“A few months later she dyed it blonde.”(1) The redefined tresses not only marked the start of a lifelong partnership but inspired the moniker of a new musical project that the collaborators would debut in the fall of 1974.īlondie was not an immediate hit. “She had short brown hair, like a boy’s haircut,” he recalled of his first meeting with Deborah Harry, who he would soon join as a guitarist in the band. An admittedly shambolic affair that was equal parts Shangri-Las and Warholian performance piece, the Stilettos nevertheless possessed something that caught Stein’s eye, in the person of one of their singers. In 1973, Stein’s lens found its enduring focal point and muse at a nondescript bar called the Bobern Tavern (named after its owners Bob and Ernie), where a band called the Stilettos was playing. Turned off by popular conceptual art, he rekindled a childhood interest in photography with the encouragement of a friend who apprenticed with Diane Arbus, and would soon be almost inseparable from his Nikon. Born to lefty parents in the staid Brooklyn of the 1950s, he dropped out of Midwood High School and soon began navigating downtown Manhattan as a student at the School of Visual Arts. It’s not stretching things too much to say that Chris Stein was a rebel from birth. In the sparsely patrolled streets of the Lower East Side, there was ample time to experiment with life and art.

But these grim circumstances, and more specifically the dirt-cheap rent that ensued, were what allowed a bohemian scene to flourish. In many parts of town, abandoned buildings seemed to outnumber occupied ones, and the moneyed class rarely ventured below the demarcation line of Fourteenth Street. Drug-fueled crime was surging and uncollected garbage perfumed the streets. It’s a curious era to celebrate, New York City in the 1970s. Originally published in Issue 60, Fall 2014

They also constantly experimented with new sounds and never shied away from popular music, scoring hits with a couple of disco singles, 1978’s “Heart of Glass” and 1980’s Giorgio Moroder–produced “Call Me.” After meeting “Fab 5” Freddy, who took them uptown to witness hip-hop, Blondie would record “Rapture”-the first pop song to incorporate a rap-and help bring the then nascent artform to a larger global audience. Blondie deftly fused this power of image with punk’s do-it-yourself mentality to present themselves with savvy and style. As a photographer, Stein captured Harry in intimate moments throughout the band’s history. In 1974, they would form the band Blondie, coming out of the burgeoning downtown scene with other punk rock and new wave acts like Television, Talking Heads, Patti Smith, and the Ramones, all orbiting around the clubs CBGB and Max’s Kansas City. In 1970s New York City, photography student Chris Stein found his muse in singer Deborah Harry. The two became romantically involved, and Stein joined her band as a guitarist.

Rock band blondie