Debbie Harry of Blondie

Deborah Ann "Debbie" Harry (born July 1, 1945) is an American singer-songwriter and actress, best known for being the lead singer of the punk rock and new wave band Blondie. She has also had success as a solo artist, and in the mid-1990s she performed and recorded as part of The Jazz Passengers. Her acting career spans over thirty film roles and numerous television appearances.

Harry is the daughter of Catherine and Richard Harry, gift shop proprietors in Hawthorne, New Jersey, who adopted her at the age of three-months-old, in Miami, Florida.^[1] She attended Hawthorne High School, where she graduated in 1963.^[2] She graduated from Centenary College in Hackettstown, New Jersey, with an Associate of Arts degree in 1965. Before starting her singing career she moved to New York City in the late 1960s and worked as a secretary at BBC Radio's office there for one year. Later, she was a waitress at Max's Kansas City, and worked in a Dunkin' Donuts shop, after which she was a dancer in Union City, New Jersey, and a Playboy Bunny.^[3]

She began her musical career in the late '60s with a folk rock group, The Wind in the Willows.^[4] Harry then joined a girl-group trio, The Stilettos, in the early 1970s. The Stilettos' backup band included her eventual boyfriend and Blondie guitarist, Chris Stein. Harry and Stein formed the band Blondie in the mid-1970s, naming it for the term of address men often yelled at Harry from passing cars. Blondie quickly became regulars at Max's Kansas City and CBGB in New York City.^[5] After a debut album in 1976, commercial success followed in the late 1970s to the early 1980s, first in Australia and Europe, then in the United States.

While leading Blondie, Harry and Stein became life as well as musical partners, although they never married; Harry has no children.^[6] In the mid-1980s, she took a few years off to nurse Stein back to health after he suffered a life-threatening disease. Stein and Harry broke up in the 1990s, but they have continued to work together. In 1999, she was called the 12th greatest woman of rock and roll by VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll^[7] and in 2002, she was called the 18th sexiest artist of all time by VH1's 100 Sexiest Artists.^[8] Harry resides in Red Bank, New Jersey, and in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.

With her two-tone bleached-blonde hair, Harry quickly became a recognizable punk icon. Her look was further popularized by the band's early presence in the music video revolution of the era. She was a continued regular at Studio 54 and was associated with Andy Warhol. In June 1979, Blondie graced the cover of Rolling Stone. Harry's stage persona of cool sexuality and streetwise style became so closely associated with the group's name that many came to believe the singer's name to be "Blondie." The difference between the individual Harry and the band Blondie was famously highlighted with a "Blondie is a Group" button campaign by the band in 1979.^[9] To complicate matters further, Harry sometimes described her character in the band as being named "Blondie", as in this quote from the No Exit tour book:

During 1976 and 1977 Blondie released their first two albums. The second experienced some marginal success outside the United States. However, 1978's Parallel Lines (US #6, UK #1) shot the group to international success and included the global smash hit single, "Heart of Glass." Riding the crest of Disco's domination, the infectous track hit #1 in the US and sold nearly two million copies. The follow-up single, "One Way Or Another" reached #24 on Billboard's Hot 100. The album was the band's biggest success, having sold over 6 million copies in the United States alone. The band were also pioneers of the music video movement with Eat To The Beat being heralded as the first ever music video cassette album.

The release of the platinum-plus Eat to the Beat album (US #17, UK #1) in 1979 and Autoamerican (US #7, UK #3) in 1980, continued the band's run of hits, including "Dreaming", Atomic" and three more US #1 singles: "The Tide Is High", "Rapture" and "Call Me" from the film soundtrack American Gigolo which became Billboard's #1 song of 1980.

After a year long hiatus in 1981, during which Harry released her first solo album (see below), Blondie regrouped and released their sixth studio album The Hunter (US #33, UK #9). The album met with a disastrous reception, peaking at #33 and falling rapidly off the charts. The single "Island of Lost Souls" briefly cracked the US Top 40. The band's "War Child" was released as a single in the UK. Blondie launched a North American tour to support the release, but it was cut short when Stein fell seriously ill with the rare autoimmune disease, pemphigus. Coupled with declining commercial fortunes, the band split up.

Later in the 1980s, the remix album Once More Into The Bleach was released, featuring remixes of tracks by Blondie and from Harry's solo career. The mid-1990s saw the release of further Blondie remix albums Beautiful in Europe and Remixed Remade Remodeled in the U.S. New mixes of "Heart of Glass", "Atomic" and "Union City Blue" were released as singles and all made the UK Top 40, while remixes of "Atomic", "Rapture" and "Heart of Glass" had major success on the U.S. dance charts.

In 1997, Blondie began working together again for the first time in 15 years. Two tracks were recorded with TV Mania, the production trio of two Duran Duran members, Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccurullo, and producer Anthony J. Resta. "Studio 54" and "Pop Trash Movie" were scheduled to be released on a Blondie compilation, entitled This Is Blondie. However, the project and the tracks were shelved as the four original members (Harry, Stein, Clem Burke and Jimmy Destri) embarked on sessions for what would become Blondie's seventh studio album. During this period, they released a cover of Iggy Pop's "Ordinary Bummer" on the tribute album We Will Fall (1997).

After a final tour of Europe with The Jazz Passengers in the summer of 1998, Deborah Harry resumed duties as lead vocalist of Blondie. Prior to the release of No Exit, the band completed a sold out tour of Europe. Dates at London's Lyceum Theatre were recorded by the BBC and aired on national BBC Radio 1. A week prior to the release of No Exit, the lead single "Maria" debuted at number one in the UK, giving Blondie their sixth UK No.1 hit. "Maria" also reached #1 in 14 different countries, the top 10 on the U.S. Dance Charts and Top 15 on the U.S. Adult Top 40 Charts. No Exit debuted at No.3 in the UK and #17 in the U.S. and Blondie announced dates for a major arena tour that summer, during which they played the Glastonbury Festival and Party in the Park in London. "Nothing Is Real but the Girl" was another UK Top 30 hit, while the title track was released as a limited edition single to coincide with further arena dates in November of that year.

Tracks culled from dates throughout the 1999 world tour were released as a live album, titled Live in the U.S. and Livid in the UK and were released in late 1999 and early 2000, respectively. A Blondie Live companion DVD was also released, recorded at a show in New York City's The Town Hall.

Harry performing in July 2007.

Although Blondie commenced recording tracks for the follow-up to No Exit in 2001, the sessions were besieged with problems including the loss of master tapes after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the winter of 2002, Blondie returned with a full scale UK tour. This preceded the release of a new single in 2003 entitled "Good Boys" (a hit across the UK and Europe that autumn, and top 10 on the U.S. Dance Charts the following spring) and the release of Blondie's eighth studio album, The Curse of Blondie. The band toured throughout 2003 and 2004, completing two further full scale tours of the UK.

A second live album, entitled Live By Request, was released in 2005, along with a companion DVD set. In that year, the band also released the mash-up "Rapture Riders", which combined their 1981 hit "Rapture" with The Doors' "Riders on the Storm". This track was taken from a greatest hits compilation entitled Sound and Vision (first issued in the UK as Sight + Sound), released with a companion DVD disk and new mixes of "In the Flesh" and "Good Boys".

In the winter of 2005, Blondie toured the UK for the fourth time in as many years. In 2006, they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Around this time, Blondie released a new studio track, a cover of Roxy Music's 1982 hit "More Than This". This was to promote their "Road Rage" tour and the single was made available for free download.

At the end of 2006, a new mix of "Heart of Glass" became a club hit in Europe, while Harry released the single "New York New York", a collaboration with Moby. The song debuted on YouTube, some four weeks before its official release.

In the summer of 2007, Blondie toured in the UK once again. Around this time, Harry delineated the different personas (Blondie the band, her role in the band and Deborah Harry, the singer) in an interview which asked why she played only solo music on the 2007 True Colors Tour: "I've put together a new trio with no Blondie members in it - I really want to make a clear definition between Debbie's solo projects and Blondie - and I hope that the audience can appreciate that and also appreciate this other material."^[11]

On July 3, 2008, Blondie commenced a world tour to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Parallel Lines with a sell-out concert at the amphitheatre in Ra'anana, Israel. During the tour, drummer Clem Burke stated that the tour had inspired the band to make another record, Panic of Girls.^[12] It will be their first new album since the release of The Curse of Blondie in 2003.

In 2009, Blondie went on tour with Pat Benatar for the "Call Me Invincible" tour. The majority of the shows were opened by The Donnas. In December 2009, Blondie recorded their version of the traditional song "We Three Kings" to coincide with the band's new album.

In the summer of 2010, Blondie began a UK tour, including venues in Newcastle, Manchester, Sheffield and Dublin. They also played festivals including the Isle of Wight and Rockness Festival in Inverness, Scotland. Tracks from their forthcoming album 'Panic of Girls' have been performed during their tour of the UK, notably 'D-Day' and 'What I Heard'. The album remains unreleased due to legal issues. In an interview at the Isle of Wight Festival, drummer Clem Burke indicated that Blondie may return for another tour in 2011, depending on how well the record is received.

Eat me to the beat, mommy