The First Time With…
First broadcast: Sun 10th Apr 2011, 12:00 on BBC Radio 6 Music
Repeat broadcast: Wed 14th Jun 2023, 02:00 on BBC Radio 6 Music
Series 2
Songs edited out due to youtube blocking
From their early days as part of the CBGBs scene in New York in the late 70’s – it was obvious Blondie were a new kind of band. They absorbed influences such as Warhol, ’50s Americana and ’60s girl group pop with the rough edges of their new wave contemporaries. Fronting the band was Debbie Harry – sounding and looking smarter, cooler, more beautiful and charismatic than any other singer in any other band around.
On this week’s First Time, Matt Everitt speaks to Debbie about Blondie’s early career developing alongside CBGBs bands the Ramones, Talking Heads and Television, the pressures that came with the band’s enormous fame (and her place as the focal part of that), the management problems that dogged Blondie’s history, her strong views on the role of women in rock and her dislike of being called ‘an icon’.
