Blondie Unseen 1976-1980

By Roberta Bayley

This stunning visual memoir portrays a unique period in music and fashion. Shot by Roberta Bayley, one of the New York punk scene's most prominent photographers, the photographs chronicle the band from its earliest days, performing before hard-to-please crowds at Max's Kansas City and CBGB's, to global superstardom at the end of the 1970s. At every stage, Bayley was present to record Blondie's swift, dramatic rise to the top. Featuring 235 candid photographs, many previously unpublished, Blondie Unseen 1976-1980 offers a fly-on-the-wall visual perspective of life with the band during these tumultuous years. Bayley's talent for being in the right place at the right time ensures that her photographs capture the truth of the moment in a dramatic and revealing manner. The images, enhanced and complemented by Bayley's own first-hand descriptions, provide an inimitable evocation of one of pop culture's most creative and exciting periods.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 085965396X
• ISBN13: 9780859653961
• Release Date: April 2007
• Publisher: Plexus Publishing
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.62 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 10.3"

Customer Reviews

A must have for Deborah Harry and Blondie fans

This book has beautiful, rare photographs of Deborah Harry and Blondie not found in any other published Deborah Harry or Blondie book. The text is in French. But the official Blondie website provided English translations on request.

Sexy, stylish, stunningly beautiful... that's DEBORAH HARRY.

ATTENTION...all you Debbie/Blondie fans out there. This is one book not to miss. A must have. I own countless books on Debbie & Blondie, and this is by far the best book where photographs of Debbie and the band are concerned. Beautiful black & white and color photos abound. The shots taken for the Parallel Lines album are unbelievable. What a gorgeous woman! Talent,style,beauty...Debbie in her prime had it all. There's a great full page photo of Debbie & the band taken on a street corner in N.Y.C. in B & W that just has that great New York City summertime Rock & Roll feel to it. Again this book is loaded with great photos at different shows, on the road, backstage, etc...And the price of the book is a BARGAIN! I can't believe this book was'nt double the price.

Blondie Up Close and Personal!

Roberta Bayley's images of Blondie rank up with the best. Her pictures from the "Heart of Glass" video shoot are certainly some of the most iconic shots of Debbie ever taken. The band gave Roberta carte blanche to shoot both onstage & behind the scenes, and that she did from 1976 to 1979. Lucky for us, since these were the band's most interesting years as a cohesive, artistic unit, and also when Debbie was at her most stunning-looking. Much is revealed about the relationships at work within the band during their meteoric rise to the top. The pictures tell most of the story; but Roberta's brief-but-insightful text guides the reader artfully to their own conclusions by describing the time & place without over-interpretting it for us. The earliest shots show a gaggle of punky twenty-something kids with a gawky and girlish frontwoman, still in her thrift-shop threads and suspended in a state of seemingly perpetual adolescence. In a three-year span, we see the band get slicker and Debbie more mature in her visual presentation, but it all seems to get less and less fun for our heroes as they go along. Thankfully, Roberta knows when to leave a party--her chronicle ends in 1980 when the band was at its commercial (if not artistic) peak--so we get to vicariously experience Blondie's thrilling ascent to fame without having to witness their sad demise. A must for every fan.