Having left an indelible stamp on rock ’n’ roll forged by anthemic hits, thousands of live performances around the world, and a tireless belief in staying true to yourself, Joan Jett remains driven by the singular power of music. Picking up her first guitar at thirteen years old and starting a career at fifteen, her unmatched perseverance and authenticity still resonate five decades later.
The music industry often had to catch up with Jett as she carved her own path to success. In their infancy, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts happily took on L.A. hot spot The Whisky’s slowest night, quickly building a following. The same thing happened on the East Coast after the band moved to New York, when fifty people at The Malibu in Long Island turned into throngs of fans that shut down local highways.
Jett formed a kismet collaboration of menace and pop sensibility when she met Kenny Laguna, her longtime producer, collaborator, and business partner. Together they pressed up their own records and sold them out of the back of Kenny’s Cadillac at concerts, long before doing so was ever part of the music industry landscape. Blackheart was born in an era that did not see many artist-owned indie labels. And when mainstream radio wouldn’t play the Blackhearts’ single “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll,” fans bombarded stations across the United States and helped turn it into an unstoppable hit that eventually spent seven weeks at #1.
Jett has gone on to score eight platinum and gold records and nine Top 40 singles, proving time and again how audiences knew something about her that record companies didn’t.
