Rock On!

October 1978 – No. 6

Page 18

EVERYONE’S WILD ABOUT HARRY

THE delectable Deborah that is – the lady singer who’s put sex back on the map! But she can’t ease up, can she?

WITH laser beam smile that stuns most healthy males at ten paces it’s pretty obvious that Ms Harry’s not just the vocal, but the band’s main focal point as well – the pretty pivot around whom the other Blondie members anonymously turn – churning out the Blondie brand of sanitised 60s pop rock.
Success however has come pretty late in life for the blonde bombshell – she’s 32 now – and she must be all too aware that she won’t be able to promote Blondie through her looks for very much longer. Another few years and male rock fans will have found another fantasy female to be the girl of their wet dreams.
Debbie can’t hang about – she’s got to make it mammoth while there’s still time.
The reason she wasn’t at this stage of her career ten years ago is because for the last ten years Debbie’s life has been completely messed up.
When she graduated from college in her late teens she ditched her comfortable New Jersey middle class background in favour of the bright lights of New York.
For the next few years she concentrated on obtaining all the right street life credentials as she cruised her way through a variety of jobs including short spells as a beautician, bunny girl, a secretary and barmaid before joining forces with hippie band Wind In The Willows as cymbal basher and back-up vocalist.

JUNK
By the time the band broke up in the late 60s Debbie’s love affair with music had lured her to Manhattan’s East Village where she spent the next few years in a stoned, depressed state – eventually securing a waitress job at Max’s to support her heroin habit. According to a recent press interview the highlight of the job at Max’s was getting laid in the tiny phone booth upstairs in the club.
By the early 70s Debbie had kicked the junk habit with the help of Woodstock Art Commune and had begun to hang around with various bands, earning herself something of a reputation as a groupie.
Then in ’73, together with guitarist boyfriend Chris Stein, she formed The Stilettos who later became Blondie.
Chris and Debbie are the only two members remaining from the original Blondie line-up that produced the band’s debut album and Debbie confesses to being happier with the current line-up who are responsible for Blondie’s most recent and more commercial offering, Plastic Letters, which has spawned their two hit singles Denis and (I’m Always Touched) By Your Presence Dear.

POWER
Ever since Blondie first made their (and particularly Ms Harry’s) presence felt it’s been obvious that it is Debbie who wields the power over a captive audience – she enjoys being a girl and male fans enjoy her being one too as numerous pairs of creamed jeans will no doubt bear testament to.
Debbie no longer seems to mind that some members of the audience see her purely as a sex symbol – “If you’ve got looks you may as well use them,” were her sentiments quoted in a recent interview.
As the lady herself wails on the opening track of Plastic Letters “I sold my vision for a piece of the cake…”
But what a vision, eh lads?…