Rock Spot – Face It – A Memoir by Debbie Harry – Reviewed
By WTJU Rock
Reviewed by Annie De Blanco
In 1978 Blondie made their first appearance on Top of the Pops performing Denis. A combination of punk and pop, fronted by the lead singer Debbie Harry, they were sensational. Harry was beautiful but there was an edge to her or, as we used to say back then, she was hard. A person not to be messed with.
To be the face of a group, to be blonde and in a group called Blondie, must, to put it mildly, have had its ups and downs, something her memoir Face It, confirms, but not in the manner I expected. She talks (and it really does feel like she is just chatting to the reader) about her life in a matter-of-fact style. Things happened. That’s life.
The downs were terrible. Things like being threatened with knives or guns, she was raped, she was stalked and there are many instances of narrow escapes from death. There is a whole chapter on close calls.
The ups though, the ups were life in New York City. In the 1970s the city was rough and dangerous but alive with creativity. There was Andy Warhol, Miles Davis, “he has his own light, glowing, shimmering, alive with his thoughts,” Iggy Pop, David Bowie, The Ramones, and the group that made her resolute that she wanted to be a performer, The New York Dolls. She loved them, she wanted to be them.
Harry had come to New York City from New Jersey to be an artist, but having also to survive she worked briefly at the BBC, she was a Playboy bunny, then waitressing jobs including one at the famous Max’s Kansas City frequented by many of the big names of the day. Through people she met she ended up in a singing group The Wind in the Willows (‘I was like wallpaper, something pretty to stand in the back in my hippie clothes, going ooooo) through to being in a girl band The Stilettoes at CGBGs. When that came to an end she left with the man who would be her lifelong best friend, Chris Stein and they formed a band that eventually became Blondie.
The name was based on the Blondie cartoon character who was portrayed as the dumb blonde who was actually smarter than the rest. Harry deliberately played a role that combined toughness and femininity, punk, an element of androgyny by singing songs as a male or female and rough songs too, Rip Her To Shreds, Hanging on the Telephone is about a stalker. Like the Beatles learning their trade in Hamburg, CBGBs was where Blondie learned theirs. And off they went, one of their very first tours backing David Bowie (she has a very funny story about him) and Iggy Pop.
There is much more to her story, a solo career, a stint with the Jazz Passengers, lots of acting, lots of stories. Throughout, Harry comes across as down-to-earth, smart and very thoughtful. And grateful, for the memoir also contains a selection of drawings and pictures of Harry, given to her by fans. She says she has hundreds and kept them all. Without fans, she says, bands are nothing.
The memoir ends, after a bizarre chapter on the topic of thumbs, with a very funny photo story of Harry trying to wriggle out of doing the acknowledgements that books demand.
But, as her life story in this memoir illustrated, she powered on and got it done.
