When Tom Petty first appeared in 1976, he was an artist out of time and out of place—an outsider in a black leather jacket, a Rickenbacker-armed rock ’n’ roll traditionalist at a moment when that somehow felt radical. If that’s hard to believe, it’s because Petty spent the next several decades writing songs that last. In reimagining the sounds of his youth—The Byrds, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Muddy Waters—he preserved them. And whether he was penning pop hits for Stevie Nicks or exploring roots rock with Mudcrutch, crafting surrealist music videos on his own or teaming up with some of his heroes in The Traveling Wilburys, he was forever unassuming—someone who naturally gave voice to fellow stragglers, strugglers, and underdogs. He actually captured it best on 1979’s Damn The Torpedoes, the album that catapulted him to where he belonged, with a now iconic line that, fittingly, is as triumphant at is self-deprecating: “Baby, even the losers, get lucky sometimes.”