“Girls don’t play rock’n’roll,” 13-year-old Joan Jett’s guitar teacher told her. Two years later, she founded The Runaways, together with drummer Sandy West. Don’t tell a girl no!
My Uncle Dwayne gave my sister and me The Runaways’ second album, Queens of Noise, for Christmas 1977, along with nine other best-selling albums from that year, such as Doucette’s Mama Let Him Play, Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, and Foreigner‘s eponymous debut album.
Uncle Dwayne was the coolest uncle. He had thousands of records and would play whatever I wanted when we visited. For my twelfth birthday, he gave me my first Beatles album—the Beatles “Red” double album, 1962-1966.
Music was his passion. He took me and my sister Kat to our first concert—New York’s The Village People—at the Pacific Coliseum in Vancouver when I was 13. He opened up the world of rock music to me, and suddenly I came alive. As an added bonus, everyone thought we were cool for knowing about The Runaways, this obscure girl band they’d never heard of.
Uncle Dwayne, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing your love of music with me. I hope you’re meeting all your favorite musicians in the beyond.
It seemed natural to me that girls were playing rock’n’roll. I gazed endlessly at the five Runaways clad in badass black on their album cover and at fairy queen Stevie Nicks on the cover of Rumours. I didn’t know that women were the exception rather than the rule in the misogynistic world of rock. The Runaways showed me a landscape where girls weren’t nice—they were born to be bad and loved playing with fire!
Their album was the heaviest of the batch that Uncle Dwayne gave us—kickass rock’n’roll through and through. Some people say their power ballads on Queens of Noise were the pre-cursors to glam metal in LA. There’s no question that Joan Jett (rhythm guitar and lead vocals), Cherie Currie (lead vocals), Lita Ford (lead guitar), Sandy West (drums), and Jackie Fox (bass) influenced generations of female rockers.
When the fivesome (which went through subsequent lineup changes, with Joan Jett singing all the lead vocals on the final album) disbanded in 1979, Joan Jett was fiercely determined to keep playing guitar, singing, and performing. She went to London and recorded three songs with members of the Sex Pistols, including an early version of Arrows’ “I Love Rock’n’Roll,” which was to become her anthem. Jett befriended songwriter and producer Kenny Laguna while fulfilling a Runaways legal obligation to complete a film in LA. She wanted a band and placed an ad in LA Weekly looking for “three good men.” She later said it would have felt sacriligious to The Runaways to form another all girl band. She found her three good men with hearts of black, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts was born, and the whole band relocated to Long Beach, New York, where Laguna was based.
Jett’s self-titled 1980 debut album was turned down by 23 record labels. Finally, she and Laguna pressed it themselves and sold the records out of the back of his Caddie after her shows. Eventually, Neil Bogart signed Jett to his new label, Boardwalk Records, and re-released the album as Bad Reputation. Rolling Stone placed Bad Reputation at No. 36 on its list of the “50 Coolest Albums of All Time” in 2002.
Another turning point came with her spring 1981 concert at the Palladium Theater on East 14th Street (built in 1927 and torn down in 1997 to make room for NYU student housing), garnering critical acclaim and a strong New York following. Later that year, amidst travelling around the New York area to gigs, the band recorded I Love Rock ’n Roll. The title track was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks and the album sold platinum. Joan Jett’s rocket was launched.
Four decades later, she’s still burning up the stratosphere. I have tremendous admiration for Jett’s persistence in following her inner flame, despite the naysayers. She wanted to play “sweaty rock’n’roll” and make people happy with her music, and she’s spent her life doing exactly that. In the beginning, she thought people would be blown away and think, “It’s really cool to see a band of five girls playing rock music.” The world wasn’t ready for her vision. When a creep in the audience hit her in the head with a beer bottle, she got up, shook herself off, and kept playing. She was called every nasty name that people hurl to try to bring down powerful women, and she kept going.
Jett hears this all the time from people all over the world, but I want to say it too. She is so inspiring! Until now I didn’t quite realize the impact she had on me, from those early years in The Runaways through her MTV videos in the 80s. She showed me what it means to do what you love and be who you want to be. Every day that I have to deal with some new form of sexist bullshit at work (in 2022!), from both men and women, I think about Joan rocking on stage, and I feel better.
I have always loved her style as well as her music, and that has also been a strong <subversive> influence on me! The androgynous sexy look of a woman in black leather! Like her, I am a tomboy at heart, and feel happiest when I am dressed on the contradictory glam butch end of the spectrum.
I love her version of the Replacements’ Androgynous:
I also relate to Joan Jett’s personal views on marriage and children, for herself in her life. I couldn’t have said it better, for myself in my life. See for yourself what makes Joan Jett such a badass!
Now she’s revered as the Queen of Rock’n’Roll and the Godmother of Punk. She has sold over 2.7 million albums. She’s a big sports fan (legit!), and a version of her song “I Hate Myself for Loving You” was the theme song for the NFL’s Sunday Night Football. She was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.
She has played and recorded with many luminaries, and has launched the careers of others through her and Laguna’s production company, Blackheart Records. In 2005, Jett and Laguna celebrated the 25th anniversary of Blackheart Records with a sellout show at Webster Hall on East 11th Street. August 1 is Joan Jett Day in West Hollywood, in honor of her work to protect animals and the environment. Last year, she released Changeup, an album of acoustic rerecordings of her songs—melding old and new. She still loves playing, singing, creating.
Jett has appeared in numerous films and TV shows, and played Columbia and the Usherette in the 2000 Broadway revival of the Rocky Horror Show. How I wish I could have been one of the unconventional conventioners at that show!
I grooved along with Jett when she backed up The Who at Madison Square Garden in 2015. This year, she’s been kicking ass on the “Stadium Tour” with Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, and Poison. I caught the show in Vancouver on September 2 in a callback to the eighties with my sister Kat. Joan Jett rocked the house alive and I just had to jump to my feet and rollick in the aisle!
I agree with Vancouver’s Georgie Straight reviewer, Steve Newton, who said she deserved to headline the Stadium Tour for being true to herself and her fans, having integrity, and being a total badass. Of the four bands in the Stadium Tour lineup, she has the most charting singles, played the first show, and recorded the first album. But bottom line, Kat and I just loved her set the best! Two sisters rocking like we did when we were girls.
So for this month’s column, I proudly wear her t-shirt to pay tribute to a powerhouse woman who charted her course, never wavered, and shook up the world.
This article first appeared in print in a shorter form in The Village Sun.
Style Notes
- Joan Jett concert tee hand-altered to fit a woman (not a man) by yours truly. BC Place Stadium. Vancouver, BC.
- Athleta black layered running skort. Athleta. 126 5th Avenue.
- Aldo 7″ black and gold paisley wedges. Crossroads Trading. 47 W. 13th Street.
- Black above-the-knee socks with rhinestone studs and black satin bows. Crossroads Trading.
- Sparkly rhinestone necktie. Gift from a Canadian cousin to celebrate NYC.
- Amethyst, leather, and silver bead bracelet. UNOde50, The Oculus at World Trade Center. 185 Greenwich Street.
