years he would often go along with Petty and his date to the movies. And when Leadon couldn’t make it that night, Petty would fill Leadon in on what he missed.
“He’d sit there and spend an hour, tell me the whole movie. The dialogue, the scenes in detail. He did it several times. I was amazed that he could remember it all. I think it was real to him in a way. Like he was experiencing it…” Leadon said. “And he had a way of looking you right in the eye, like he wanted to make sure you were getting it” (pg. 66).
At the time of Tom Petty’s death on Oct. 2, 2017, Leadon wrote an emotional remembrance song called “My Best Old Friend,” which he sang and posted on YouTube. He wrote most of the lyrics on the night that Petty died. Here are lyrical excerpts:
“Angels came and took you away
Much too soon, I have to say.
We should have had many more years
And many more songs…
How I wish we could hang out once more
Just like we did a thousand times before…
But you live on inside my heart
My best old friend…
Spread your wings to the clear blue sky
And fly up to the mighty god on high…”
To hear the full song, watch this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LhjB8jA6OQ
At the time of Tom Leadon’s death, Mike Campbell, who was also in Mudcrutch, tweeted this: “Tom Leadon was my deepest guitar soul brother, we spent countless hours playing acoustic guitars and teaching each other things. A kinder soul never walked the earth. I will always miss his spirit and generosity. Sleep peacefully my old friend.”
Thomas J. Leadon died March 22, 2023, at the age of 70. He is buried alongside his parents and one of his nine siblings. At this Find a Grave website entry you can learn more about the family genealogy and read his obituary that was published in The Gainesville Sun:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/266282617/thomas-j-leadon
In February 2025, the city-owned cemetery unveiled its Burial Search mapping portal so that anyone can search for someone interred here. There was extensive news media coverage about this at the time, including this report from WCJB, an ABC affiliate:
https://www.wcjb.com/2025/02/23/evergreen-cemetery-is-adding-major-transformations/
To utilize this search feature promoted by Evergreen Cemetery, go to their website, found here:
https://www.thiswondrousplace.org/
Then click Burial Search in the upper right of the screen. Then type in the name of the person you are searching for – such as Thomas Leadon, who we are informed is buried in Section EG3, Block C19, Space 4. This is the Evergreen 3 section.
To navigate here, follow these directions: Starting from 901 SE 21st Ave., which is essentially where you will find the entrance gates for the cemetery, drive in on Magnolia, then take first right onto Azalea, which you follow until its end, then turn left onto Holly, which you take nearly to the south end of the property. Once you cross Lily, know that you are close. The Leadon family gravesites are on the left, in between Lily and Rose.
If you have a smartphone, you can use these mapped directions using Google Maps:
https://maps.app.goo.gl/TV7VNV3NRLu98aLY7
If you are to visit this site, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite!
Photo by Shawn Murphy (taken March 2025)
Childhood home Tom Leadon, member of Epics and Mudcrutch with Tom Petty
Childhood home Tom Leadon, member of Epics and Mudcrutch with Tom Petty
412 NE 13th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/aTf9gxpHW3Y3Wp6e8
The childhood home of Bernie Leadon, later of the Eagles, and Tom Leadon, later of the Epics and Mudcrutch with Tom Petty, is hidden from street view along NE 13th Avenue, tucked behind a smaller house and lots of trees. The property abuts Tom Petty Park.
For Warren Zanes’ 2015 book, Petty: A Biography, Tom Leadon talked about his friendship with Petty. Leadon recalled that during their teen years he would often go along with Petty and his date to the movies. And when Leadon couldn’t make it that night, Petty would fill Leadon in on what he missed.
“He’d sit there and spend an hour, tell me the whole movie. The dialogue, the scenes in detail. He did it several times. I was amazed that he could remember it all. I think it was real to him in a way. Like he was experiencing it…” Leadon said. “And he had a way of looking you right in the eye, like he wanted to make sure you were getting it” (pg. 66).
At the time of Tom Petty’s death in 2017, Leadon wrote an emotional remembrance song called “My Best Old Friend,” which he sang and posted on YouTube. He wrote most of the lyrics on the night that Petty died. Here are lyrical excerpts:
“Angels came and took you away
Much too soon, I have to say.
We should have had many more years
And many more songs…
How I wish we could hang out once more
Just like we did a thousand times before…
But you live on inside my heart
My best old friend…
Spread your wings to the clear blue sky
And fly up to the mighty god on high…”
To hear the full song, watch this video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LhjB8jA6OQ
Tom Leadon died March 22, 2023, at the age of 70. His gravesite is in Evergreen Cemetery in Gainesville.
Should you go here, remember that private property must be treated with respect, so do not trespass.
Photo courtesy of Google Earth
Laurel Oak Inn, reportedly a Petty residence while in Mudcrutch
Laurel Oak Inn, reportedly a Petty residence while in Mudcrutch
Laurel Oak Inn, reportedly a Petty residence while in Mudcrutch
221 SE 7th St, Gainesville, FL 32601
https://maps.app.goo.gl/QHFENPAfzbRTz7cf7
Now an upscale bed and breakfast on SE 7th St. where there are other upscale places to say, The Laurel Oak Inn was once a modest two-story, four-apartment building in a partying section of the city called “Hippie Hill." This building is where Tom Petty was reported to have once lived with "another member of Mudcrutch” around 1969, according to this 2023 article in The Independent Florida Alligator (note that it doesn't state who this other Mudcrutch musician was): https://www.alligator.org/article/2023/09/gainesvillesbedandbreakfastdistrict
Petty was said to have lived in an apartment that is now the inn’s kitchen, according to this 2017 article in The Palm Beach Post: https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/entertainment/local/2017/10/03/tom-petty-rip-his-florida/7129426007/
Photo by Shawn Murphy