Joan Jett
Blackheart, Trailblazer, Cherry Bomb
The Runaways&#8212;featuring a teenage Jett on guitar&#8212;were a quintet of leather-clad, feather-haired detention escapees that producer Kim Fowley hyped as Hollywood jailbait. But their grrrl-gang anthems made them proto-punk icons.
“There was a club on Sunset called Rodney’s English Disco. They used to play all the British singles. It was the height of disco, so to hear things like Bowie, T. Rex, Gary Glitter, and Suzi Quatro, you went to this club for teenagers. I started asking friends there if they played instruments, and that’s how I hooked up with the other girls in the Runaways. “