Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers Celebrate 50th Anniversary With 'Origins 1971-1978' Box Set

The Tom Petty Estate has shared a comprehensive new box set, Origins 1971-1978, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Petty & The Heartbreakers, out November 6 via UMe. Digging into the vaults, this collection traces the sonic formation of the band in the white-hot 70s era, and features collaborations with legendary artists Al Kooper, Leon Russell, Jim Gordon, Emory Gordy and more, across country, folk, punk, reggae, rock and soul originals.

The announcement arrives ahead of tonight’s Americana Awards, where Petty and the Heartbreakers will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award. The original members of the Heartbreakers, Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch and Ron Blair, will open the show with a special reunion performance alongside Grammy-winning superstar Chris Stapleton. Heartbreakers Steve Ferrone and Scott Thurston will join for a final song.

Origins 1971-1978 will be available in three configurations: a five-LP box set, a four-CD box set and an uber deluxe edition, each with Blu-ray and DVD. The centerpiece of the vinyl editions is an 88-page fanzine featuring liner notes by David Fricke and Bud Scoppa, track-by-track annotations from the original band, complete album credits for the first two albums and a trove of unearthed archival photos and memorabilia, alongside polaroids, postcards, collectibles and more. 

Preorder Origins 1971-1978

At the heart of the collection is No Sleep Til L.A., which will be available as a stand-alone LP, CD and limited-edition Zoetrope. More than a rarities compilation, it is a 12-track document of Tom Petty becoming Tom Petty — tracing the years between Mudcrutch's earliest recordings and the formation of the Heartbreakers as he searched for the right players, the right sound and ultimately the right band.

Spanning recordings from Miami to Tulsa to Los Angeles, the album follows the band's journey from their first-ever studio session at Criteria Studios in 1971, through the formative Tulsa sessions where Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, Stan Lynch and Ron Blair learned to make records, and into Los Angeles, where it all finally clicked into place. It captures a singer, songwriter, and bandleader in rapid development, growing more assured with each session. Seven of the twelve tracks have never been released before. Five more tracks appear here in new, hi-res mixes. The LP will also be available in a limited edition “Galaxy" color variant. A Zoetrope version of the record will be available on November 20.

In a special preview of the collection, “Parade of Loons,” a previously unheard Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers track that takes you back to 1978, is out now. An imaginative new music video takes us into an animated world of Heartbreakers fandom, directed by Peter Sluszka and starring Iain Armitage of Young Sheldon fame. Check it out below.

Origins 1971–1978 includes metallic limited-edition versions of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ debut album and their 1978 follow-up, You’re Gonna Get It!.

Each track has been newly mixed and remastered from the original multi-track tapes, including 50th-anniversary editions of the band's first two albums, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and You're Gonna Get It!, by longtime producer and engineer Ryan Ulyate. Both editions feature extended versions of eleven tracks, including “American Girl” and “Breakdown.”

The additional discs trace the earliest chapters of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, deep from the family’s vault. A musical diary of the band's Gainesville roots through their cross-country move to Los Angeles and into their first taste of success.

Live from the Record Plant 1977 features a highly sought-after, fan-favorite broadcast, now released in its entirety for the first time. Recorded for San Francisco's KSAN-FM at the Record Plant in Sausalito, this high-fidelity recording captures the band’s intense energy even during their early period, including a guest appearance by the legendary Al Kooper.

The Cut Out Bin continues the exploratory spirit of No Sleep Til L.A., gathering five tracks that show Petty working as a solo artist alongside session musicians—including a yacht rock track with Leon Russell—before ultimately concluding that the Heartbreakers were the right vehicle for his songs. More experimental than the band's later work, the tracks offer a rare look at the road not taken.

The set closes with the band's 1978 performance on the BBC’s The Old Grey Whistle Test in the UK, where Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers first broke through internationally. The audio has been restored by Ryan Ulyate and is now available for the first time in high definition. 

BBC host Bob Harris, who wrote an essay for the Blu-ray booklet, shares: “[It was] one of the greatest performances we had ever seen by a band at the top of their game. They played music from another planet to a room packed with manic fans, in one of the most iconic venues in the world. It was an experience so powerful that five decades later we could still remember every chord, every song, every solo.”

The DVD captures the band's live performance on the BBC program The Old Grey Whistle Test, and a Blu-ray disc featuring the complete collection of all 51 songs in high-res stereo, Atmos and 5.1 immersive mixes rounds out the set.