Lita Ford was born on September 19, 1958, in London. Her family’s move to Southern California put her among the young musicians who would shape her early life. Before she was the voice of “Kiss Me Deadly” and Ozzy Osbourne’s duet partner on “Close My Eyes Forever,” she was a teenager looking for people to play guitar with.
Her school friends were a big part of that education. In a 2019 interview with Tru Rock Revival, Ford recalled feeling out of place at the school her parents had chosen in Lakewood, California. She wanted to attend the school where her musician friends were. Her parents agreed, and those friendships gave her people to play with, swap influences with and sometimes skip class with. She remembered Jimi Hendrix as a shared obsession among the musicians in that circle.
There was also the practical problem of getting an electric guitar loud enough. In her NAMM oral history, Ford described turning her father’s old tape recorder into an amplifier. Some soldering put the machine to work for her guitar. She was figuring out the equipment as well as the playing, with gigs to get to and music to make.
By 1975, at 16, she had joined The Runaways, playing lead guitar alongside Joan Jett. Their debut album arrived in 1976, followed by Queens of Noise and Live in Japan in 1977. A teenager who had been jamming with school friends was now making records and playing overseas.
The band’s breakup in 1979 interrupted that momentum. Ford took a job at a department store cosmetics counter, wearing black leather and her Runaways tour jacket to work. Recalling that period in a 1985 Guitar World interview, she said boredom eventually sent her back to practicing. Eddie Van Halen encouraged her to get moving again, but she initially planned to hire a singer. After trying to find a male or female vocalist who suited her songs, she took the job herself. “So I decided to do it myself,” she told the magazine.
Out for Blood introduced Ford as a solo artist in 1983. She felt the production let down the performances, a criticism she voiced even as she continued developing as a singer. Dancin’ on the Edge followed in 1984. When her third solo album, Lita, arrived in 1988, she was working with producer Mike Chapman and manager Sharon Osbourne. “Kiss Me Deadly,” written by Mick Smiley, put Ford’s voice out front, while “Close My Eyes Forever” paired her with Ozzy Osbourne on a song they wrote together.
The duet required persistence, too. Osbourne recalled in a 2014 Esquire interview that he returned to England with the song unfinished, then traveled back to work on it with Ford. Recording together and making the video followed. Their collaboration appeared on Lita before its release as a single in 1989.
When Ford returned to the subject of guitar in that 2019 interview, she described how her ambitions had changed. As a teenager, she had wanted to sound like Ritchie Blackmore. Discussing equipment that could reproduce other players’ sounds, she explained why that was no longer what she needed. “I need to sound like Lita Ford,” she said.
