Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' stolen guitars recovered

This post has been updated. See details at the bottom.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ stolen guitars have been located and an arrest has been made, according to our sister blog L.A. Now, but full details won’t be released until 3 p.m. today at a press conference scheduled by the Culver City Police Department.

Last week the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band showed up to rehearse at a Culver City soundstage for a new tour that gets under way this week, only to discover that five electric guitars were missing: two belonging to Petty, one that was guitarist Mike Campbell’s, one of Scott Thurston’s and one from bassist Ron Blair.

Petty issued a $7,500 no-questions-asked reward for the return of the instruments. The band also posted photos and detailed descriptions of the missing guitars on the group's official website.

Fans quickly responded with outpourings of sympathy as well as many calls for harsh consequences for those responsible.

“Catch thieves and hang ‘em at the nearest tree,” Times reader Ken Smith posted after Pop & Hiss reported the theft.

Several fans posted variations on that theme on Petty’s own website, others offering suggestions on how the instruments might be tracked and retrieved. One fan from Colorado even said he’d contribute an extra $250 to bolster the reward.

“Come on everyone! Kick in some money to get some attention from the SOB's that did this,” David Taylor wrote.

Petty’s manager told Pop & Hiss the group will withhold comment until today’s press conference.

[Update at 5:11 p.m.: At the press conference, Culver City police said a man who worked as a private security guard at the Culver Studios soundstage was arrested in connection with the thefts. He was identified as Daryl Emmette Washington, 51, of Los Angeles. The guitars are being returned to Petty and the band, who are on their way to start their tour Wednesday in Colorado. Police Chief Don Pedersen said the suspect had pawned one of the guitars for $250. The collection was valued at more than $100,000. In a statement posted on his web site after the news conference, Petty said, "I am extremely grateful to the Culver City Police Department for a job well done and touched by the outpouring of good wishes and concern from our fans and friends."

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Photo of Heartbreakers (l-r): Benmont Tench, Mike Campbell and Tom Petty during the group's benefit concert performance for KCSN-FM (88.5) in Northridge last fall. Credit: Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times.

Five guitars stolen from Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers

How do you break the heart of a Heartbreaker? Steal his guitar. Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers showed up to rehearse for a new tour slated to get rolling Wednesday in Colorado only to find that thieves had swiped five of their electric guitars.

Photos have been posted at the band’s official website with detailed descriptions, including serial numbers, and Petty is offering a $7,500 no-questions-asked reward in hopes of having them returned quickly.

The stolen instruments include Petty’s 1967 blond 12-string Rickenbacker (pictured at right) and his Gibson SG TVJunior, Mike Campbell’s blue Dusenberg Mike Campbell model, Ron Blair’s Fender Broadcaster and Scott Thurston’s 1967 Epiphone Sheridan.

A statement on Petty’s website said police in Culver City, where the band was rehearsing, are investigating. Anyone with information about the guitars can send it to StolenGuitars@TomPetty.com.

Not among the stolen instruments is the iconic red Rickenbacker electric used on the cover of the band's breakthrough 1979 album "Damn the Torpedoes," which Campbell scored off a Fullerton musician who put it up for sale in a Recycler ad.

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Live: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers bring a rebel spirit

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— Randy Lewis

Photo of Tom Petty on tour in 2008. Credit: Jason DeCrow / Associated Press.

Live: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers bring a rebel spirit

Tom Petty and his Heartbreakers band tie in last week's firing of longtime L.A. DJ Jim Ladd as part of the anti-indie pressures in radio today.

How's this for a screenplay idea?

Rock superstar with a soft spot for underdogs swoops in to headline a benefit for an idealistically ambitious but woefully underfunded public radio station in the same week that corporate overlords at a bottom-line-conscious media conglomerate fire a beloved veteran DJ at a crosstown station -- the same iconoclastic DJ who had championed the rock star when he was a nobody.

It sounds laughable even by Hollywood standards if things hadn't played out exactly that way this past week leading to Saturday and Sunday's fundraising shows Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers played for tiny Cal State Northridge-based station KCSN-FM (88.5).

PHOTOS: Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

After Atlanta-based Cumulus Media acquired Citadel Broadcasting and laid off dozens of Citadel employees last week, including L.A. rock radio stalwart Jim Ladd from his longtime post at KLOS-FM (95.5), both Petty and KCSN program director Sky Daniels pounced on the news Saturday as further evidence of why fans need to support a rock radio station with an independent voice.

"I should say something about why were doing this," the 61-year-old Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member told onlookers who had pledged support to KCSN for the chance to see him and the Heartbreakers in the university's intimate 500-seat theater. "Jim Ladd was fired this week," Petty said, referring to the man he has cited as an inspiration for the title character in his 2002 concept album "The Last DJ" and who was slated to appear at Petty's second KCSN benefit Sunday night at the campus' Performing Arts Theater. "What is so tragic about what is going on is that we're seeing acts breeded by record companies to go on game shows and win.

"We're all for KCSN," he said. "We think people can understand a lot of different kinds of music. When we started out, people in radio took a chance on this band, and I'll tell you what -- we would not have won on ‘American Idol.'"

Tom Petty & Heartbreakers add second show for KCSN-FM benefit* (Updated)

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers will play a second small-scale show this weekend at a 500-seat theater in Northridge as a benefit for public radio station KCSN-FM (88.5).

“The reaction has been insane,” KCSN program director Sky Daniels told Pop & Hiss over the weekend, referring to the initial Oct. 29 show Petty and the band announced last week as a fundraiser during the station’s fall pledge drive. Pairs of tickets were being offered to callers who pledged $150 or more during random “cue to call” announcements on the air. “30 callers for every pair [from] all over the globe," Daniels wrote in an e-mail. "People are pledging from Norway, Canada, Boston, Orlando, etc. -- all willing to fly here to see Tom in this small setting.”

Update Oct. 25 at 12:37 p.m: An earlier version of this post gave the date of the first Tom Petty show as Oct. 28. It is Saturday, Oct. 29.

The second show will take place Oct. 30 in the 500-seat Performance Theater at Cal State Northridge. Tickets for the second show were largely distributed over the weekend during additional “cue to call” announcements, but orchestra pit tickets will continue to be available via an auction  running through 5 p.m. Tuesday on the station’s website.

“For them to selflessly want to perform this show speaks volumes for their love of music, and their willingness to support KCSN's effort to build a radio station devoted to breaking new artists, supporting local artists and respecting great legacy artists,” Daniels said in a statement. “Tom and the Heartbreakers recognized the overwhelming demand and wanted to give more fans a chance to see them in this intimate hall, as well as help KCSN and public radio."

In addition to the Petty concerts, KCSN's pledge drive is auctioning off autographed guitars signed by superstar acts including U2, Mick Jagger, Coldplay, Bob Seger, Sheryl Crow and Melissa Etheridge.

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Photo of Tom Petty during a 2008 performance with the Heartbreakers at the Hollywood Bowl. Credit: Los Angeles Times. 

Tom Petty on lending a hand to underdog radio station KCSN-FM* [Updated]

“Even the losers,” Tom Petty sang in his 1979 song by that title, “get lucky sometimes.”

That tune could become a theme song at radio station KCSN-FM (88.5) at Cal State Northridge, where Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member Petty, a longtime champion of underdogs of every stripe, and his band the Heartbreakers will play at an Oct. 29 benefit for which tickets will be sold as part of the  station’s fall pledge drive.

Tiny KCSN lost federal funding last year because it wasn’t able to meet minimum fundraising requirements set by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.  Enter a new program director, radio industry veteran Sky Daniels, who has landed Petty to play the benefit show, and also has lined up some primo donations from U2, Coldplay, Mick Jagger, Sheryl Crow and others as outlined in a story appearing in Thursday’s Calendar section.

“I feel like they’re the underdog in this,” Petty told me Tuesday. “They’re trying to do something different and that means a lot."

Daniels, who championed Petty’s music early on, said he’s trying to build KCSN into a station with a broad-based format closer to the way FM radio existed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, where formats were less rigidly compartmentalized than they are on today’s commercial stations. A big emphasis, he said, will be discovering and developing new talent: “To find the next Tom Petty and evangelize for that artist to the Los Angeles market,” is how Daniels put it in his open letter seeking Petty’s support. “And to continue to evangelize the new music of artists like you. Who else will in L.A.?”

The idea clearly struck a chord with Petty, who quickly agreed to be part of the show in the university's 500-seat Performance Theater. Tickets will be offered up during the pledge drive that starts Friday. (Details are available at the station’s website.)

“I come from a time when young musicians knew that new music could be heard on the radio,” said Petty, who also has his own satellite radio show, "Buried Treasure," each week on Sirius XM. “Now there is college radio, but even that’s gotten a bit predictable. Public radio is about the only thing left -- the last man standing.”

He was echoing one of the key themes in his 2002 album “The Last DJ,” in which he raged against the dying of the light in the record and radio industries, but also held out hope for better days.

“For them to try to go forward with this concept of playing new music is great,” he said. “There’s a lot of great new music still being made. So we look forward to playing this show. We like to play small theaters -- I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.”

Update Oct. 13 at 6:17 p.m.: An earlier version of this post  referred to the reissue of Petty's first two albums in conjunction with National Record Store Day in 2012.  They were reissued last spring for the 2011 event.

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-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Tom Petty at his home in Malibu in 2010. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times.

Glen Campbell has Alzheimer's, plans for final album and farewell tour

Glen Campbell has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, the 75-year-old country singer, songwriter and guitarist and his wife, Kim, have told People magazine, a condition that has prompted him to describe a new album coming in August as his final recording.

"Glen is still an awesome guitar player and singer," Kim said in the interview. "But if he flubs a lyric or gets confused onstage, I wouldn’t want people to think, 'What's the matter with him? Is he drunk?' "

Campbell is planning a series of concerts this fall in support of the album, “Ghost on the Canvas,” due Aug. 30. He is working again with producer Julian Raymond, who helped rejuvenate Campbell’s career in 2008 on “Meet Glen Campbell,” a collection of surprising song choices including Green Day’s “Good Riddance (Time of Your Life),” the Velvet Underground’s “Jesus,”  Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers’ “Walls” and the Replacements'  “Sadly Beautiful.”

Shortly after that album was released, Campbell told The Times: "I'd like to see it go up the charts, go platinum and win the Grammy," he said. "Then I'd retire."

Instead, he returned to the studio with Raymond, who again applies Campbell’s signature homespun vocals and guitar work to songs by the Replacements’ Paul Westerberg, Jakob Dylan, Teddy Thompson and Robert Pollard as well as to some original material that Campbell and Raymond wrote together.

Dylan, in fact, cited Campbell as the catalyst for his latest album, “Women + Country,” produced by T Bone Burnett, because when Burnett asked him to hear some of his new songs, the only thing he had to offer was “Nothing But the Whole Wide World,”  which he had written, at Raymond’s request, with Campbell in mind. “That’s how it began, so thank you, Glen Campbell,” Dylan told The Times last year.

The list of musical guests on "Ghosts on the Canvas" includes Chris Isaak, Dick Dale, Billy Corgan, Brian Setzer, Cheap Trick’s Rick Nielsen and the Dandy Warhols.

The singer plans to undertake what he’s calling the Glen Campbell Goodbye Tour upon the album’s release. The itinerary is still to be announced.

Campbell’s career stretches over five decades from his early years as a session guitarist in Los Angeles when he played on recordings by Phil Spector, the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley and many others, to his success as a solo artist with such hits as “Gentle on My Mind," “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” “Galveston” and “Rhinestone Cowboy,” to his years hosting the CBS-TV show “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour” and a side career as an actor in the original film version of “True Grit,” in which he appeared alongside star John Wayne. His personal life took a downturn in 2004, when he spent 10 days in jail in Arizona for extreme drunken driving.

“I still love making music,” Campbell told People. “And I still love performing for my fans.  I’d like to thank them for sticking with me through thick and thin.”

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Photo of Glen Campbell in 2004. Credit: Sherrie Busby / For The Times.

When Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers said 'Damn the Torpedoes'

The adage about what doesn't kill you makes you stronger hardly has a more powerful musical manifestation than the story behind Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers' 1979 album "Damn the Torpedoes."

That tale has become a central part of the mythology of rock ‘n’ roll, one that aspiring artists of any stripe might look to as a source of inspiration and reassurance in the face of the hurdles that inevitably spring up in front of those who are pursuing a grand vision.

It's a story worth revisiting, what with this week's deluxe reissue of the original album, which catapulted the group to a new level of commercial success and critical respect with its bold ambition and fearless musical execution. The album reissue follows the recent release on DVD and Blu-ray disc of a new "Classic Albums" documentary about what went on behind the scenes between the release of the group's 1977 sophomore album "You’re Gonna Get It" and the arrival more than two years later of "Torpedoes," which yielded the hits "Refugee," "Here Comes My Girl" and the band's first top-10 single, "Don't Do Me Like That." They make excellent companion pieces, the home video edition of the documentary containing an additional 42 minutes of material not included in the August airing of a 56-minute cut on VH1.

Along with new and vintage interview and performance footage of Petty, guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, bassist Ron Blair and drummer Stan Lynch, director Matthew Longfellow gets album producer turned often-elusive industry titan Jimmy Iovine on camera for his typically colorful insights. At one point, Iovine recalls telling Petty they had enough songs for the record. "It was the last time I ever said that to a band," Iovine says with a laugh. They also get engineer Shelley Yakus to elaborate on his perspective about what made "Torpedoes" successful on so many levels.

Live review: Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers at the Hollywood Bowl

Tom Petty's 2010 album "Mojo" is a relatively intimate affair. It's comfortable, but not in a way that's predictable; more the sound of a veteran act in complete sync with each band member's moves. The Hollywood Bowl, despite its refined acoustics, rich history and clear sight-lines, is not, however, an intimate venue. 

Petty and the Heartbreakers neatly packaged the "Mojo" songs mid-set, a brief bluesy diversion amid an evening of some of the most durable greatest hits around. Though only four songs from "Mojo" made their way to a sold-out Hollywood Bowl on Friday evening, they were the moments that gave the Heartbreakers -- 30-plus-year soldiers of tidy, roots-tinged American pop -- the most space to roam.

Scott Thurston's harmonica stabbed the beat of "Jefferson Jericho Blues," moving at too hectic a pace to even hit on a melody, while "Running Man's Bible" didn't build so much as simmer, offering Benmont Tench's keyboard time to smolder.

Think of it as a an arena-rock mood-setter rather than singalong crowd-pleaser. Perhaps that's why the new songs were accompanied with a smattering of lasers pointing off toward Hollywood Boulevard, an adornment for songs that needed none, and a plea for an audience -- one that seemed slightly impatient that the Heartbreakers dug up the spry 1991 cut "King's Highway" -- to stay seated. 

When Petty and the Heartbreakers hit the coda of "I Should Have Known It," they locked into a bluesy howl. There was no extended jam here. Instead, drummer Steve Ferrone seemed to be offering a challenge, taunting Mike Campbell to keep pace. The ace sideman was more than capable of accepting, and his guitar sounded as if it was drawing skid lines in the dirt, and then suddenly jolting direction and leaving behind a trail of dust. 

On the charts: Drake proves to be no Lady Antebellum, and a concert promo adds a spring to Petty's 'Mojo'

Canadian soap opera-star-turned rapper Drake titled his 2009 debut EP "So Far Gone." He's proving to be anything but, as the young star's full-length entrée "Thank Me Later" entered the U.S. pop chart at No. 1, tallying first-week sales of 447,000 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.

That number is good enough to give Drake 2010's third-highest debut, placing him behind first-week totals from the likes of Sade and Lady Antebellum. Sade's "Soldier of Love" moved 502,000 copies in its first week, and Lady Antebellum's "Need You Now" posted an initial showing of 481,000 copies. 

There was some speculation by the media that Drake would have a massive, Lil Wayne-type debut, including a leading MTV headline that proclaimed Drake could sell 1 million. Yet Drake's total still builds mightily on last year's "So Far Gone," which entered at No. 6 with 73,000 copies sold. To date, the latter has moved 485,000 copies, and it rests this week at No. 7.

Entering at No 2 is Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' "Mojo," which received a heavy boost from a ticket promotion. Those who purchased tickets to Petty's summer tour were offered a chance to download the artist's first album with the Heartbreakers since 2002's "The Last DJ," and it helped give "Mojo" a solid first week of 125,000 copies sold.

Downloading the album was a relatively easy process, as ticket buyers were guided via e-mail to a website to redeem the album on its day of release."We've gone back and forth on various scenarios," said Billboard's director of charts Silvio Pietroluongo about the decision to include the concert-related downloads in the first week sales tally."In the move to digital, we've OK'd a bundle where you receive a redemption code, so the consumer still has to make an active decision and download it ... You'd be surprised at what the redemption percentage was, and this one was very high."

Tom Petty, L.A. or Florida? "The Heartbreakers formed here. We really are an L.A. band"

While spending an afternoon with Tom Petty at his Malibu beach house for Friday's feature on him, I couldn’t resist asking whether he considered himself and the Heartbreakers more part of the history of L.A. rock or that of Florida, where most members of that Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band grew up. Yesterday I floated the question to our readership, and now I offer Petty's response.

“We loved L.A.,” Petty said about the band's move across the country in the mid-‘70s. “We wanted to come here because so many of the artists we admired came from here, especially the Byrds and the [Buffalo] Springfield and the Doors, and the Beach Boys — we’re huge Beach Boys fans. …Plus Bernie Leadon had come and Tom Leadon had come, and they’d both found success. They were both making records, and I just followed their trail really.

“I often see us included in Southern [rock]. But honestly, when the Southern rock thing happened, we were long gone for the most part,” he said. “I think we’re really Californians. I’ve been in California longer than I was in Florida. Certainly where you grow up is always going to be deeply embedded in your soul. I don’t know, but sometimes it kind of hurts my feelings that were not included in discussions of Southern California music. The Heartbreakers formed here. We really are an L.A. band.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Tom Petty in the garden of his Malibu beach house. Credit: Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times

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