Face It: A Memoir

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Harry’s response is typically modest: “I just got on with it. As much as possible, I found a way to do what I had to do.” Furdyk, Brent (August 3, 2019). "Blondie Singer Debbie Harry Details Horrifying Sexual Assault In The 1970s". Entertainment Tonight. Archived from the original on August 7, 2019. a b Harrington, Richard (November 30, 1986). "Debbie Harry, On Beyond Blondie". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on October 9, 2019. In 1997, Blondie began working together again for the first time in 15years. The four original members (Harry, Stein, Clem Burke and Jimmy Destri) began sessions for what would become Blondie's seventh studio album, No Exit (1999). The lead single from the album, " Maria", debuted at No. 1 in the UK, giving Blondie their sixth UK No. 1 hit. "Maria" also reached No. 1 in 14 countries, the top 10 on the US Dance Charts, and Top 20 on the US Adult Top 40 Charts. No Exit debuted at No. 3 in the UK and No. 17 in the US. The Gregory Brothers; featuring Blondie (September 27, 2016), "TRUMP VS. CLINTON (ft. Blondie) - Songify 2016", Songify the News, YouTube , retrieved October 24, 2016 {{ citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list ( link)

Face It: Debbie Harry Has Had A Happy and Lucky Life Face It: Debbie Harry Has Had A Happy and Lucky Life

It is only recently, she says, that she has thought she might have liked to have had children (she is godmother to Stein’s two daughters.) “I sort of thought: ‘Gee, maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad to have kids.’ But I don’t know if I could have done it while I was working so much.” Because she would have had to give up some of her freedoms? “My natural inclination is to really throw myself into things. It wouldn’t be like I could hand over the baby. I would really want to be involved.” She was and is one of the most recognizable stars in the world and makes no apologies about taking advantage of her looks throughout her career. She also doesn’t spend a lot of time complaining about the “boy’s club” mentality of the music business, but her determination and drive show clearly throughout the book. She knew exactly what she wanted to do and she worked really hard to accomplish her goals. To me – that is the underlying secret of Debbie Harry and her success.This isn’t a question, but in 1978 or 1979 I was a very closeted trans kid watching Blondie on Top of the Pops with my friends. The inevitable question arose about who would like a date with you. I drew a deep breath and said: “I want to be Debbie .” There was a stony silence as I outed myself. I finally came out as trans three years ago so I owe you a lot … rachaeltyrell meh. Debbie Harry is 74 and I'm sure she's lived a colorful and interesting life, but the only real interesting parts of this seem to be made up (she claims to remember being three months old, as a child she "had bedroom eyes" and always "received a lot of sexual attention", she says she was almost kidnapped by Ted Bundy--which has been debunked several times, she's claims to be psychic, she was raped at knifepoint but it didn't really bother her because she was more worried about their stolen equipment, etc. I'm sure there were more, but I can't think of everything right now. I desperately wanted to like this book. I couldn’t wait for my library to get a copy, so I listened to the audio on Scribd without the benefit of having a digital or print book to complement it- something I rarely do. The book has a needless, hippyish introduction from Chris Stein, Blondie’s guitarist and resident photographer and Harry’s former lover. Harry needs no such introduction but it’s a reminder that she and Stein are from the LSD-dabbling generation that the nascent British punk scene so deeply rejected. It is worth remembering just how puritanical parts of punk were.

Face It by Debbie Harry | Waterstones Face It by Debbie Harry | Waterstones

Also, I lost count of how many times she mentions how pretty she is/was. So, here's the deal... she's more than old enough to be my mother but I'm still old enough to have owned at least one album as a kid and one 45 (young people will have to Google that lol) and she was never considered pretty by any means during that time period. Not ugly, just "hard" or "rough". Maybe she was really pretty in the 60s or 70s but, still, who wants to keep reading that? During this time, both Harry and Stein befriended graffiti artist Fab Five Freddy, who introduced them to the emerging hip-hop scene in the Bronx. Freddy is mentioned in "Rapture". [27] Through Fab Five Freddy they were also able to connect with Grandmaster Flash [28] who is played by Jean-Michel Basquiat in the video. [27] "Rapture" became the first rap-oriented song to reach No. 1 in the US Billboard charts. [29] Grandmaster Flash said Harry "opened up so many doors for hip hop" by mentioning him in Rapture. [30] Your enjoyment of this book will increase with each one of the following criteria you can answer “Yes”: Her biggest mistake, she says, was money. “That I didn’t pay more attention to business, and that I was really only interested in making music and performing.” Blondie's eleventh studio album, Pollinator, was released in May 2017, and debuted at No. 4 in the UK. In October 2019, Harry released a memoir, Face It, through Dey Street Books. [51] In 2020, Harry cameoed on the third episode of the romantic comedy web television series High Fidelity. [52] In 2023, Rolling Stone ranked Harry at number 168 on its list of the 200 Greatest Singers of All Time. [53]Is it true that you saw the last Velvet Underground show at Max’s Kansas City [ the New York venue where Harry was a waitress]? nigelbarton

Face It by Debbie Harry review — the face that launched a

A weirdly tone-deaf memoir with a ton of mixed messages. Debbie spends a lot of time detailing instances where she was harassed, assaulted, or generally treated poorly by sexist men but then ends the bio by saying she "could never put [herself] in the position of whining about being a woman" because sexism played little part in her struggles. People, me included, have found it hard to fathom her reaction. For this reason, she says: “I’m sort of wondering if I should have left it out [of the book], but it’s part of the story.” It feels wrong to push her on it too much. “I can’t explain it,” she says, as she talks about whether it had any lasting impact. “I didn’t want it to. I just said: ‘I’m not hurt, I’m alive, I’m doing what I want to do, I have a wonderful boyfriend’ – and that was it. I had to consider what was important to me, and being a victim was really not who I wanted to be.” Perhaps, I suggest, minimising it has helped protect her from it? She smiles. “Yeah. Absolutely.” As to the format and organization, Debbie gets off to a good start, talking about her childhood, her road to success, and the atmosphere in New York during the seventies, which was bursting with creativity and artistry, but was also a dark, dangerous, terrifying city that was going broke. But teenage listeners like myself knew that WNEW DJs like Vince Scelsa and Scott Muni could and did indulge their own eclectic tastes and obsessions. Jonathan Schwartz played Frank Sinatra; Alison Steele, the Nightbird, played Stephen Sondheim, Tonto’s Expanding Headband, Lothar and the Hand People, and Kraftwerk, whose 1974 album Autobahn opened the airways to what became disco and electronica, genres Blondie and Harry latched on to years later. The station helped break Bruce Springsteen, with The King Biscuit Flour Hour’s broadcast of a live concert of “Greetings from Asbury Park.” I also recall one of their afternoon DJs starting to play a new album — the Laughing Dogs? The Ramones?— then ripping it from the turntable to throw it across the studio on-air. Debbie, you were ahead of your time when you became famous and yet you appear to have been a supremely confident woman in what was arguably a man’s world. Where did that confidence come from? DeborahGellerI enjoyed this a lot because I can answer yes to all of these questions. I was pretty young in the 1980s so I did not get into that scene during its heyday. But, in the 90s, my friends and I were all about late 70s and 80s alternative music. I listened to a lot of Blondie and many of the other acts she talks about in this book. I regret that I never got to see CBGBs or witness the late 70s music scene in New York – even though it sounds like it was not an “if” but a “when” I would have been mugged or beaten up! It is amazing how harrowing and interesting day to day life was for Harry as she spent her formative years in New Jersey and New York City – and she mentions several times that this was before they cleaned it all up.

Debbie Harry - Wikipedia Debbie Harry - Wikipedia

In 2007, Harry delineated the different personae (Blondie the band, her role in the band, and Deborah Harry the singer) to an interviewer who asked why she played only solo music on the 2007 True Colors World Tour with Cyndi Lauper: "I've put together a new trio with no Blondie members in it. I really want to make a clear definition between Debbie's solo projects and Blondie, and I hope that the audience can appreciate that and also appreciate this other material." [42] Unfortunately, Debbie skimmed over some of the things I think people are most interested in knowing. Details!! We want to know about Chris Klein- not just that there was a relationship- but what came between them- what broke them up. Tell us about the drug addiction in a way that perhaps suggests a little regret or remorse- some hint of the agony she must have endured to get clean. None of those intimacies are here and I’m wondering if perhaps Debbie was not really all that interested in giving us a prolonged peek behind the curtain, which leads me to believe that she may have been better off going with an authorized biography instead. Bronson, Fred (2003). The Billboard Book of Number One Hits. Billboard Books. p.549. ISBN 978-0-823-07677-2.

Watch Arcade Fire Duet With Debbie Harry". Rolling Stone. April 14, 2014 . Retrieved August 15, 2017. Rohan, Virginia (June 18, 2007). "North Jersey-bred and talented too". The Record (Bergen County) . Retrieved June 25, 2007. Debbie Harry: Class of 1963, Hawthorne High School [ dead link] Although Blondie's "Rapture" was the first song with a rap to go No. 1, Vanilla Ice's "Ice Ice Baby" was the first No. 1 rap song by a rapper". DailyRapFacts. October 2, 2019 . Retrieved June 9, 2020. Unfortunately, after getting off to such a good start, Debbie occasionally lost her train of thought, and her tight chronological format unraveled, and she started to insert odd little antidotes and wandering off course, playing around with timelines, which is something that rarely works for me with a biography or memoir.