When I first came to the USA in 1996 I hopped on a bus in the New Jersey town of Nutley to head in to New York. Traveling through unfamiliar streets I looked out of the window and saw the Union City post office building and in my head I immediately started singing 'Union City Blue' by Blondie.
Another CBGB's alumni, Blondie were founded by Chris Stein and the one and only Debbie Harry and rose up in the new wave / punk New York 70's.
Almost a New Jersey girl, Debbie Harry was born in Florida as Angela Trimble, but at 3 months old was adopted by a NJ family and renamed Deborah Ann Harry.
Before making her name in music, Debbie worked for a while as a go-go dancer in a disco in the aforementioned Union City, NJ. She also spent time as a Playboy Bunny.
Debbie had quite a long road to fame and fortune. Starting in the late 60's as a backup singer with The Wind in the Willows she joined The Stilletoes in 1974 where she met Chris Stein. The two of them along with a couple of others formed Angel and the Snake, then Debbie and Chris left and created Blondie.
Their first album in 1976, self-titled Blondie, had a couple of Harry/Stein compositions 'In the Flesh' and 'Rip Her To Shreds' .. both up there amongst my 'best of ..' list.
February 1978 saw the release of Plastic Letters, but the main successes from that were a cover of a 1963 doo-wop song 'Denis' (originally Denise) and a song written by the group's bass player Gary Valentine, '(I'm Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear'.
Then in September of the same year, 1978, came their 3rd album and major breakthrough, both nationally and internationally, Parallel Lines.
'Hanging on the Telephone' - 'One Way or Another' - 'Picture This' - 'Sunday Girl' and 'Heart of Glass' all came from this stand-out LP.
In 1979 I was arranging a company presentation at a trade show in Auckland, NZ. The stand next to us was promoting audio/visual equipment and played the Blondie 'Heart of Glass' music video constantly. I can't recall what I was promoting, but I remember every second of their presentation !
And the hits just kept on coming !!!
1979 gave us 'Dreaming', 'Union City Blue' and 'One Way Or Another' from Eat to the Beat.
1980 had 4 single releases with the biggest being 'The Tide Is High'. I spoke about that song in my review of Yellowman in a previous post ...' 'The Tide is High' was recorded in 1967 by the Jamaican group The Paragons. In 1971 U-Roy toasted over the original and released his deejay version. In 1980 Blondie got hold of it and put out a commercially explosive number 1 reggae hit.'
In 1981 'Rapture' was the first #1 song in the U.S. to have rap vocals.
The list goes on.
I always had an admiration for Deborah Harry for the way she stuck by Chris Stein. They had a long relationship but never married. Blondie split up in 1982 and in 1983 when he was diagnosed with pemphigus vulgaris, a rare autoimmune disease of the skin, she slowed her solo career down so she could look after him.
The band reformed in 1997 and keep going today in one form or another.
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