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JOAN JETT rocks on
from: fredericksburg.com
by Emily Gilmore
For the sake of clarity, let's say that JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS will begin a new tour tonight in Philadelphia.
Eagles of Death Metal and several others will join the eternally youthful rocker and her band for more than 20 dates that will bring the musicians across the country and back over the next few weeks.
But the reality is that JOAN JETT hasn't really taken a break in three decades. The current tour is just the latest phase in her journey.
"What Joan and I do is we have a constant project of touring, making records and trying to get on the radio," KENNY LAGUNA, Jett's longtime manager and collaborator, said by phone last week from Lawton, Okla., where Jett was to play that night.
Jett will perform Tuesday at the 9:30 Club in Washington, which is near her childhood stomping ground of Rockville, Md.
As a teen, Jett left the East Coast for sunny California, where she joined The RUNAWAYS. The all-girl group teased audiences with their jailbait look and was regarded as both a novelty and a pioneering act that challenged gender barriers in the hard-rock world.
The RUNAWAYS dissolved in 1979, and Jett briefly considered joining the military before hooking up with Laguna and forging ahead on a solo career that would pave the way for scores of female rock musicians who came after her.
That's not to say that her experience hasn't been without obstacles.
Jett was initially rebuffed by more than 20 record labels, so she and Laguna took matters into their own hands and founded BLACKHEART RECORDS 25 years ago.
Such songs as "Bad Reputation" and "I Love Rock and Roll," the latter of which spent seven weeks atop Billboard's Hot 100 chart in 1982, kept Jett in the public eye.
Despite the hits, she had trouble staying on the radio because of program directors who worried about playing too many female artists at once, Laguna said.
Even so, Jett completely believed in her right to rock.
"I never had any doubts about what I was doing or my right to do it or the fact that women should be able to play rock 'n' roll without these obstacles," she said by phone.
She was struck at a young age when someone told her girls can't play rock 'n' roll.
If girls can play Bach or Beethoven in an orchestra, then girls can certainly play rock 'n' roll, and they shouldn't question it, "not for a second ," Jett said.
Those people who told her girls couldn't play rock music meant that "socially they're not allowed to play rock 'n' roll," Jett said. "And in my brain I'm thinking that rock 'n' roll is sexual, and playing rock 'n' roll implies a woman owns her sexuality and is going to tell listeners what she's gonna do with it."
Pop music, on the other hand, conveys a more you-can-do-whatever-you-want-with-me attitude, she said.
Jett defied naysayers by releasing one hard-charging album after another and by maintaining ownership of her own sexuality by never discussing her private life with reporters.
Over the years, Jett appeared in several films, and acted on Broadway.
She has performed for American troops stationed all over the world, and she hosts a show on Sirius Satellite Radio.
She's also a dedicated activist, having worked closely with PETA and campaigned for Howard Dean during the 2004 presidential election.
This year, Jett and The BLACKHEARTS released "SINNER," their first studio album since 1994's "Pure and Simple."
The album's release was held up for years, but Jett and her comrades kept trying because "the options aren't any better," Laguna said. "Giving up isn't better than trying."
The songs on "SINNER," which has garnered stellar reviews, were written and recorded in stages, but the album is as cohesive as it is gritty and energetic.
"The thing, I think, about me is I don't change a whole super lot--certainly not the style of music that gets me off and the stuff I want to play," Jett said.
From covers of Sweet's "A.C.D.C." and The Replacements' "Androgynous" to the overtly sexual "Fetish" and politically charged "Riddles," Jett covers a lot of ground on "SINNER."
This is the first time she's addressed politics in her music, but it's something she's wanted to do for a long time.
She worried for a while about sounding too "corny or preachy," but "I don't know if it's a combination of me feeling like I've grown up a little inside and just the climate of our whole country has me questioning a lot. I felt freer to write about it."
Called the "hard-rock Dorian Gray" by The New York Times, she of the shaggy hair, heavy eyeliner and leather outfits that show off her toned muscles remains vital without languishing in classic-rock nostalgia, which she demonstrated this summer as she headlined the Vans Warped Tour.
The 48-year-old said her youthfulness might come from her "kind of boring" lifestyle, in that she's never smoked, she doesn't drink anymore, she's been a vegetarian for 15 years, and she stays out of the sun.
"I've just done what I do," Jett said, "so maybe that just keeps me young in that sort of energy way."
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