Debbie Harry
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Image:Debbieharry1.jpg Deborah Ann Harry (born July 1, 1945 in Miami, Florida) is an American rock and roll musician who grew up in Hawthorne, New Jersey. She originally gained fame as the frontwoman for New Wave band Blondie, which originated in the mid 1970s and achieved commercial success in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
She was a regular at CBGB's, a famous New York City club that was an early center for punk rock. Although Blondie could rock as hard as any of the punk rock bands of that era, it became the epitome of the New Wave style, and Debbie Harry, with her two-tone bottle-blonde hair, became its best known icon. Launching just on the cusp of MTV, Debbie Harry and Blondie put out some of the first rock music videos, in some cases inventing some of the clichés of the form.
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Life and career
Before Blondie, Debbie was in a forgettable folk rock group, The Wind In The Willows, before becoming part of The Stilettos with Blondie guitarist Chris Stein in the early 1970s.
Her strong stage personality of cool sexuality and streetwise style became so closely associated with Blondie the band that many confused Harry herself as "Blondie" - as a solo artist - to her lasting chagrin. This is unfortunate because Blondie, the band, laid down a rich legacy of experimental tracks, situationist lyrics, and DIY weirdness that made them interesting as a musical group.
Among her notable vocals are "Heart of Glass" (a New-Wave/Disco crossover) and the rap on "Rapture" (the first rap song to top the US charts). Harry fans list her Yoko Ono-esque screams on "Victor" and delivery of such classics as "Atomic", "Call Me", "The Tide Is High", and "One Way or Another" as other outstanding vocal performances.
In 1981 (see 1981 in music), Harry began a solo career, but then entered a temporary retirement (1983-1985) to help nurse Chris Stein back to health after he was diagnosed with a rare genetic disease called Pemphigus. With Stein's recovery, she returned as a musician and actress.
Harry is currently 60, but has aged so gracefully that she gives the impression that she is much younger.
Deborah Harry currently resides in New York City.
Acting roles
Some of her notable film roles were in Videodrome (1983), Rock & Rule (1983) an animated movie where she did vocals opposite Robin Zander of Cheap Trick, John Waters' Hairspray (1988), where she played the big-haired and villainous Velma von Tussle, paired with Sonny Bono, and Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990). She has also had notable roles in such films as Spun, Cop Land and My Life Without Me
Harry's TV guest appearances include the first episode of Sabrina, the Teenage Witch and Wiseguy.
She had a voice role in the video game Grand Theft Auto: Vice City as a cab dispatcher, and sang "Ghost Riders in the Sky" over the closing credits of Alex Cox's film Three Businessmen.
In addition, she played the role of "Elizabeth" in the FMV-based game Double Switch, which was released for the Sega CD (1993), the Sega Saturn, Apple Macintosh and Windows 95.
Solo career
Harry has since released solo albums, performed with the avant-garde jazz group the Jazz Passengers, released two new albums with Blondie, No Exit (1999) and The Curse of Blondie (2004), and become one of the biggest gay icons in the worldTemplate:Fact. One of the biggest Gay anthems in the U.KTemplate:Fact is "I Want That Man", from her 1989 solo album Def, Dumb and Blonde.
In 1995, Debbie recorded two songs with Argentinian ska band Los Fabulosos Cadillacs, most notably on the Lennon-McCartney song Strawberry Fields Forever.
Debbie Harry became the prototype for successive strong women in popular music such as Madonna, Courtney Love, Gwen Stefani and any number of contemporary pop princesses. Up to that point, rock had been a heavily male-dominated field, with women trivialized as backup singers or groupies. Many women musicians have acknowledged Debbie Harry's pioneering role.
On February 23 1999, Harry became the oldest female to reach No. 1 in the UK with Maria; a record she still holds.
Discography
Albums
- See also Blondie discography
- Koo Koo (1981)
- Rockbird (1986)
- Def, Dumb and Blonde (1989)
- The Complete Picture - The Very Best Of Deborah Harry And Blondie (1991)
- Debravation (1993)
Singles
| Year | Song | US Hot 100 | US Dance | US Modern Rock | UK singles | Album |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1981 | "Backfired" | 43 | 29 | - | 32 | Koo Koo |
| 1981 | "The Jam Was Moving" | 82 | - | - | - | Koo Koo |
| 1983 | "Rush, Rush" | 105 | 28 | - | - | Scarface soundtrack |
| 1986 | "French Kissin' in the USA" | 57 | - | - | 8 | Rockbird |
| 1986 | "In Love With Love" | 70 | 1 | - | - | Rockbird |
| 1988 | "Liar, Liar" | - | - | 14 | - | Married To the Mob soundtrack |
| 1989 | "I Want That Man" | - | - | 2 | 13 | Def, Dumb and Blonde |
| 1989 | "Kiss It Better" | - | - | 12 | - | Def, Dumb and Blonde |
| 1990 | "Sweet and Low" | - | 17 | - | - | Def, Dumb and Blonde |
| 1993 | "I Can See Clearly" | - | 2 | - | 23 | Debravation |
| 1997 | "Command and Obey" (Groove Thing featuring Debbie Harry) | - | 42 | - | - | - |
| 1999 | "Command and Obey" (remix) (Groove Thing featuring Debbie Harry) | - | 49 | - | - | - |
Filmography
- Unmade Beds (1976)
- Deadly Hero (1976)
- The Blank Generation (1976) (documentary)
- The Foreigner (1978)
- Mr. Mike's Mondo Video (1979)
- Union City (1980)
- Roadie (1980)
- New York Beat Movie (1981)
- A New Face of Debbie Harry (1982) (short subject)
- Rock & Rule (1983) (voice)
- Videodrome (1983)
- Forever, Lulu (1987)
- Satisfaction (1988)
- Hairspray (1988)
- New York Stories (1989)
- Tales from the Darkside: The Movie (1990)
- Double Switch (full motion video video game) (1993)
- Dead Beat (1994)
- Drop Dead Rock (1995)
- Heavy (1995)
- Wigstock: The Movie (1995) (documentary)
- Sandman (1996) (short subject)
- Cop Land (1997)
- Six Ways to Sunday (1997)
- Who Is Harry Smith? (1998) (documentary)
- Joe's Day (1998)
- Zoo (1999)
- Red Lipstick (2000)
- The Fluffer (2001)
- Deuces Wild (2002)
- Spun (2002)
- Try Seventeen (2002)
- End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones (2003) (documentary)
- My Life Without Me (2003)
- A Good Night to Die (2003)
- Ghostlight (2003)
- The Tulse Luper Suitcases, Part 1: The Moab Story (2003)
- Mayor of the Sunset Strip (2003) (documentary)
- Ramones Raw (2004) (documentary)
- Picture This: Blondie and Debbie Harry (2004) (documentary)
- Honey Trap (2005) (short subject)
- Kiki and Herb Reloaded (2005) (documentary)
- All We Are Saying (2005) (documentary)
- Patch (2005) (short subject)
- Face Addict (2005) (documentary)
- I Remember You Now... (2005) (short subject)
Upcoming:
External links
- deborahharry.com, official Deborah Harry website.
- blondie.net, Deborah Harry's page on the official Blondie website.
- {{{2|{{{name|Debbie Harry}}}}}} at The Internet Movie Database
- deborah-harry.com, Deborah Harry website.
- Blondie, From Punk to the Present: A Pictorial History, Debbie Harry & Blondie compilation book.de:Deborah Harry
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