The Heartbreakers have never formally reunited in full since Tom Petty’s death in 2017. That changed Wednesday night in Nashville during the Americana Honors & Awards show when the band — Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch, and Ron Blair — backed up Chris Stapleton for a performance of classic Petty songs.
First, Stapleton tackled both “American Girl” and “Breakdown” with Lynch, the Heartbreakers’ original drummer, behind the kit. By the time the performance had ended, the entire Ryman Auditorium was on their feet for the emotional reunion.
After that, Lynch exited and Stapleton sang a rousing rendition of “You Wreck Me” with Campbell, alongside Heartbreakers drummer Steve Ferrone and guitarist Scott Thurston. Then the Heartbreakers accepted an Americana Lifetime Achievement Award.
“It’s really emotional and sweet to be here,” Campbell said during midway through the three-song performance. He later choked up when mentioning his late bandmate during his acceptance speech: “Tom, I’m gonna miss rocking around with you.”
The Heartbreakers’ reunion served as the moving opening to this year’s Americana Honors & Awards, an evening that was also paid tribute to Dolly Parton, who posthumously received a Lifetime Achievement Award.
The Heartbreakers have made partial reunions and given informal performances in the years since Petty’s death, but the Stapleton-led reunion marked the first time the entire group had gathered as the Heartbreakers in nearly a decade.
The band had always shot down any notions of them doing a full tour with someone else singing Petty’s songs. “Nobody can fill those shoes,” Campbell told Rolling Stone in 2018. “I can’t fill them and I don’t know anybody else that I would want to fill them.”
Though this reunion was just three tunes, Stapleton was a natural choice to sing with the band: He opened with Petty, has co-written with Campbell, and has covered Petty in the past. “No other musical influence is as ever-present in my mind,” Stapleton has said of his hero.
The Heartbreakers reunion comes on the heels of announcing an enormous Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers box set arriving this fall.