Debbie Harry turns 75 today.

The band Blondie in 1977, Debbie Harry front and center.

Debbie Harry, the central figure for the band Blondie, turns 75 years old today.

In the 1970s I was a big fan of the band.  Blondie fit in, in terms of the evolution of my musical taste, between Rock and Roll from the 1950s, swing and jazz (all of which I liked before "New Wave"), and Jimi Hendrix and the blues.

I have eclectic musical taste.

In that period, I really liked some New Wave bands, of which I liked Blondie the best.  I still have all their original albums.  

I still like Blondie, although their star faded for me a bit in the late 1970s when I was tasked to be the music reviewer for my high school newspaper.  Taking on the task in the late 1970s very early 1980s  meant that you were going to have to review "hard rock" and "heavy metal" albums, neither of which I've ever developed a taste for.  Knowing that I didn't really know that much about them other than a passing familiarity with what was then current in those genres, I did a little research on the, which was something much, much harder to do then than now.  No Internet.

That research lead me to Jimi Hendrix, which I think some fellow musically knowledgeable student lead me to.  I had to buy an album to know anything about his music, and that frankly blew me away.  Hendrix is, to this day, by far my most favorite musician.  Hendrix in turn lead me directly to the blues, which is by far my most favorite musical genre.  In spite of how he may be remembered, Hendrix was basically a blues musician.

But I retain a soft spot for Blondie.  And even a little bit of a soft spot for music that was in the same orbit at the time.

Nothing better serves to make you feel old, than to realize that pop figures you admired are old.