Joan Jett

Joan Jett (born Joan Marie Larkin, September 22, 1958) is an American rock singer, guitarist, songwriter, record producer, and actress.

She is best known for her work as the frontwoman of her band Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and for founding and performing with the Runaways, who recorded and released the hit song "Cherry Bomb".

Joan Marie Larkin was born on September 22, 1958, to James and Dorothy Larkin, at Lankenau Hospital in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia (some sources incorrectly list her birth date as September 22, 1960 ).

She is the oldest of three children.

Her father was an insurance salesman and her mother was a secretary.

Her family was Protestant, attending church and Sunday school, but were not strict in their religious beliefs.

In 1967, her family moved to Rockville, Maryland, where she attended Randolph Junior High and Wheaton High School.

Jett got her first guitar at the age of 13.

She took some guitar lessons, but soon quit because the instructor kept trying to teach her folk songs.

Her family then moved to West Covina, California, in Los Angeles County, providing Jett with the opportunity to pursue her musical interests.

Shortly after the move, her parents divorced and she changed her name to Joan Jett, because she thought it had more of a rock-star sound than her birth name.

She has admitted in recent years that "Jett" was not actually her mother's maiden name, even though that is what she used to tell people.

In Los Angeles, Jett's favorite night spot was Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco, a venue that provided the glam rock style she loved.

At age 16, Jett became a founding member of the Runaways with drummer Sandy West.

After the brief tenure of Micki Steele, who sang and played bass, Jackie Fox, Lita Ford, and Cherie Currie soon joined to complete the band which created the classic lineup.

While Currie initially fronted the band, Jett shared some lead vocals, played rhythm guitar, and wrote or co-wrote some of the band's material along with Ford, West, and Currie.

This lineup recorded three albums.

The band toured around the world and became an opening act for Cheap Trick, Ramones, Van Halen, and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.

They found success abroad, especially in Japan.

Jett lives in Long Beach, New York, and has been a New York resident since the late 1970s.

Altogether, they produced five albums from 1975 until they disbanded in the spring of 1979.

Soon after, Jett produced the Germs' only album, (GI).

While touring England with the Runaways in 1976, Jett first heard the song "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" when she saw Arrows perform it on their weekly UK television series Arrows.

While the Runaways were popular in Europe, Asia, Australia, Canada, and South America, they could not garner the same level of success in the United States.

After Currie left the band, the band released two more albums with Jett handling the lead vocals: Waitin' for the Night and And Now... The Runaways.

In 1979, Jett was in England pursuing a solo career.

She recorded three songs there with the Sex Pistols' Paul Cook and Steve Jones, one of which was an early version of Arrows' "I Love Rock 'n' Roll".

With the Blackhearts, Jett is known for her rendition of the song "I Love Rock 'n Roll" which was number-one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in 1982.

Jett's other notable songs include "Bad Reputation", "Light of Day", "I Hate Myself for Loving You" and her covers of "Crimson and Clover", "Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)" and "Dirty Deeds".

Jett has a mezzo-soprano vocal range.

Three of her albums have been certified platinum or gold.

She has been described as "the Queen of Rock 'n' Roll".

The plug was pulled on the project halfway through shooting after Jett fell ill, but in 1984, after she became famous, producers looked for a way to use the footage from the incomplete film.

Parts of the original footage of Jett were eventually used in another project, an underground film called Du-beat-eo, which was produced by Alan Sacks, but not commercially released.

This version appears on the 1993 compilation album Flashback.

Later that year, she returned to Los Angeles, where she began fulfilling an obligation of the Runaways to complete a film that was loosely based on the band's career entitled We're All Crazee Now! Three actresses stood in for the departed band members, including Rainbeaux Smith, who was also a rock drummer.

While working on the project, Jett met songwriter and producer Kenny Laguna, who was hired by her manager Toby Mamis to help Jett with writing some tracks for the film.

They became friends and decided to work together and Jett relocated to Long Beach, New York, where Laguna was based.

In 2010, The Runaways, a movie about Jett's band, was released, starring Kristen Stewart as Jett and Dakota Fanning as Currie.

Joan Jett & the Blackhearts were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2015.