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Rock Mama
from: Tulsa World
JOAN JETT fought the macha fight, and she still loves rock 'n' roll JOAN JETT knows how domestic violence can bloody a beautiful woman's face and break a family right in two. It sickens the feisty hard rock singer, so much so that on Thursday night at the Brady Theater, Jett will lend her voice to Tulsa's Domestic Violence Intervention Services' Seeds of Hope Concert.
The benefit concert, also featuring pianist Jim Brickman and local diva Mary Cogan, will help raise money for DVIS, a non-profit agency that provides comprehensive intervention and prevention services to men, women and children affected by domestic violence.
"I wanted to get involved with DVIS because domestic violence affects so many people -- including myself in the sense that I know many people who have been affected by it," Jett said in a brief telephone interview. "It doesn't matter whether you're rich, poor, middle class, black or white -- domestic violence is all-encompassing. It's everywhere."
Jett said she wants the DVIS Hope Concert to "help people to not feel so ashamed and to feel like they don't have to be quiet about their situations."
Jett is best known for her rock anthem "I Love Rock & Roll," which rocketed her to No. 1 in 1981 and helped sell 10 million copies of her album "Bad Reputation."
Ironically, the song that made her famous was initially rejected by the promotions director at her record label in the early '80s.
Boardwalk Records' promotions director said "I Love Rock & Roll" would never be played on Top 40 radio and that it would be a waste of money to put it out as a single.
However, even though the label didn't support the song, people began requesting it on radio stations en masse. It eventually became the No. 1-requested song in America for three months.
Seeing the handwriting on the wall, the label finally put the song out as a single.
Jett's other successful single "I Hate Myself for Loving You," off her 1988 album "Up Your Alley" faced a similar situation. Its topping the charts was especially impressive at the time, because many radio stations would not play songs by a female rock singer, said KENNY LAGUNA, Jett's longtime songwriting partner and manager in a recent telephone interview. Throughout Jett's career she battled gender bias.
When Jett was a teenager, playing guitar in an all-girl band, the RUNAWAYS, Jett and her musical cohorts faced disparaging remarks about women musicans, how they couldn't rock as hard as their male counterparts.
When the RUNAWAYS broke up in 1979, many critics thought Jett's career was over, Laguna said.
"She was left for dead in the music business," he said. "But then she came back and now has the No. 28 song of all time.
Since the release of "I Love Rock & Roll," Jett has started her own label, BLACKHEART RECORDS, flirted with an acting career and become an inspiration for women in the music industry.
She currently is working on her forthcoming album, which will feature a version of "Science Fiction" from the Broadway production of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," a musical that featured Jett in the role of Columbia.
In Jett's press kit, she includes a frequently asked questions section. No. 30 on the list is "Is there anything you would like us to know about you that has not been asked here or before?"
Jett's answer is, "I am not mean."
Laguna said Jett is "very tough, very strong but at the same time very soft and very kind."
When she's not on the road or in the studio, Jett often volunteers to work in animal shelters. She's also extremely intelligent, Laguna said.
"She didn't go to high school because of the RUNAWAYS, but she got an equivalency diploma," he said. "She reads books that I can't even get through one page of."
Jett's experiences since emerging on the music scene more than two decades ago verges on the unbelievable, Laguna said.
"If you wrote a movie about Joan, man, people would think it was a joke."
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