Tom Leadon has died at the age of 70.
The musician was one of the founding members of Tom Petty’s original band, Mudcrutch in 1970 and returned to the lineup along with Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, and Randall Marsh in 2007 but his brother Mark announced on Monday (28.03.23) that he had died of “natural causes” almost a week earlier.
In a statement, he said: “It is with great sadness, but profound love and gratitude for his life, that the family of Tom Leadon Nashville, Tennessee, and Gainesville, Florida, announce his passing on March 22, 2023. [He died] peacefully of natural causes.”
Tributes to Tom – who was also the brother of Eagles guitarist Bernie Leadon – were led by former bandmate Mike, who explained that he will “miss his spirit and generosity.”
He said: “Tom Leadon was my deepest guitar soul brother, we spent countless hours playing acoustic guitars and teaching each other things. A kinder soul never walked the earth. I will always miss his spirit and generosity. Sleep peacefully, my old friend.”
The ‘Scare Easy’ rocker last performed with Mudcrutch in 2017, a decade on from when they initially reunited, but in the 1970s had also acted as a temporary bassist for Linda Ronstadt’s band and joined country-rock band Silver in 1976 around the time they released their signature hit ‘Wham Bam Shang-A-Lang.’
Just two years after forming Mudcrutch, Tom quit the band and years later revealed that he chose to leave after wanting to branch out following arguments with bandmate Tom Petty, who passed away himself in 2017.
He is quoted by Variety as saying: “The reason I really left the band was, I had been wanting to go to Southern California and be part of the country-rock thing that had been going on there for a long time. great and they were doing the kind of thing I wanted to do which is more of a country-rock kind of thing. I became impatient at that point with the band’s progress toward that, and I didn’t have a lot of patience when I was 20 years old. I was kind of hot-headed and I had some kind of arguments with Petty. I was getting where I wanted to do more bluegrass and country music, and we weren’t hanging out as often any more.”