She might not be Canadian but she is blond. Today’s cut comes from Debbie Harry. A song you heard in the movie Scarface. Click Tony Montana to play.
Harry was born in Miami, Florida and adopted by Catherine Harry and Richard Smith, gift shop proprietors in Hawthorne, New Jersey.[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.[citation needed] 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.[3] Later, she was a waitress at Max’s Kansas City,[4] a go-go dancer in Union City, New Jersey discotheque,[citation needed] and a Playboy Bunny.[5]
Deborah Harry began her musical career in the late ’60s with the folk rock group The Wind in the Willows,[6] who recorded one album for Capitol Records. Harry then joined The Stilettos, with Elda Gentile and Amanda Jones, in 1974. The Stilettos included her eventual boyfriend and Blondie guitarist Chris Stein.[7] When Harry and Stein left the Stilletos, they formed Angel and the Snake, with Tish and Snooky Bellomo. Shortly thereafter, Harry and Stein formed Blondie, naming it for the term of address men often yelled at Harry.[8] Blondie quickly became regulars at Max’s Kansas City and CBGB in New York City.[4] 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.[9] In the mid-1980s, she took a few years off to care for Stein while he suffered with Pemphigus, a rare autoimmune disease that effects the skin and mucous membranes. Stein and Harry broke up in the 1990s, but they’ve continued to work together. In 1999, Harry was deemed the 12th greatest woman of rock and roll by VH1’s 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll[10] and in 2002, she was called the 18th sexiest artist of all time by VH1’s 100 Sexiest Artists.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download ()