Group that featured Joan Jett and Lita Ford ended turbulent run with 1978 LP
The Runaways, touted as hard rock’s first all-female band, formed in 1975 in Los Angeles. The original lineup was a power trio consisting of Sandy West, Joan Jett and Micki Steele. The latter was fired, Lita Ford, Cherie Currie and Jackie Fox were hired, and that unit became something like the American, female version of the Sex Pistols. Each member was young, and together exuded excess; Currie was addicted to cocaine before she had turned 20 years old.
But the band played together until 1978, when they released their final LP, “And Now … The Runaways,” despite Currie and Fox both having departed the fold. Jett took over lead-vocal duties, and Vicki Blue replaced Fox as the band became a sinking ship.
In 1981, Rhino Records re-released the LP under the name “Little Lost Girls.” This version of the album features eight tracks, including two that were penned by Jett (“Takeover” and “My Buddy and Me”) and a pair penned by Ford, the group’s lead guitarist, including the title track of the reissue and I’m a Million. The now-late West contributed “Right Now.”
Jett and Ford, who actually did very little singing in the group, proved to be promising songwriters in their relative youth. The material on the work is solid, but the best tunes are covers, such as the rendition of former Sex Pistol Steve Jones’ “Black Leather,” in which Jett exhibits the vocal style that later made her famous when she fronted Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.
The group also covers Slade’s “Mama, Weer All Crazee Now,” which later received monster hit status when it was covered by the iconic hair band Quiet Riot. Earl Slick and Torino K’s’ “Saturday Night Special” is covered admirably, as well.
The one throwaway tune in the bunch is a cover of the Beatles’ “Eight Days a Week,” on which Jett gives a nonchalant, lackluster vocal performance and comes off sounding like a bubblegum teenybopper. That said, the tune does have a certain charm that makes it difficult to hate.
Although “Little Lost Girls” was recorded in turmoil as the Runaways were falling apart behind the scenes, the LP is solid. It is one of the only surviving documents of a hellraising, hard-partying, all-girl band that spawned a pair of 1980s icons in Jett and Ford. Jett’s straightforward, punk-flavored style was always refreshing, and Ford became the queen of hair metal later in the decade.
