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| Blondie |
| Deborah Harry was born on July 1st, 1945 in sunny Miami, Florida. Adopted at three months old by Richard and Catherine Harry, she grew up in Hawthorne, New Jersey. She began her professional career in the folk-rock group, Wind In The Willows, who released one album on Capitol Records in 1968, then disbanded. A temporary career shift found Debbie trading a microphone for a rat-tail comb as a beautician, followed by stints as a barmaid and a Playboy bunny, before joining a campy new-wave band, The Stillettoes, an extreme version of the girl group The Shangri-Las. Chris Stein was born January 5th, 1950 in Brooklyn New York. Chris joined The Stillettoes after graduating from the School Of Visual Arts In N.Y. City. When the band dissolved he and Harry organized a new group, Angel And The Snakes, of which the core eventually evolved into Blondie. They became popular in and around New York and on the emerging punk/new wave scene. A fateful gig at the fashionable and popular CBGB's landed them a short-lived contract with Private Stock Records after approval by the major company stock-holder, Frankie Valli. The first album release, 1977's "Blondie," failed to generate any heat despite two single releases, "X-Offender" and "In The Flesh." The album preceded a move to L.A. and tours with Iggy Pop and David Bowie, as an opening act. Their second release in 1977 proved to be a carbon-copy of their first. "Plastic Letters" did provide them with their first recognizable hit, a cover of Randy & The Rainbows "Denise" cut as "Denis." Tours of Europe and Asia followed and the departure of Gary Valentine. Frank Infante was brought in to the line-up, (members James Destri and Clement Burke stayed), followed by the addition of Nigel Harrison. |
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| Producer Mike Chapman, already a fan of Blondie's, felt they could do better. Chapman had already produced number one hits for Exile ("Kiss You All Over") and Nick Gilder ("Hot Child In The City").
Working with Chapman was different than Richard Gottehrer, who had produced their first two albums. Gottehrer would go for the inspired take while Chapman had Deb and the guys do take after take during the recording of their third album. The group found it challenging, yet it would prove to be their most personal and commercially rewarding experience to date. 1978's "Parallel Lines" was to be the big breakout album they needed. Blondie was so resigned to not having a hit that when "Heart Of Glass" went to number one they found themselves apologizing for being suddenly commercial. The 12" remix introduce new wave music to a new audience, it's crossover was enormous. |
| The single was such a big hit, that Andy Warhol even threw a party for Harry and company at the famed "Studio 54." It was overwhelming for Deb who tried to escape all the photographers.
Despite it's commerciality, "Heart Of Glass" provided a problem for radio stations. Many objected to the reference of "a pain in the ass." Stations who preferred not to play the original were serviced with a version in which a previous chorus without the offending word was substituted. It's now a collector's item. Deb's reaction to the censorship: "I always go along with the idea that any kind of controversy creates excitement and more interest in the long run. That doesn't bother me." Is this chick cool or what? |
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| Just as their second album was a pale comparison of their first, so was their fourth's a formulaic copy of their third. 1980's "Eat To The Beat" does have it's moments as with the title track and the club-friendly "Atomic." "Dreaming" was perhaps the most commercial success of the whole album, yet none of them went to the top of the charts. Yet the album did well and further confused audiences as to what "Blondie" was. Many thought Blondie was just Deborah Harry (the blonde hair?) the singer. Part of the confusion lay in their album covers, Debbie was seen with four, then three, then five and then two guys on their successive covers. Was Blondie a singer or a group? A solo career for Harry starting with an acting role in 1979's "Union City" helped clarify the distinction. |
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| The biggest success of their career came at the start of the new decade. Giorgio Moroder, composer of the score for Paul Shrader's "American Gigolo," originally sought out Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac to sing the title song for the film. When she turned him down, Moroder turned to Harry, who agreed to write the lyrics and record the the movie's theme. The result was "Call Me," the second chart topper for Blondie and the number one single of the year. It spent six weeks at the number one spot and the promotional-only 12" single is a highly sought after collector's item. Harry was given complete creative freedom with the lyrics. Neither Schrader nor Moroder placed any restrictions on her. The actual recording process was simple. The instrumental track was already recorded (by Moroder, not Blondie), so it only took Deb a couple of hours to record her vocals, including harmonies. She was pleased with the results and how the song fit into the film perfectly. "I think it was very apropos." |
| "Call Me" was only the third song from a soundtrack to top the year-end Billboard charts. Following Lulu's "To Sir, With Love" (1967) and Barbra Streisand's "The Way We Were" (1974). Two other songs associated with motion pictures have been number one singles of the year. Percy Faith's recording of "Theme From 'A Summer Place' " (1960) and Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" from "Play Misty For Me" (1972). Not bad company for Deb to be included in! |
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| Riding the crest of their popularity, Blondie recorded and released their fifth album "Autoamerican" to critical acclaim. The 1980 smash produced two number one hits and is by far their most successful album. The first single from the album, "The Tide Is High" resembled some of the songs in the "Parallel Lines" album in both content and feeling-even though it was not written by any of the members of the band. The original was written by John Holt and recorded by the Jamaican reggae band which featured him as lead singer, The Paragons. Blondie's version closely parallels The Paragons, since, unlike past Blondie songs, 3 extra percussionists and string and horn arrangements were used to make a West Indies sound. The song entered the Hot 100 at number 81 on November 15, 1980 and became Blondie's third chart-topper 11 weeks later. |
| Harry was no less excited about her third number one single than her first. "You never get blase about that. It made it doubly exciting because we got all this response from the University Of Alabama (and their football team), the Crimson Tide. They were calling us and playing it at games, using it for a theme song. We just got a terrific amount of feedback."
Their next song was the first rap song that many Americans had ever heard. Rap had been going on in Brooklyn and the Bronx for awhile yet it had not broken nationally. The group wasn't keen on recording "Rapture" so it took some convincing from Stein and Harry. But innovation was important to the group, so the song was recorded, with jazz saxophonist Tom Scott guest starring. Harry says she would make some changes in the song if she re-recorded it today. "I think I would do the rap a little, what I call tighter, more precise. To me it's a little off the beat. I only did one take on it and that was it. So if I were to do it again, I would have done a couple of more takes." "Rapture" entered the Hot 100 at number 61 and became number one eight weeks later. But the band's eclectic style reflected a diminished participation by its members — Infante sued, charging that he wasn't being used on the records, though he settled and stayed in the lineup. But in 1981, the members of Blondie worked on individual projects, notably Harry's gold-selling solo album, "KooKoo." By 1982 the band had virtually collapsed among lawsuits and solo projects. Their sixth album,"The Hunter," was only made because they still owed Chrysalis an album on their contract, and it sounds like the obligatory record it was. "Island Of Lost Souls" (the album's only U.S. singles chart entry and, in fact, the only song released as a single in the U.S.) was a try at remaking "The Tide Is High," and "The Beast" tried to re-create at least the rap section of "Rapture." "War Child," which made the U.K. Top 40, was a dance rock effort in the style of "Call Me" and one of two somewhat autobiographical Debbie Harry lyrics, along with "English Boys." (Harry wrote all the album's words except for those to keyboard player Jimmy Destri's "Danceway" and the cover of the Marvelettes' 1967 hit "The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game," which was written by Smokey Robinson.) "For Your Eyes Only" had been intended as the theme song for the 1981 James Bond film, but rejected (rightly) in favor of a competing entry by Bill Conti and Mike Leeson that went on to become a Top Five hit for Sheena Easton. The rest of the material was equally second-rate, consisting of funk-rock tracks with the barest of melodies and lyrics that ranged from impenetrable ("Orchid Club") to incoherent (the science fiction epic "Dragonfly," which alternated recited and sung sections having something to do with a spaceship race). Blondie was always a band with ideas — musically, lyrically, and visually — but "The Hunter" found them running short conceptually as well practically. It was a disappointing end. In 1982 Chris Stein became seriously ill with the genetic disease pemphigus. The group offically disbanded in October so that Harry could care for longtime companion Stein. Harry put her solo career on hold for three years while nursing Stein back to health. When Stein recovered Deb resumed her solo career. In 1998, the original lineup of Harry, Stein, Destri, and Burke reunited to tour Europe, their first series of dates in 16 years; a new album, "No Exit," followed early the next year. The band hit the charts with "Maria" and fans couldn't have been happier. Proving that Debbie might be Def and Blonde but certainly not Dumb! |
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