The two women who inspired Debbie Harry’s entire career
(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Even icons have their icons. The artists who seem utterly singular and unique, as if they stand at the very start of their own lineage, are always still tied into the grander world of creativity, where their own likes and loves find ways to shine through – take Debbie Harry as the perfect example.
Ever since Harry first took to the stage in New York, people have wanted to be here. It took only a moment to make an icon when she appeared at a grimy NYC rock bar, held on the leash of Chris Stein as the then-couple launched their attack on the music world. Both had been performing before, but the second they came together, quitting their own bands to form Blondie, history was made.
She sits at the pinnacle. It’s not just the height of women in rock, although Harry feels like the absolute archetype of a frontwoman; powerful, stylish, empowered, seductive yet tough, effortless yet still giving it her all. But Harry sits in the god tier of all band leaders, giving all her 1970s peers a masterclass in allure and inspiring stars ever since.
In both music and fashion, Harry is a timeless icon, but her iconography wasn’t built alone. No, she honours the women who came before who inspired her.
It’s less about look or sound. Instead, Harry’s inspiration comes from women whose career feels like a blueprint for greatness. “The artists and singers I’ve always loved had very long careers,” she said, as she always had the intention of sticking around for a long time.
She never wanted to be a fad. She wanted to be a timeless legend. “Look at Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone,” she said as her two heroes in that regard, “All that force and all that meaning, all that continuity that makes up a life and is part of what your music is about—why would it be bad?”
To her, it was their endurance and power that secured them long careers and even longer legacies. “As you get older, you know more—when to be flexible and when to be inflexible, when you should give way and when it’s your turn to have your way,” she said, seeing Fitzgerald and Simone as two perfect examples of artists who knew how to hold their own but in a way that was simultaneously both protective but not stubborn.
They’re examples of artists who basically just had their head screwed on and were out to get exactly what Harry wanted too, which was respect and a long life of work.
“Basically, you learn how to say ‘fuck it’ in a lot of different ways,” she said. That’s her ultimate career advice, and it’s the advice she learnt from those two icons. More so than anything to do with style, swagger, stage presence or singing, her career blueprint came from women who knew how to make things work and make them last.
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