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DESERT ISLAND DISCS REVISITED: ROCK & POP STARS - DEBBIE HARRY (320kbs-m4a/98mb/42mins)
BBC Radio 4 Extra broadcast: 8th March 2020
From Nina Simone to Mahler.
Singer and punk icon Debbie Harry shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young.
Her group Blondie started out in seedy New York bars and went on to achieve international success - selling tens of millions of albums along the way. She was ultra cool - a striking beauty with platinum hair and a sneer. Now aged 65, her trademark look continues to serve her well, she says: "As far as ageing goes it's rough - I try my best - I'm healthy and I exercise like a fiend. I'm glad that I've had all the radical experiences in my life - it suits me."
Record: Mahler's Symphony No.5 in C sharp Minor -4th movement
Book: War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Luxury: Paints and papers
Producer: Leanne Buckle.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2011.
Gossip - Heavy Cross [Columbia]
Nina Simone - Strange Fruit [Mercury]
Calvin Harris - Merrymaking At My Place [Columbia]
The Velvet Underground - White Light/White Heat [Verve]
Fever Ray - When I Grow Up [Rabid]
Nino Rota - La Passerella [Butterfly Music]
Peaches - Talk To Me [XL]
Gustav Mahler - Symphony No. 5 In C Sharp Minor - 4th Movement (Adagietto) [EMI]
THE FIRST TIME WITH... SERIES 2 - 8. DEBBIE HARRY (320kbs-m4a/133mb/58mins)
BBC Radio 6 Music broadcast: 26th November 2017
From their early days as part of the CBGBs scene in New York in the late 70's - it was obvious Blondie were a new kind of band. They absorbed influences such as Warhol, '50s Americana and '60s girl group pop with the rough edges of their new wave contemporaries. Fronting the band was Debbie Harry - sounding and looking smarter, cooler, more beautiful and charismatic than any other singer in any other band around.
On this week's First Time, Matt Everitt speaks to Debbie about Blondie's early career developing alongside CBGBs bands the Ramones, Talking Heads and Television, the pressures that came with the band's enormous fame (and her place as the focal part of that), the management problems that dogged Blondie's history, her strong views on the role of women in rock and her dislike of being called 'an icon'.
First broadcast in 2011.
Blondie - Hanging On The Telephone
Blondie - Rapture
Fats Domino - Be My Guest
Sun Ra & His Arkestra - The Perfect Man
The Platters - Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
Ramones - Sheena Is A Punk Rocker
Talking Heads - Love Goes To Building On Fire
Blondie - X Offender
Blondie - Picture This
Blondie - Heart Of Glass
Blondie - I'm Always Touched By Your Prescence Dear
Blondie - Rapture
Debbie Harry - French Kissing In The USA
Deborah Harry & Iggy Pop - Well Did You Evah
Ornette Coleman - Ramblin
Blondie - Maria
Blondie - Mother