Richard Hell was a pivotal figure on the New York punk rock scene in the mid-'70s. As an early member of two seminal groups, Television and the Heartbreakers, Hell helped establish CBGB as the home base of what came to be called punk, and he crafted a template for the punk image taken up around the world. Hell's music was jagged and immediate, with a sophistication many later bands lacked, and the literacy of his lyrics -- full of keen observation along with youthful nihilism -- set him apart as one of punk's most eloquent figures. Hell's time as a professional musician was relatively short, and his legacy with his band the Voidoids amounted to a mere two albums, though those LPs -- 1977's Blank Generation and 1982's Destiny Street -- were as distinctive and incisive as any others of their time and place.