Debbie Harry - Berlin T-Shirt

Sultry-cool song stylist Debbie Harry and her band, Blondie, played Berlin, Germany, twice in 1979: once in February, then again the following September. Also in September, Blondie released their fourth album, “Eat to the Beat”— a single from that album, “Atomic,” got a lot of airplay in Europe thanks to its use in a commercial for the World Cup.

In the late 1970s, Cold War angst, epitomized by Berlin’s division into East and West, jibed with Blondie’s edgy New Wave vibe. This restless, riven city that in the seventies provoked the experimentation of the proto-ambient-electronica band Tangerine Dream, and also of David Bowie in collaboration with Brian Eno, had an appetite for Blondie’s tasty salmagundi of styles from disco to reggae. In 1979, back home in the States, Blondie had a number-one single with “Heart of Glass,” from their third album, “Parallel Lives.” The band, which formed in 1974, broke up in 1982. In 1998 Blondie got back together, with Debbie now preferring to be known as Deborah.

Deborah Harry plays solo, too, mixing it up with jazz, rap and ska; in the nineties she performed in a unified Berlin with the avant-garde group the Jazz Passengers. In 2003, Deborah Harry, actress, was seen in the indie entry “My Life Without Me” at the Berlin International Film Festival. The bottle-blond style icon has appeared in myriad movies, including a turn as Sonny Bono’s not-so-better half in John Waters’ 1988 cult hit “Hairspray.”