Deborah Harry, 1977. Photo by Richard Creamer/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
Pop-punk icon, Deborah Harry has written a book! The long-awaited memoir, Face It (to be released in 2020) will chronicle her life story, from before her band, Blondie’s rise in the New York new wave scene, to international superstardom and everything in between.
“It’s an overview of the way we got through and maintained and continued and carried on through all that time from my sort of warped little perspective,” Harry says (via Rolling Stone).
“I was always obsessed to do music,” she continues. “That seemed like the only thing that I could do or wanted to do. It just seemed like a part of me. And then meeting Chris [Stein], and Chris being this creative force, the optimistic fool that he is; I didn’t see any real reason to stop. We were forced to stop for a while for a lot of reasons. And then the opportunity came back that we could do it again. We could weather another storm of contractual obligations and fuck-ups and get past all that shit and get creative again and be a band. We’re lucky that that happened.”
The 73-year-old singer was always drawn to the exotic. In the swinging sixties, before punk, she sang various avant-garde groups who were firmly rooted in the Greenwich Village ‘boho’ scene. She formed Blondie with boyfriend and guitarist, Chris Stein, in the mid-1970s and the band quickly found their feet at New York’s infamous CBGB’s - home to the emerging new wave and punk scene - alongside artists like Talking Heads, the Ramones, Television and Patti Smith. Her alluring and aloof faade made her the perfectly intriguing combination of cool, mysterious and streetwise that captivated fans, turning her into the Marylin Munroe of punk rock and an icon of the era.
Blondie’s string of global No. 1’s is just the tip of the iceberg of her impressive career. She has appeared in over sixty movies, released a number of solo and collaborative albums, stepped out as a soul diva with eccentric lounge band, Jazz Passengers, and thrown herself into a philanthropic role in her work with cancer charities.
From her collaborations with pop-artist-extraordinaire, Andy Warhol, to her enduring friendship with punk-sweetheart Joey Ramone and apparent escape from serial killer Ted Bundy, Deborah Harry is one woman who certainly has a story to tell and we can’t wait to read all about it!
Til then, check out our I'm Every Woman playlist, with everything from Blondie to Aretha Franklin, the Divynals and beyond - it's a hit list of kick-ass music from some of the greatest female artists.
