Readers' Poll: The 10 Best Tom Petty Albums

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers bassist Ron Blair quit the band after their tour in support of 1981's Hard Promises. It was the first defection from the original group. Petty quickly replaced him with Howie Epstein, a bassist in Del Shannon's backing band with an incredible singing voice. The move infuriated Del Shannon, but it provided a great boost for the Heartbreakers: Howie's background vocals are all over Petty's fifth album, Long After Dark. The disc didn't generate quite as many hits as previous releases, but "Between Two Worlds" landed on the charts and "You Got Lucky" became a huge smash. Long After Dark is the last Petty album exclusively produced by Jimmy Iovine, and it marked the end of the singer's early period. He took a three-year break after it came out, and when he returned in 1985, he had a pretty new sound.