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The Latest Breaking News from Mike Campbell

“Strats had that great shape, Les Pauls have those beautiful curves, but the Telecaster always looked like it was thrown together with leftover parts!” Mike Campbell on what makes the Telecaster magic (even if he thinks they’re kinda ugly)

The former Heartbreaker and Dirty Knobs main man on his lifelong love affair with the world's first mass-produced electric guitar

Guitar World

“If James Burton recorded that song one more time, it would not have sounded the same. They caught lightning in a bottle”: An all-star guitar panel choose their Telecaster Mount Rushmore – its greatest players, their greatest tracks

Pros pick their favorite Tele riffs and solos and decide who should be carved into that massive “Telecaster Mount Rushmore” that exists only in our deranged minds

Guitar World

“I was set up in the garage with Rick Rubin. Tom picked up my Broadcaster. He just started playing that rhythm. That’s what ended up on the record”: Mike Campbell on 5 classic Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tracks recorded with his Fender Broadcaster

Campbell's 1951 Broadcaster was integral to that Heartbreakers sound – no matter who was playing it

Guitar World

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“I played that lick and went home. An hour later, the phone rang. Tom said, ‘You’ve got to come back. We want to put that lick you played at the front of the song’”: How Mike Campbell's throwaway lick shaped a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers classic

Campbell's guitar noodling and Petty's ear for a good hook resulted in their first Top 40 hit

Guitar World

“I miss my brother… But I’d always had it in the back of my mind that if the Heartbreakers ever retired, I would make this my purpose”: Mike Campbell on finding a new life in The Dirty Knobs, and why we should listen to what our guitars are telling us

With a title track inspired by Brian Wilson, Mission of Mercy is the sound of Campbell piecing his heart – and ours – back together again

Guitar World

“Jeff said, ‘That’s a really good riff but there’s one chord too many.’ So I cut it back a chord and then – just to amuse Jeff, honestly – I sang that first verse”: How Tom Petty created his most famous song – with a little help from Jeff Lynne

MusicRadar

“It’s like Shangri-La. It’s an oasis for guitar players”: You can now watch the Norman’s Rare Guitars documentary online for free

Featuring all-star interviews and crazy stories, the film charts the rise of Norman Harris’ legendary store and the vintage guitar market boom

Guitar World

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“I didn’t like it, but Tom said, ‘No, it’s great. Now you’ve got to double it’”: Mike Campbell on the riff he wanted to ditch – but Tom Petty made him double down

Campbell was forced to get creative to make a Heartbreakers classic

Guitar World

“It was just in my closet, and one day I pulled it out, turned it on, and thought, ‘Wow… this is a sound that I’ve been missing’”: How Mike Campbell ended up reconnecting with a classic piece of Heartbreakers gear

Turns out, the missing piece of his ideal tone was closer than he thought...

Guitar World

"They refused it and told me, either change the beat, change the tempo, take the talking out, take the whistling out, or we won't release it”: How Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo had to fight to release their 1983 classic

Love Is a Battlefield introduced the Linn Drum into mainstream rock

MusicRadar

“A prototype given to George Harrison was prominently featured in the Beatles’ A Hard Day’s Night, inspiring insatiable lust for the electric 12”: How the Rickenbacker 360/12 revolutionized the sound of ’60s guitar

Introduced in 1964, the jangle of the 12-string Ricky inspired generations of players, with the likes of TomPetty, Mike Campbell and Johnny Marr all making it their own

Guitar World

“The Telecaster is like the heart and soul of rock and roll music”: Fender celebrates 75 years of the electric guitar that started it all with limited edition collection

The 75th Anniversary Telecaster Collection features five stunning takes on the first mass-produced solidbody electric

MusicRadar

"She steps in the room with us, a rock'n'roll band that's fronted by a guy she adores": How a song from Tom Petty's reject pile unwittingly became the massive hit single that launched a Fleetwood Mac icon's solo career

Unhappy with Fleetwood Mac's Tusk album, Stevie Nicks gravitated towards a band whose music she preferred

Louder

“We all blamed each other, but we never doubted the song”: It took Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers more than 100 takes to nail one of their greatest songs – and it still ended up being “an albatross” around their necks

When Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers teamed up with a hotshot new producer for a 1979 classic, it nearly broke the band

Louder

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Guitar World

“That’s all I had for weeks… People started banging on the wall – ‘Don’t play that anymore!’” Tom Petty wanted to turn a catchy riff into a much-needed hit. He didn't stop playing it until he did

Under pressure to follow up his multi-platinum breakthrough, Damn the Torpedoes, with another best-selling album, Petty wanted a lead single “that had a little lick from the beginning”. That lick proved to be a stubborn one

Guitar World

“It took me a few years to figure out that if you’re going to play Fender guitars, you play with Fender amps”: Ryan Hedgecock stuck to his own creative path, even when Lone Justice were torn apart

The country crossover pioneer’s desire to explore the “indigenous sound of LA” has never left him – and it’s bringing about a full-circle moment as he reactivates Parlor James and plans a hardcore cowpunk solo record

Guitar World

“The way we played guitar, the way I voiced against Tom, we found it on American Girl. I thought, ‘This is us.’ Those two guitars helped make it happen”: Mike Campbell on how his lifelong musical connection with Tom Petty was forged in a matter of days

As he celebrates the release of his memoir, Heartbreaker, Tom Petty’s right-hand man and dear friend reflects on a career’s worth of enduring hits, and why he “never doubted the music”

Salon

The sacred duty of playing the hits

Founding members of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Benmont Tench and Mike Campbell, hold the notes of memory

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Louder

“I had no inkling Tom would go so early. I always wondered who would go first. I’m still grieving”: Mike Campbell on life as Tom Petty’s right hand man and the highs and lows of being a Heartbreaker

The life and times of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers guitarist Mike Campbell

Guitar World

“Geffen thought we were too young to write our own songs. Bob Dylan wrote a song, Bruce Springsteen had a song”: Ryan Hedgecock on Lone Justice's brief but fierce ’80s run – and how Tom Petty and Mike Campbell ended up penning a song on their debut

The promising young band were the subject of a flurry of publicity after they were signed to Geffen, but a behind-the-scenes mismatch in vision led to the outfit's premature demise

Guitar World

“Tom listened to it and said, ‘It sounds kind of jazzy.’ I went back and changed the chorus, and that’s the version I played for Don”: Mike Campbell on writing The Boys of Summer with Don Henley – after Tom Petty passed on it

Campbell made an all-important change to the song before handing it over to Henley

Guitar World

“I play the double-neck and trade solos with Joe Walsh on Hotel California. It’s a bit terrifying, but it’s the greatest thing ever”: Chris Holt landed The Eagles without an audition – but his gigs with Mike Campbell and Don Henley might have helped

Former Don Henley sideman has a multi-amp rig when he plays with Mike Campbell, and a stipped down in-ears-only setup for the Sphere – but he always has 12 guitars standing by

Guitar World

“Norm was like, ‘Do you want to play with Joe?’ Before I could say ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ he brings Joe over and tells him, ‘Jason wants to play a set’”: Jason Sinay on jamming with Joe Bonamassa – and why his early sessions with Mike Campbell were a struggle

The session veteran recalls jamming with Neil Young, Keith Richards and Bob Weir – and why he thought he’d initially blown the gig with the Heartbreaker’s solo band

Guitar World

“He mostly played bass. I had a ’64 Strat that I got for $200. Tom didn’t really have a good electric, so I let him use that one”: How Mike Campbell and Tom Petty developed their Heartbreakers sound – with the help of some choice early gear picks

Though Petty was in need of a decent electric, the two Heartbreakers quickly landed on a sound that would define their guitar partnership

Louder

"It could have been the end, but it became a new beginning": Fleetwood Mac and the game-changing arrival of Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks - only in the new issue of Classic Rock

Also in this issue: Joe Walsh, Don Airey, Those Damn Crows, Pete Townshend, Lollapalooza 92, Luke Spiller, Mike Campbell, Yngwie Malmsteen, Samantha Fish and more

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