Ron Blair

Ron Blair (born Ronald Edward Blair, September 16, 1948, in San Diego, California) is the original bassist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. He was the band's bassist from 1976 to 1981. In 2002, he returned to the group after a 21-year hiatus, replacing his own replacement, the late Howie Epstein.

His father was a Navy man, so the family relocated every few years throughout the U.S. as well as within Japan and Hong Kong. As a teenager in Japan, Ron was in a locally famous rock band. But it was the music scenes in Macon, Georgia, and Gainesville, Florida, where Blair felt most at home. In Gainesville, Blair was a member of the band RGF.

Blair eventually moved to Los Angeles, and there teamed up with fellow Gainesville musicians Mike Campbell, Benmont Tench, and Stan Lynch. Campbell and Tench, along with Tom Petty, had been members of the popular Gainesville band Mudcrutch. Mudcrutch had relocated from Gainesville to Los Angeles, but subsequently broke up.

After the breakup, Tench recruited Campbell, Blair, and Lynch to record demos in the hopes of getting a new record deal. After observing one of their sessions, Petty asked if they would like to assume his current recording contract with Shelter Records and start a band. (Denny Cordell, President of Shelter, seeing Petty's potential, had kept him under contract while releasing the other members of Mudcrutch). Blair went on to play on the band’s first four albums,...... ...
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