Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, a Year Ahead of Their Second Album
April 23, 1977. Five months after their debut, the Heartbreakers played KSAN's Record Plant series with Al Kooper sitting in and two unrecorded songs in the set.
By Tom Proctor
On April 23, 1977, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers played the Record Plant for KSAN with two songs nobody had heard on record. "Listen to Her Heart" and "I Need to Know" would not reach an album until You're Gonna Get It! in 1978.
The set opened with a third. The band had cut "Surrender" in 1976 and shelved it. Its studio take stayed unreleased until 2018.
The band in spring 1977
The Heartbreakers' self-titled debut came out on Shelter Records on November 9, 1976. The record caught on in England before it did at home.
The Bay Area was an early exception. In February the band played three sold-out nights at the Keystone in Berkeley on their first tour. Forty years later, from the Greek Theatre stage, Petty thanked a Berkeley crowd for coming back ever since.
Two months after the Keystone run, the band was in Sausalito. Petty sang and played guitar, with Mike Campbell on guitar, Benmont Tench on keyboards, Ron Blair on bass, and Stan Lynch on drums.
The guest and the producer
Denny Cordell ran Shelter and had produced the debut. He came on mic to introduce Al Kooper, and Kooper joined the band for "Fooled Again (I Don't Like It)."
The set
Ten songs went out over KSAN: "Surrender," Chuck Berry's "Jaguar and Thunderbird," "American Girl," "Fooled Again," "Luna," "Listen to Her Heart," "I Need to Know," "Strangered in the Night," "Dog on the Run," and an encore of "Route 66."
Four came from the debut. Two were a year from release. Two were originals on no record yet, "Surrender" and a ten-minute "Dog on the Run." Two were covers.
After the air date
KSAN's Los Angeles sister station KWST carried the show live as a simulcast. Copies spread from those airchecks and turned into bootlegs. A "Tearjerker" LP, CD-R pressings, a grey-market remaster called The Record Plant '77, and a 2023 vinyl issue all trace back to this one broadcast.
The band's own releases caught up slowly. "Listen to Her Heart" from this show appeared on An American Treasure in 2018. On November 6, 2026, UMe's Origins 1971-1978 box set issues the full broadcast as Live From the Record Plant 1977.
The official tracklist keeps one moment from between songs. Its title is a question from the room: "How We Doin' on Tape?"
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