Today we celebrate the birth of one of the most significant American-born rock 'n' roll artists of all time, Tom Petty. The term artist gets attached to musicians in the same way that you're forced to call a burger from McDonald's "food." However, Tom Petty has demonstrated over the course of a career spanning nearly 40 years what that term should truly entail.
Petty finds himself breathing some remarkably rare air these days. He still writes his own albums, still tours behind those albums heavily, hosts one of the best radio programs on the satellite airwaves, and manages to do all of these things at age 61 better than most "artists" perform at their peak. For more than 35 years, the man has led the Heartbreakers to unprecedented levels of commercial success via albums of bullshit-free, perfectly crafted songs, and he's done it all without selling (or renting) his soul for even a minute.