Tom Petty's Florida
UF Early Years: Good Booty
Plaza of the Americas, where Petty mowed lawns and played concerts
University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gJtpoBLUBupbEzmi8
Plaza of the Americas is the main campus green at the University of Florida. It is also where Tom Petty once mowed the lawn and performed in concert with Mudcrutch. The band included two future Heartbreakers: Mike Campbell and, starting in 1972, Benmont Tench.
The Halloween Masquerade Ball, which was held here in 1970, 1971 and 1972, included Mudcrutch in the lineup each year. They were organized by the 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.
During the third Ball, on Oct. 28, some audience members got out of control, prompting university authorities to attempt to end the show -- including a university official ripping the drum sticks from the 17-year-old hands of future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch, who was then in the band Road Turkey. UF disallowed the event on campus in 1973, so it was held on the west side of the city at Santa Fe Community College.
Future Mudcrutch members, drummer Randall Marsh and guitarist Mike Campbell, performed in a band called Dead or Alive in this Plaza on the Valentine's Day Love-In concert in 1970.
Image of poster from Gainesville Rock History website research that Marty Jourard created as a companion to his 2016 book, Music Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town
Lake Alice, where Tom Petty's car swam with the gators and snakes
2033 Mowry Rd, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/XAoBMx2pvxB8QBH18
Lake Alice, which is part of the broader Lake Alice Conservation Area, is located on the campus of the University of Florida. The lake, which is home to countless alligators, is where at age 16 Tom Petty accidentally drove his car, a white Chevrolet Impala, when he was supposed to be at a dance.
Keith Harben, Tom's neighborhood friend, told me that they were at a dance together that night at the American Legion Hall (513 University Ave.; now the Matheson History Museum). Tom, who had very recently received his driver's license, drove them that night in Tom's recently acquired car, which he got from his mother after she got a new car. During the dance, Tom left with a date in his car to go parking. Tom told Keith he'd be back to pick him up at the dance. Later that night when Tom hadn't shown up, Keith became worried. Eventually, Tom's mother showed up in the family car to pick up Keith -- with an embarrassed Tom riding along.
To read about this, see this Gainesville Sun article: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2017/10/08/tom-petty-rebel-and-friend/18354679007/
Years later, after Petty had dropped out of Santa Fe Junior College after successfully avoiding being drafted into the Vietnam War, he needed a daytime job to supplement the meager pay from early Mudcrutch gigs. So, he landed a job working for the University of Florida's grounds crew, where he initially was assigned to work at Lake Alice.
"I just changed the screens on a water purification system they'd set up in Lake Alice," Petty told Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography. "They were dredging the lake, trying to get all the water hyacinths out so there would be more oxygen in the water, which was filled with alligators, all kinds of wildlife. I had a few adventures with snakes out there" (pg. 53).
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Graham Pond, where Tom Petty as a 'wild man' fronted Epics in 1966
Delta Upsilon, where Petty's first band disbanded after a fistfight
21 Graham Area, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/hTnc53MaKoHZCQhk8
Graham Hall, a dormitory built in 1961 on the University of Florida campus, is where the Epics performed a concert in 1966 in a venue called Graham Pond. The band's lineup included Tom Petty, who had recently left his first band, the Sundowners. Tom played bass guitar and sang lead vocals along with Rodney Rucker.
Dickie Underwood from the Epics recalled Tom's performance on stage that night to Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography: "Petty was like a wild man, all over the stage. That was probably the first time he got to be the front guy. And he loved it. And so did the people watching us. We all said, 'This guy is good.'" (pg. 38)
Graham Pond was one of the nicer venues where the Epics performed, Petty recalled to Zanes.
"The Epics would just play down and dirty fucking places, a whole circuit of hick towns," Petty told Zanes.
Note also that Road Turkey (which included future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch) also performed a concert here in 1972 with a band named Flood, which I thank Marty Jourard, a member of Road Turkey, for noting to me.
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Delta Upsilon, where Petty's first band disbanded after a fistfight
Delta Upsilon, where Petty's first band disbanded after a fistfight
1814 W University Ave, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/5HLwkkSdfS2Vk92d8
Tom Petty's early bands, the Sundowners and the Epics, performed in several fraternities along Frat Row and elsewhere around campus. Petty told Warren Zanes for the 2015 Petty: The Biography that the Epics were "just a big jukebox for a drunken crowd" (pg. 51).
And it is in these frat houses where Petty said he partied, starting at age 15, while in these early bands.
In the 1985 "Southern Accents" documentary, which was made for MTV, he drives by, points out and talks about a skirmish at Delta Upsilon, which he says resulted in a broken nose. To watch the documentary, see the link below. But to see the Delta Upsilon clip, start watching at the 18:35 mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmVU3LOcLds
Keith Harben, Tom's close neighborhood friend and band manager of the Sundowners, told me that he recalled the night the band broke up. It happened as a result of a fist fight in this frat house between 16-year-old Tom and the band's drummer, Dennis Lee, which Keith witnessed.
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Pi Lambda Phi, where Mudcrutch played atop dining room tables
401 Fraternity Dr., Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/fTMbMGqzmCu3figz7
Mudcrutch played a concert at the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity house on the campus of the University of Florida during the 1972-73 academic year. The band’s stage was on top of pushed-together dining room tables, which was the frat’s typical set-up for the bands it hosted. Mudcrutch was paid $1,000, which would be about $7,300 in today’s dollars, according to the Consumer Price Index Inflation Calculator.
Keith Nelson, who joined the frat in 1972, shared with me pages from The Pearl, the magazine that the frat published yearly, noting that Pi Lambda Phi’s “social calendar” that year provided “an unsurpassed year of entertainment,” then summarizes it as follows: “The social program was highlighted by band parties, sorority socials, movies, pizza parties, and roller derby parties. ‘Eli,’ ‘Mudcrutch,’ and ‘Southern Comfort’ were just three of the great bands entertaining the Lammies and their dates” (pg. 18 of 1973 edition). Note that calendar dates of any of these concerts or events are not indicated in this year-end social calendar. While the precise date is unknown, someone who was there that night now remembers it happening in March of 1973, Nelson said.
Charles “Chuck” Modell, who served as the fraternity’s treasurer during the 1972-73 academic year, recalled this backstory of the frat brothers deciding upon Mudcrutch: “We usually had 2 or 3 band parties a quarter at a cost of $300-$400 each for a local band. We decided this quarter we would have only one really good one and set a budget of $1,000. The booking agent gave up two options – Tony Joe White, who was a national act with a hit song, ‘Polk Salad Annie,’ and then the top local act, Mudcrutch. I voted for Tony Joe White. I am grateful that I got outvoted by the (fraternity president).”
For the record, the president who made the decision to go with Mudcrutch was Juan Sostheim, Nelson noted.
Note that during the 1972-73 year, Pi Lambda Phi’s address would have been 15 Frat Row, although today the address is 401 Fraternity Dr. The university has over time renamed the thoroughfare from Frat Row to Fraternity Drive. And it has renumbered the addresses more than once.
Also note that there is currently another fraternity housed at 401 Fraternity Dr. because, according to Nelson, Pi Lambda Phi was suspended from campus for two years “but will be back” in fall 2025.
Photo by Shawn Murphy, taken March 2025.
WUFT studios, where Mudcrutch performed on camera in 1971
157 Gale Lemerand Dr, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rwAB6B2sPe5ABaoT9
Mudcrutch performed in a WUFT studio on the campus of the University of Florida circa January 1971 with Tom Petty on bass guitar, Randall Marsh on drums, Mike Campbell on guitar, and Tom Leadon on guitar; guesting on banjo was Bernie Leadon, who later became an Eagle.
The studios and office for WUFT, a PBS affiliate that is owned by the University of Florida, was then located inside Florida Field complex, the football arena that is today named Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The studios were on the first floor in Stadium West, in the north corner. In 1980, WUFT relocated to the newly constructed College of Journalism and Communications building, which was later named Weimer Hall. WUFT's transmitter is located on Northwest 53rd Avenue, in the woods just north of Devil’s Hillhopper Geological State Park.
David T. “Lefty” Wright videorecorded what is believed to be the earliest known film of the band. 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. The WUFT video can be watched here:
https://www.facebook.com/share/v/15859tQpYx/?mibextid=xfxF2i
Photo of Mudcrutch in the WUFT in 1971 by Red Slater
Univ. Auditorium, where Mudcrutch headlined with Lynyrd Skynyrd
333 Newell Dr, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/wpujcjc5PkpFnAxs6
University Auditorium was the site of several Mudcrutch concerts from 1971-1973, including one that had Lynyrd Skynyrd as the opening act.
This Aug. 21, 1971 concert is noteworthy not just because Mudcrutch topped the bill over Lynyrd Skynyrd, but also because it was “the only time in history that Tom Petty played on the same bill and stage as Lynyrd Skynyrd,” noted Jeff Goldstein, who then was involved with The Rose Community Center, which produced many concerts with regional and national acts in and around Gainesville during the early 1970s. Today he is the president and chair of the Gainesville Music History Foundation, Inc.
“Skynyrd drove in their van to the show from Jacksonville and played for $50!” Goldstein told me.
The Rose Community Center was a concert production enterprise formed by Bruce Nearon and Charles Ramirez, eventually assisted by Jeff Goldstein. The Rose Community differed from many concert promoters and nightclub owners in that they encouraged bands to play original versus cover songs. Goldstein said The Rose Community pushed bands to play at least 50 percent original songs for concerts.
“The more you can play originals, the more we’d like it,” Goldstein recalled for me.
This would have been welcomed news for Tom Petty and the other members of Mudcrutch, who had tired of being a human jukebox on the bar circuit, most notably during their weeks-long stints as the house band at Dub’s Steer Room (4562 NW 13th St.), where James Wayne “Dub” Thomas demanded that they play only upbeat covers that got customers dancing and drinking.
The Rose Community began by organizing and promoting shows by regional bands, but expanded to include national acts. Other musical acts that performed on the University Auditorium stage include (in alphabetical order): Blackfoot, Celebration, Cowboy, Dr. Hook, Carlos Montoya, John Jacob Niles, Paul Winter Consort, New Days Ahead, Peter, Paul and Mary, Power, Todd Rundgren and Ravi Shankar.
One of the local acts who performed at University Auditorium in 1972 was RGF, which had future Heartbreaker Ron Blair in the band.
Due to funding shortfalls from the state, University Auditorium was built in stages between 1922 and 1924. In 1925, the Anderson Memorial Organ was donated. In 1953, the Century Tower was added to commemorate the university’s centennial. In 1977, the auditorium was restored and expanded. The building is today in the University of Florida Campus Historic District. In 1989, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
University Auditorium was designed in the Collegiate Gothic style. It showcases an ornate vaulted ceiling, tall arched windows, and gargoyles and spires. About the gargoyles, Sarah Coates, a university archivist, noted in a Smathers Libraries Special Collections blog the following: “Most of the original features of the auditorium were left intact after the restoration, including the gargoyles carved into the ceiling arches above the stage. The gargoyles, although they appear to be carved from wood, are actually made of plaster. The four gargoyles represent a cigar-smoking engineer, a football player, a musician and a scholar.”
Having seen the inside of this 840-seat venue, I can say that the University of Florida’s website describing its performing arts venues has an apt description of this venue: “Stepping into the University Auditorium can be a little startling at first. Its immaculate hammerbeam ceiling and towering pipe organ make you feel as though you’ve journeyed into the 19th century.” While I have not been here for a concert, I’m certain that their notation about the quality of sound is accurate: “The magnificent acoustics and impressive surroundings make way for exciting performances.”
Since the University of Florida School of Music today holds recitals in this space, it is worth noting that it posthumously awarded Tom Petty an honorary Doctor of Music at the spring 2023 Doctoral Ceremony on May 4, 2023. Kevin Orr, director of the School of Music, said the following in his presentation speech: “We in the UF School of Music and College of the Arts are privileged to honor Tom Petty with an honorary doctorate degree in music, celebrating not only his extraordinary achievements as an artist but the ways in which his music has and continues to unite us as a community. Tom Petty’s tireless defense of the rights of performing artists, and his compassionate advocacy for the wellbeing of his neighbors in every community where he lived, are embodied by the students and faculty of the UF School of Music: commitment to one’s artistic passions, even in the face of challenges; the safeguarding of creative work to ensure unique and lasting impact; and indeed, the power of music to advance causes for the greater good in society.”
Listen to part of a Mudcrutch show that is noted to have been recorded in University Auditorium on Jan. 14, 1971, in this bootleg soundboard recording:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bl4VeidzKos
Photo of inside of auditorium by Shawn Murphy
The Rat, where 'Turd' debuted, later to be 'Here Comes My Girl'
205 Fletcher Dr, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/Q5RCzdpJrSECUxRFA
Mudcrutch first performed in concert a song that Tom Petty named “Turd” at The Rat, or The Rathskeller, on the campus of the University of Florida (205 Fletcher Dr., Gainesville). In late 1970 or early 1971, at a time when Mudcrutch had transformed into a jam band, playing originals and select covers, it crafted a long version of a nameless song, which was a mash-up of an original and a cover sample. It began as an instrumental, built around guitar licks crafted by Mike Campbell.
“We rehearsed it at the farm (Mudcrutch Farm, 2200 NW 45th Ave, Gainesville) one afternoon and it ran a full fifteen minutes,” writes Mike Campbell in his 2025 co-authored autobiography, Heartbreaker. ‘We added a few minutes of ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You’ (written by blues musician Willie Dixon) as a rave-up to end it. All it needed was a name. Tom Petty said, ‘Oh, I know what we can call it.’ We debuted ‘Turd’ at the Rat one night and the longhairs loved it. So we started closing all our shows with it” (pg. 91).
Years later, while Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers worked at a recording studio in Los Angeles on its third album, “Damn the Torpedoes,” the “Turd” song would resurface. With a Stan Lynch drum beat inspired by Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” added to the original “Turd,” and Petty coming up with lyrics to the guitar riffs that Campbell had written back at Mudcrutch Farm, the song “Here Comes My Girl” was born.
In 1969 The Rat opened in Johnson Hall, a multi-purpose building, as the first campus venue serving beer with food and live music – at that time German music. The German beer hall theme was short-lived, though, traded out for a 700-capacity concert venue serving beer. The building burned down in 1987 after a grease fire started in a food service kitchen. Today you will find the Academic Advising Center here.
Mudcrutch would go on to play here several times in 1971, 1972 and 1973. Road Turkey (including future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch) and RGF (including future Heartbreaker Ron Blair) also performed here during these years.
The Rat’s lineup of musical acts over its history was vast. Among the many acts were the Allman Brothers Band in 1970, Lynyrd Skynyrd (then spelled Lynard Skynard) in 1971 and 1972, and U2 in 1981. The Box Tops, Dion, Blues Image, Goose Creek Symphony, and Bette Midler, among many others, also performed here.
Photo courtesy of the University of Florida Digital Collections at the George A. Smathers Libraries
The Union, where bands with future Heartbreakers played in and outside
686 Museum Rd, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JdAL8HfdJi5eBZQNA
Formerly known at the Student Union, but commonly referred to as The Union when it opened in 1967, inside this building was the site of many concerts by many local bands, including those in 1970 and 1971 concerts by RGF (which included future Heartbreaker Ron Blair).
Extending out from the south side of the building is what was called in 1971 the South Terrace (today this is called the Reitz Union Amphitheater, with the building using the same J. Wayne Reitz Union moniker). It was the site of a concert by Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty and Mike Campbell) the afternoon of Feb. 27, 1971.
The North Lawn, which runs between the Student Union to the southwest and The Hub to the northeast, was also the site of concerts by Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch) in 1974. These concerts were held on the North Lawn in between the Union and Weimer Hall to the north.
Photo courtesy of the University of Florida
The Union's South Terrace, where Mudcrutch played outdoors in 1971
South side of Reitz Union, 686 Museum Rd, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/rJTBA9kFCcfaQbbi8
When the Student Union, or simply the Union, opened in 1967 it soon began hosting concerts by local bands inside and outside of this campus hub. Among them was Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty and Mike Campbell) the afternoon of Feb. 27, 1971. The band performed in the outdoor amphitheater called the South Terrace that extends out from the south side of the building.
Today the Student Union is called the J. Wayne Reitz Union, while the terrace is called the Reitz Union Amphitheater.
In 1974, on the North Lawn, which runs between the Student Union to the southwest and The Hub to the northeast, Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch) played at least twice. These concerts were held on the North Lawn in between the Union and Weimer Hall to the north.
Indoors, in 1970 and 1971, were held concerts by RGF (which included future Heartbreaker Ron Blair).
Photo by Shawn Murphy (taken March 2025)
The Hub, where Mudcrutch and Road Turkey played live shows
The North Lawn, where Mudcrutch played a free outdoor concert in '73
1765 Stadium Rd, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/g7b7k4KoLK9GPdpb7
Formerly known at the Student Services Building, but commonly referred to as The Hub when it opened in 1950. Inside The Hub was the site of numerous concerts by local bands in the early 1970s, including Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench).
Also performing here was Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch).
Photo by Shawn Murphy
The North Lawn, where Mudcrutch played a free outdoor concert in '73
The North Lawn, where Mudcrutch played a free outdoor concert in '73
North Lawn behind The Hub, 1765 Stadium Rd, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/JyNy41Dicvfih3JV8
On the campus of the University of Florida is located the North Lawn, which runs between The Hub to the northeast and the Reitz Student Union to the southwest. It was the site of a 1973 concert by Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench). The stage was set up behind The Hub. No admission was charged for this show.
Photo by Shawn Murphy
Hume Hall, where Mike Campbell roomed and Mudcrutch jammed
Field where Dead or Alive, with Campbell and Marsh, played concert
Field where Dead or Alive, with Campbell and Marsh, played concert
2129 Museum Rd, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/6LYN7FYLu7R6JaK38
The original Hume Hall, a dormitory, was built on the University of Florida campus in 1958. Ten years later, Mike Campbell roomed here as a freshman. And just off the Greyhound from his hometown of Jacksonville, he was thrilled to be in Gainesville, despite not getting accepted into the UF School of Music.
“I don’t know what I thought a college would look like,” Campbell wrote in his 2025 autobiography, Heartbreaker. “I definitely didn’t think it would look like it did. Because the University of Florida at Gainesville looked like a paradise. Under the swaying fronds of tall Euterpe palms, around wide, winding pathways exploding with bougainvillea and honeysuckle, in sun-drenched plazas with glistening crystal fountains, past ponds full of fat, lazy alligators, the prettiest girls I had ever seen walked laughing, or threw Frisbees to one another, or laid in the grass reading. The air smelled like gardenia and weed. Dudes with acoustic guitars strummed C chords to semicircles of friends. Red convertible Mustangs full of lake-bound beauties roared past with water skis jutting from the back seat. I had gotten on a bus in Jacksonville and stepped off it in ‘Surf City’” (pg. 32).
Yet Campbell needed to get over his ongoing social anxiety.
“I was so happy to be there, but I didn’t know how to talk to other kids,” Campbell wrote in his book. “I’d get so nervous, I wouldn’t know how to answer the simplest questions” (pg. 32).
His anxiety was decreased, though, by his Hume Hall neighbor, Hal.
“I was standing outside my dorm room, carrying my guitar, when I heard someone say, hey man. I turned. The door across the hall was open. A suntanned kid with an open shirt and blond hair down to his shoulders sat at his desk. I looked in at him,” Campbell recalled. “Both of his knees jumped under the desk. A box of Frosted Flakes and a bowl of sugar sat in front of him. He spooned a scoop of cereal into his mouth, and before he chewed it, he scooped in a spoonful of sugar too” (pg. 33).
Campbell’s description of his dorm neighbor across the hall is rich: “Hal Maull was a tall, blond handsome motormouth surfer kid from Boca Raton. He was tan and ripped from swimming in the ocean, and all those hours waiting for waves had given him the time to formulate opinions on just about everything. Complex, detailed opinions that spiraled into hysterical, wordy tangles of half-remembered facts, strange connections and tall tales, about life, politics, drugs, girls, the war, civil rights, philosophy, music, religion, the South, whatever. He was funny, encouraging, and easy to hang out with. And before I knew it, we were hanging out all the time. He would keep me laughing, walking around the campus, listening to him pontificate. And when there were girls around, standing next to him was like being invisible. I didn’t have to worry about being cool, or what to say, because he was cool enough for both of us” (pgs. 33-34).
Soon after meeting, Hal gives Mike some sage advice for his college years: First, let your hair grow long. Second, take acid. And third, start a band. Campbell notes that he soon managed to check off all those boxes at UF, although in band-acid-hair order.
Later, in October 1973, a three-band concert was held here. Topping that bill was White Witch, followed by New Days Ahead, then Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty, Mike Campbell and Benmont Tench).
Photo of original dorm courtesy of UF Libraries
Field where Dead or Alive, with Campbell and Marsh, played concert
Field where Dead or Alive, with Campbell and Marsh, played concert
Field where Dead or Alive, with Campbell and Marsh, played concert
Sports/Flavet Field, Museum Road, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32603
https://maps.app.goo.gl/1GD86cjNDdTPx5X76
Dead or Alive – a three-piece band composed of Mike Campbell, Randall Marsh and Hal Maull – played here in 1969. The stage, located across from Hume Hall where Campbell and Maull lived, was set up behind Simpson, Graham and Trusler halls – an area that today is part of the Sports Field and Flavet Field.
As it happens, all three dorms are slated to be razed and replaced, according to this April 2025 article in the Florida Alligator newspaper:
John Binkov remembers seeing Dead or Alive here. In a discussion thread on Gainesville Rock History, a Facebook group, Binkov recalled that the show was “kinda psychedelic.”
During their short existence, Dead or Alive played other campus venues, mostly notably Plaza of the Americas where many other bands played. Among those was eventually Mudcrutch (with Mike Campbell, Randall Marsh and Tom Petty) and Road Turkey (with Stan Lynch).
As for the origin story of Dead or Alive, Mike Campell wrote about this in his 2025 autobiography, Heartbreaker. Soon after Campbell arrived on campus for his freshman year in the fall of 1968, just off the bus from Jacksonville, he met Maull, a surfer from Boca Raton, in Hume Hall. Maull, who lived across the hall, gave Campbell some advice for his college years: First, let your hair grow long. Second, take acid. And third, start a band. Campbell notes that he soon managed to check off all those boxes at UF, although in band-acid-hair order (pg. 34).
When Maull gave Campbell this advice about starting a band, he offered to play bass. When Campbell pointed out that he didn’t play bass, Maull replied: “How hard could it be to play bass? I just built one” (pg. 34). When Campbell inquired about making a bass guitar from scratch, Maull explained that he had a knack for woodworking, so had built one – strings and all. So, to form a band, just a drummer was needed.
Campbell soon discovered the oasis of Lipham Music (1010 N Main St.), a magnet for Gainesville’s musicians. One day when browsing the guitars hanging from its walls, Campbell spotted an index card on a corkboard that read: “Drummer looking for a band. Beatles Stones Hendrix Cream.” Along with a phone number, there was a first name given: “Randall.”
Campbell handed off the card to Maull, who made the call to Randall Marsh. Soon they were practicing. While Campbell and Marsh were already talented musicians who got better with each practice, Maull managed to quickly self-taught the basics on bass.
“Hal succeeded in teaching himself some rudimentary bass, but mostly, Hal looked great – with long blond hair like John Mayall, and enough of a voice underneath the clatter to at least look like we had a singer,” Campbell wrote (pg. 40). “He wasn’t much of a bass player, but he could hold down the root notes in time while Randall and I improvised.”
Nevertheless, a band was formed.
“We called ourselves Dead or Alive and we started jamming by the fountains of the Plaza of the Americas on campus,” Campbell wrote (pg. 40). The university provided the PA, and we could sign up for a slot and play for an hour or two under the clear-blue Florida skies, while people laid in the grass and smoked joints and listened. Whenever we played there, I looked out at a whole crowd of kids lazing in the grass, and the breeze smelled like weed and honeysuckle. Jacksonville seemed like it was a million miles away.”
Soon Maull “moved into the attic bedroom of a hippie house downtown,” Campbell recalls (pg. 41). The band would meet here to practice. “We’d smoke thin toothpick joints rolled from light dime bags of a strain of cheap, potent local weed called Gainesville Green and play for hours.”
Near the end of Campbell’s freshman year, he, Maull and Marsh took acid and smoked joints together in this hippie house, according to Campbell. As the drugs took effect, Maull said: “We gotta play. Right now” (pg. 42). Dead or Alive began this drug-fueled practice playing “The Pusher” by Steppenwolf. Maull sang its opening lyrics:
“You know I've smoked a lot of grass
O Lord, I’ve popped a lot of pills,
But I never touched nothin’
That my spirit could kill.
You know, I’ve seen a lot of people walkin’ ‘round
With tombstones in their eyes,
But the pusher don't care
Ah, if you live or if you die.
God damn, the pusher.”
About this first-time-on-acid experience, Campbell wrote about its effects on him, which turned out to give him “a deep sense of well-being and happiness” (pg. 41). And he wrote about the groove that the band found at that moment.
“We jammed for hours,” Campbell wrote (pg. 42). “At one point, somehow, we all slowed to a crawl, and played softer, then softer, then slower. In perfect time and tune with one another, we built it back up. There were no signals or nods. We just somehow all knew. It was like we were talking with music.”
Dead or Alive played periodically at the Plaza of the Americas, a large grassy public space in front of the George A. Smathers Libraries, “for stoned kids who dug what we did because they didn’t have to pay much attention to it,” Campbell wrote (pg. 44). At a Valentine’s Day multi-band concert in 1970 – at which Dead or Alive shared the bill with The Two Shades of Soul, Emergency Exit, and Celebration – an estimated 1,000 students showed up for the eight-hour “love-in,” as reported by the Florida Alligator student newspaper.
As reported by Marty Jourard in his 2016 book Everywhere: The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town, Marsh said about the band: “We basically were a psychedelic jam band. We’d do a little bit of a song, and then do these long jams, playing at the Plaza.”
But when Dead or Alive debuted their psychedelic jams with a concert in Bushnell, Marsh’s home town 70 miles south of Gainesville, in a rented hall, attendance was sparse.
At one point toward the end of the 1968-69 academic year, Maull left the downtown hippie house in part because of neighbor complaints about the loud music coming from the band practices. Campbell wrote that Maull found “a crumbling wood-frame farmhouse with a bowing tin roof and walls that leaned like four winos trying to hold one another up” (pg. 46). The house on the heavily wooded 10-acre property at the end of a dirt road had no hot water, yet plenty of rusty cold water. There was no heat and it had a broken fridge. “It was perfect,” Campbell wrote, for $75 a month.
“Hal, Randall and I split the rent three ways and each got a bedroom,” Campbell wrote. “Sometimes our buddy Red Slater stayed in the gutted, spidery laundry room, not much bigger than a utility closet. Randall kept his drums up in the living room and we played for hours, all day and all night, as loud as we wanted.”
Dead or Alive disbanded at the end of the academic year, in the spring of 1969, when Maull decided to drop out of college and sail to Hawaii. Campbell notes in his book that “he spent the rest of his life as a surfer there” (pg. 48).
The decrepit farmhouse would soon be called Mudcrutch Farm (2203 NW 45th Ave.) when Mudcrutch formed. That band formation came about when Marsh noticed an advertisement for a drummer on the corkboard at Lipham Music. Marsh responded to the ad and invited the ad-poster – the early Mudcrutch lineup of Tom Petty, Tom Leadon and Jim Lenahan – to come out to their then-rural place for tryouts. After Marsh had earned a spot in the band, Campbell and his Japanese guitar managed to get an impromptu tryout, which he nailed with his rendition of Chuck Berry’s “Johnny B. Goode.”
Aerial view of area where Dead or Alive played courtesy of Google Maps
Museum Terrace, where Tom Petty played drums for Mudcrutch in '71
1659 Museum Rd, Gainesville, FL 32611
https://maps.app.goo.gl/zvrXnHx2cEEo24A39
On Oct. 21, 1971, Mudcrutch (with future Heartbreakers Tom Petty and Mike Campbell) and Road Turkey (with future Heartbreaker Stan Lynch), as the opening band, performed at the Florida Museum of Natural History on the back terrace, on the south side of the building. It was at this concert that Mudcrutch bassist Tom Petty had to play drums after Randall Marsh did not show up, according to Marty McKnew, a friend of Mike Campbell who then served as the band's "unpaid roadie," using a van from his job at a downtown flower shop to drive the band and its equipment to various gigs in and around Gainesville.
As the band's equipment was being set up on the back patio for the concert at this University of Florida location, which then served as an event venue, there was no sign of Randall Marsh, so a telephone was located to call him at his home in Bushnell, about 75 miles south of Gainesville.
He "just spaced out and forgot about it," McKnew told me. "Tom was pretty upset and someone called Randall, it might have been me. He got there very late and Tom sat in on the drums but I don't remember who played bass, probably Tom Leadon."
Note that while the museum is today located at 3215 Hull Road on campus, it was then located at Dickinson Hall, a building that today is used for housing its expansive collections and for its scientific research. It is closed to the public.
Photo of the back terrace of Dickinson Hall, where the 1971 Mudcrutch concert was held, by Shawn Murphy
Florida Gym, where Mike Campbell snuck in to see Janis Joplin in 1970
Stadium Rd, Gainesville, FL 32608
https://maps.app.goo.gl/EAhFscPEMqfw1Luq7
On May 29, 1970, Janis Joplin performed inside the Florida Gymnasium on the campus of the University of Florida. It was at this concert that Mudcrutch guitarist Mike Campbell and friend Marty McKnew, both without tickets and short on cash, managed to sneak into the building through a side door, seeing her perform, McKnew told me. Janis Joplin died from a heroin overdose in Los Angeles a little more than four months later. She was 27 years old.
Florida Gym, or Alligator Alley as it was commonly known, featured a monumental lineup of national acts for two decades, starting in the early 1960s. While not an exhaustive list, here are some of the eclectic performers who took the stage here, listed in alphabetical order: The Allman Brothers Band, America, The Association, Joan Baez, Count Basie, The Beach Boys, Pat Benatar, Blondie, Blues Image, James Brown, Jimmy Buffet, George Carlin, The Carpenters, Johnny Cash, The Chamber Brothers, Harry Chapin, Ray Charles, Crosby and Nash, Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Al DiMeola, Dion, The Doobie Brothers, The Drifters, Earl Scruggs Revue, Ferrante and Teicher, The 5th Dimension, The Four Tops, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Leslie Gore, Grand Funk Railroad, The Guess Who, Richie Havens, Ian & Sylvia, Ike and Tina Turner, Isaac Hayes, The Hollies, J. Geils Band, Elton John, Jack Jones, B.B. King, The Lettermen, Little Anthony and the Imperials, Loggins and Messina, Kenny Loggins, Taj Mahal, Dave Mason, John Mayall, Don McLean, Peter Nero, Pacific Gas & Electric; Peter, Paul and Mary; Wilson Pickett, The Platters, Player, The Ramones, Buddy Rich, Johnny Rivers, Rockpile, Tom Rush, Leon Russell, REO Speedwagon, The Righteous Brothers, Seals and Crofts, John Sebastian, Simon and Garfunkel, The Spinners, Stephen Stills, The Supremes, Sweetwater, James Taylor, Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes, The Temptations, Rufus Thomas, Vanilla Fudge, Flip Wilson, Stevie Wonder, Yes, and Frank Zappa.
The Grateful Dead was the last band to perform here, on Nov. 29, 1980.
Florida Gym, as it was commonly known, opened in 1949 as a 7,000-seat sports and entertainment venue. It served as the home court for the university’s men’s basketball team, as well as for other indoor sports teams, for more than 30 years. The Stephen C. O’Connell Center was constructed in 1980 and this building was repurposed for the College of Health and Human Performance. To learn more, go here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Gymnasium
Photo by Shawn Murphy