Highlights - Muses
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Joan
Jett - The Heartbreaker!
Singer/guitarist
Joan Jett was one of the most surprising success stories of the
early Eighties. The latterday leader of the much-maligned all-female
teenage hard-rock group the Runaways [see entry], Jett could barely
get a U.S. deal for her first solo album at the beginning of 1981.
One year later her second solo LP had a #1 single and went Top
Five and platinum.
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Jett’s
family moved to Baltimore when she was in grade school and
to Southern California when she was 14. That Christmas she
got her first guitar. Her initial and continuing inspiration
was the British early-Seventies glitter-pop music of T. Rex,
Gary Glitter, Slade, David Bowie, and Suzi Quatro, whose tough
stance Jett has most closely emulated. At 16 she met producer
Kim Fowley at Hollywood’s Starwood Club and became part of
his group the Runaways. The band gave its last show New Year’s
Eve 1978 in San Francisco. |
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the spring of 1979 Jett was in England trying to get a solo project
going. While there she cut three songs with ex-Sex Pistols Paul
Cook and Steve Jones, two of which came out as a single in Holland
only. Back in L.A. Jett produced the debut album by local punks
the Germs and acted in a movie based on the Runaways (with actresses
playing the rest of the band) called We’re All Crazy Now (its title
taken from the Slade song). The movie was never released, but while
working on it Jett met Kenny Laguna (producer of Jonathan Richman,
Greg Kiln, and the Steve Gibbons Band) and Ritchie Cordell (bubblegum
legend who cowrote Tommy James and the Shondells’ "I Think We’re
Alone Now" and "Mony Mony"). |
| Jett
spent six weeks in the hospital suffering from pneumonia and
a heart-valve infection. She then assembled a solo debut,
with Laguna and Cordell producing, using the Jones-Cook British
tracks plus guest musicians Sean Tyla and Blondie’s Clem Burke
and Frank Infante. As Joan Jett, the album came out in Europe
only. It was rejected by every major and minor label in the
U.S., and finally Laguna put out the LP himself. After much
positive U.S. press, the album was picked up by Boardwalk
in January 1981 and renamed Bad Reputation. But it didn’t
sell. |
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| After
a year of touring with her band, the Blackhearts, Jett’s second
LP, even harder-rocking than the first, came out in December 1981,
including a version of "Little Drummer Boy" on the pre-Christmas
editions. It immediately bolted up the chart, aided by a remake
of a B side by the Arrows, the pop-heavy-metal single "I Love Rock
‘n’ Roll" which hit #1 in early 1982. Jett reached the Top Twenty
twice more that year with a pair of covers, Tommy James’ "Crimson
and Clover" (#7) and Gary Glitter’s "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)"
(#20). |
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The
singer/guitarist’s popularity has been sporadic ever since.
The followup to I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll went gold but contained
only the Top Forty "Fake Friends"; by the time of 1988’s Up
Your Alley Jett’s career appeared all but finished. The previous
year, her foray into film (Light of Day the story of a struggling
rock & roll band, starring Michael J. Fox) had fared poorly
at the box office, and even her version of the title song,
penned by Bruce Springsteen, failed to break the Top Thirty.
But the platinum Up Your Alley put Jett’s gritty, unadorned
hard rock back on the chart, with "I Hate Myself for Loving
You" (#8, 1988) and "Little Liar" (#19, 1988). Then came another
dry spell, broken only by yet another cover tune: AC/DC’s
vengeful "Dirty Deeds" (#36, 1990). |
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