“In January 1975, I received a call from a kid who used to come to watch my band the Tropics play up in Gainesville in the ’60s. It was Tom Petty,” Charlie Souza tells Guitar Player.
“It was Tom Petty,” he reveals. “He wanted to know if I’d be interested in playing bass with him in his band, Mudcrutch.”
Compared to Petty and his bandmates, Souza was big time. The Tropics, a rock act from Tampa, had scored a minor hit with their 1967 song “Time (Take the Time),” and appeared on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand. Later, he joined the New Cactus Band, a spinoff of the original Cactus band featuring Tim Bogert, Carmine Appice, Jim McCarty and Rusty Day. At the time of Petty’s call, Souza was playing with White Witch, whose 1974 album, A Spiritual Greeting, went on to achieve cult status.