The University of Florida will grant to Tom Petty received an honorary doctorate in music posthumously, according to a unanimous agreement of the governing board of the academic center based in Gainesville, hometown of the musician who died in 2017. Petty, who dropped out at age 17, was hired by the University of Florida as gardener when he took his first steps in music Enlisted in the band Mudcrutch (in those years he also worked a season as a gravedigger), before moving to Los Angeles and starting a successful solo career in front of The Heartbreakers.
The initiative to turn the rocker from Gainesville into Dr. Tom Petty was promoted by the rector Joseph glover, who argued that the author of ‘American girl’ “is widely regarded as one of the most distinctive and influential musicians of the last 50 years.” Glover also recalled that the song ‘I won’t back down’, which Petty included in his 1989 LP ‘Full Moon Fever’, has become “a mantra & rdquor; at sporting events at the University of Florida.
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The tradition of singing ‘I won’t back down’ at the football games played by the academic center’s team, the Florida Gators, began a few days after the musician died on October 2, 2017 as a result of an accidental opioid overdose, at 66 years old.
In addition to leading The Heartbreakers, Petty formed part of the supergroup in the late 80s The Travelling Wilburys, along with George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Jeff Lynne. Throughout his career, the Florida rocker sold more than 80 million records, won three Grammy Awards, earned a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and received a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk of Fame. Not bad for a University of Florida campus gardener.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com