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Only rock 'n' roll but she likes it
from: thedesertsun.com
by Alan Sculley, special to The Desert Sun
After 12 years of waiting, this summer fans finally got a new CD from JOAN JETT.
Called "SINNER," fans will get a taste of the new CD Sunday at Key Club Morongo.
But it's not like Jett intended to see her recording career go on hold like that.
"If we had had our way, it would have been out much earlier," Jett said. "There were several things in the way of that."
The main obstacle was Jett's former record company, Warner Bros. But Jett and her longtime songwriting collaborator, producer and manager, KENNY LAGUNA, weren't so much at odds with the label as victims of a record company in flux.
Warner Bros. went through five different regimes, headed by different presidents who all had different visions for the record.
"Each guy was really into JOAN JETT and wanted to help make the definitive JOAN JETT record," Laguna said. "At one point they wanted her to work with Bob Rock. Bob Rock is a really good producer. He does a slightly more corporate sound than Joan likes, but we did a bunch of stuff with him that cost a lot of money."
Still, label presidents came and went and so did producers, including Ted Templeman and Ed Stadium.
"At the end of Warner Bros. spending something like a million dollars on stuff they didn't put out, they said we've been analyzing your music and we think the best records are the ones you and Joan did alone," Laguna said.
The experience for Jett was frustrating. But Jett is no stranger to adversity - she's survived in the music business for more than 30 years.
Runaway hit
Jett came to prominence at age 15 when she co-founded the all-female rock band, The RUNAWAYS, with singer Cherie Currie and guitarist Lita Ford in Los Angeles in 1975.
After The RUNAWAYS split in 1979, Jett went solo, moving to New York for a fresh start and assembled The BLACKHEARTS. Some fans were downright hostile to a woman fronting a rock 'n' roll band. But that only made Jett more determined to succeed.
"I'd get really pissed off when people would insinuate because I'm a woman or a girl, certainly at the time of The RUNAWAYS, that I couldn't play rock 'n' roll," Jett said.
"I'd sit there and I'd think women are playing cellos and violins and playing Beethoven in symphony orchestras. You're telling me a girl can't play guitar in a rock 'n' roll band?
"It's a social issue. A woman is not allowed to own her sexuality, and that's what is implied in women playing rock 'n' roll."
'I Love Rock 'n' Roll'
Jett, who by this time had met Laguna, decided to quit waiting for a record deal and formed BLACKHEART RECORDS. One of her first recordings was "I Love Rock 'n' Roll."
Radio jumped on the song after its release in late 1981. The song and the album of the same name quickly shot up the charts.
Other hits followed, including "Do You Wanna Touch Me" and her cover of the Tommy James hit "Crimson and Clover."
Jett turned out a steady string of albums right up until 1994's "Pure And Simple." Then the albums stopped - until now.
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