Debbie Harry’s time has arrived — again.
The confident sexuality, streetwise sophistication and breathy vocals that made her an icon in the 1970s and 1980s again have gained her and the band she co-founded with guitarist Chris Stein major attention a second time around. Now, the group is back again, touring behind its upcoming release “Panic of Girls,” and Harry continues to be featured in many national magazines and touted as a role model for other singers.
“I am stupefied by that,” Harry said about the number of women who still regard her as a role model. “I honestly haven’t done that much. It is [just] such a small world today that we gain so much information about other people’s lives.”
Certainly the Web chronicled some of the ups and downs of Harry’s life, but she’s more than those headlines. She has a solo career that not only includes her own albums but work as part of The Jazz Passengers and collaborations with other artists. She’s also an actress with more than two dozens credits.
Many of her younger fans, though, may well have found her through her participation on Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colors” tour and other high-profile gigs. But however she came into their consciousness, it’s clear that the young fans embrace and embody her style, wrote Melena Ryzik for The New York Times:
“Legions of downtown girls imitate her Blondie-era style, from the shaggy dyed hair and red lips to the vampy shredded dresses. … She follows her progeny, counting M.I.A., Lily Allen and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs among her current favorites.
“ ‘She just never stopped being cool,’ said another descendant, Johanna Fateman of the post-riot-grrrl band Le Tigre.”
Certainly Harry was a style and musical icon long before the Internet was a daily habit, even before it was a twinkle in a developer’s eye. Blondie’s breakthrough songs “Heart of Glass” and “One Way or Another” received constant airplay on the radio, and MTV projected her fiery, sexy image that recent concertgoers report is still much in evidence.
And just how does Harry manage to keep it all going when so many of her contemporaries have fallen into the “where are they now?” file.
“Music has an incredible effect on me,” Harry said. “It always did and it still does … I’m incredibly lucky to be paid to do this.”
