Day Jobs for Female Rockers
While some bands might get plucked up by a record company and move into the limelight before ever setting foot in the “real world,” most stories of rock ‘n’ roll stardom don’t start like a fairy tale. The music careers of these three women—some of rock’s greatest icons—started as little more than daydreams at
decidedly unglamorous day jobs. But luckily for us, and for the history of rock, their music eventually moved from the back seat to front and center.
Famous for breaking barriers for other aspiring female rockers, there’s no doubt that these leading ladies were always meant to work the stage. Their stories of moving out of the nine-to-five world and into the spotlight are inspirational for anyone with a rock ‘n’ roll fantasy.
Patti Smith
Bookstore to Booked Tours"You have to kick doors open yourself,” said the “godmother of punk,” Patti Smith, in an interview with The Guardian
in 2007. “When people come up to me and say, ‘Patti, nobody wants to hear my CD and I don’t have enough money for equipment,’ I say, ‘Well, get a job, y’know?’ That’s what I did.”
Smith grew up in New Jersey and got a job in a factory when she was 16 years old. She continued to work there for about three years after graduating high school. Then in 1967, Smith moved to New York City, where she painted, wrote poetry, and worked in a bookstore.
Smith always saw poetic and political ideas as being at the heart of rock ‘n’ roll, and when she felt that rock music
was moving away from that direction, she decided to take it upon herself to do something about it. One afternoon, she held a poetry reading at a church in the Lower East Side, with guitar accompaniment provided by future guitarist of the Patti Smith Group, Lenny Kaye. This performance was the beginning of what would become Smith’s signature style, which she describes as “three-chord rock combined with the power of the word.”
By 1974, Smith left her bookstore job to form the Patti Smith Group, but she recalls that she expected to dabble in music for a little while and then return to work. Instead, her band was signed to Arista Records in 1975 and released
the album, Horses, the same year. The influential debut is still considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time. Tours of the US and Europe followed soon after, and confirmed Smith’s status as a leader of the punk movement in rock music.
Thirty-five years later, Smith has recorded over a dozen albums and is still giving concerts. Interestingly enough, she’s also back in bookstores, giving a book tour to promote her recently released autobiographical book, Just Kids.
Pat Benatar
Bank Teller to Record SellerBefore she was making millions of her own, Pat Benatar was handling check deposits and counting out cash for the folks of Richmond, Virginia. Far from having a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle back then, Benatar, the daughter of an opera singer, went on to become the first female artist to have a music video aired on MTV.
Benatar grew up on Long Island, where she studied classical voice, sang in church choirs, and participated in musical
theater. Her strict parents tried to keep her away from rock music, but Benatar remembers spending her after school
hours with a transistor radio, listening to The Rolling Stones.
Although she was accepted to The Juilliard School as a voice major, Benatar instead spent a year at SUNY Stony
Brook studying health education, and then left school to marry her high school sweetheart, Dennis Benatar. Dennis was stationed in the Army in Richmond, and for more than three years, Benatar put music aside and worked there as a bank teller.
Eventually, she couldn’t ignore her draw to music and decided to leave her job. Benatar began working as a singing waitress at a local restaurant, but her big break came when she traveled to New York City to sing in a comedy club on amateur night. Her performance caught the attention of the club owner, who would later become her manager.
Benatar and her husband soon moved back to New York City, where she became a regular performer at the club. After a few years playing gigs and sending out demo tapes, she landed a record deal in 1978.
Benatar admits that her classical training and lack of experience in rock music restricted her a bit, at first, but she eventually learned to let loose. “That’s the only way to sing rock—from your gut level feelings,” Benatar said in a 1981 interview with The Boston Globe. She turned out to be right: she won the Grammy award for Best Female Rock Performance for an unprecedented four years in a row, from 1980 to 1983, and is one of the top-selling female artists of all time.
Debbie Harry
Call Backs to Call MeAlthough she always had her platinum blonde hair, Blondie’s lead singer, Debbie Harry, didn’t always have such a
glamorous line of work. Harry graduated with her Associate of Arts degree from Centenary College in 1965 and moved
to New York City, where she spent most of her 20s working odd jobs. She worked as a cocktail waitress, fried donuts and brewed coffee at a Dunkin’ Donuts, and spent about a year as a secretary for BBC Radio’s New York City office.
Harry traded in her telephone receiver for a microphone in the early ’70s when she began singing with a folk rock group, The Wind in the Willows, and later with the girl group The Stilettos. In the mid ’70s, she and Chris Stein, backing guitarist for The Stilettos, formed their own group, which they called Blondie. It soon became clear that Harry had found her permanent gig.
Blondie became a regular act at trendsetting clubs like CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, and the band released a couple of albums. But it was their third album, Parallel Lines, which brought the group international success. Influenced by
different popular genres of the day, including disco, punk, and new wave, they created a distinctive sound and put out chart-topping hits like “Heart of Glass,” "Call Me,” and “The Tide is High.”
In 1999, Harry set a Guinness World Record as the Oldest Female Singer to Reach number one in the UK chart with
her single, “Maria.” With a highly anticipated Blondie album due out this year, it’s easy to see that Harry’s fans are not going anywhere. However, in a 2007 interview with Time Out London, Harry claims that she would be just as happy singing for only a few people as she is performing for sold-out crowds.
"I’m absolutely certain that the love that comes back at you from an audience is one of the things that keeps you going— totally,” she says in the interview. “But you can always play music, irrespective of your age or the size of your audience.”
Knowing that’s true, it’s pretty safe to assume that these influential rockers could never turn back to their days behind
bookshelves, bank counters, and typewriters.
