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

[11] In Los Angeles, Jett's favorite night spot was Rodney Bingenheimer's English Disco,[12] a venue that provided the glam rock style she loved.

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.

[16] In 1979, 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!

[17] 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.

[17] 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.

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".

[21][22] The first single from the album was the title track, "I Love Rock 'n' Roll", which in the first half of 1982 was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for seven weeks in a row.

[31] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times believed she matched her acting to co-star Gena Rowlands, calling it "the most surprisingly good performance.

"[32] Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote: "Miss Jett is good too, snapping her way angrily through confrontational scenes and musical ones alike, and taking a sentimental turn just when the story does.

8 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart,[34] and had been used as the theme song for Sunday Night Football NFL games in America (with altered lyrics, by two singers) during the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

In 1990, the Blackhearts had a song on Days of Thunder's soundtrack, "Long Live the Night", written by Jett with Randy Cantor and Michael Caruso.

Her 1991 release, Notorious, which featured the Replacements' Paul Westerberg and former Billy Idol bass player Phil Feit, was the last with Sony/CBS, as Jett switched to Warner Bros.

In 1994, the Blackhearts released the well-received Pure and Simple, which featured tracks written with Babes in Toyland's Kat Bjelland, L7's Donita Sparks and Bikini Kill's Kathleen Hanna.

Various other bands such as Antigone Rising, Valient Thorr, the Vacancies, Throw Rag and Riverboat Gamblers were to have joined the tour for a handful of dates each.

Jett sang a duet with Chase Noles on "Tearstained Letters", a song on the Heart Attacks' 2006 album, Hellbound and Heartless.

[49][50] In April 2014, Jett fronted the remaining members of Nirvana for a performance of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

[51] Joan Jett and the Blackhearts released Changeup on March 25, 2022, the first acoustic album ever recorded by the band, featuring "Bad Reputation" and "Crimson and Clover".

[56] Jett worked with members of the punk rock band the Gits, whose lead singer and lyricist, Mia Zapata, had been raped and murdered in 1993.

[13] The results of their collaboration was a live album, Evil Stig and a single, "Bob", whose earnings were contributed to the investigation of Zapata's murder.

At an October 2001 9/11 benefit in Red Bank, New Jersey,[57] Jett and Springsteen appeared together on stage for the first time and played "Light of Day".

"Bad Reputation" was used by Ultimate Fighting Championship's Women's Bantamweight Champion Ronda Rousey as her walkout song at the pay-per-view event UFC 157 and is her current theme music in WWE.

[65] In 2024, Jett contributed guitar to a re-release of Mark Knopfler's "Going Home: Theme of the Local Hero" in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust.

It differs from Jett's model by having a single burstbucker 3 humbucking pickup, an ebony fretboard and a double-cutaway body in white with a black vinyl pickguard.

In 1984 the comic strip Bloom County included a character named Tess Turbo, with a backing band called the Blackheads.

[88] Gibson manufactured a signature model of her Melody Maker, a white double cutaway with a zebra humbucker and "kill" toggle switch.

[89] Jett's honors include being inducted in the Long Island Music Hall of Fame (Class of 2006),[90] appearing on Rolling Stone's 100 greatest guitarists of all-time list in 2003 and 2023,[91][92] and being named West Hollywood's Rock Legend in 2013.

"[100] In 2016, former Runaways guitarist Lita Ford revealed in her memoir that she temporarily quit the band because the other members were "all gay," saying "First I found out that Sandy, the one I had bonded with the most, was a lesbian.

Sixteen years old at the time, Fuchs was reportedly given Quaaludes by a man she thought was a roadie, and while she was incapacitated, Fowley allegedly raped her in full view of a group of partygoers and her bandmates Currie, West, and Jett; Ford was not present.

[107] Kari Krome (co-founder and songwriter for the group) stated that she saw, "Jett and Currie sitting off to the side of the room for part of the time, snickering" during the rape.