Musician Spotlight: The Queen of 80s Rock

Pat Benatar!

Her name is synonymous with great rock and roll. Hit singles like “Heartbreaker,” “Hit Me with Your Best Shot” and “Love Is a Battlefield” (just to name a few) are recognized by music lovers all over the globe.

And her long-lasting marriage to guitarist and songwriter Neil Giraldo has been inspiring, especially within the entertainment industry, to say the least.

I have written about being a fan of Sarah McLachlan several times in the recent past, but prior to that it was Pat Benatar who made a musical impact on my early life as a teenager.

With that thought in mind, I decided to create a new series of articles focusing on influential artists who made a difference within the musical community and had a lasting effect on the world (and an impact on my life too).

So, here goes:

Patricia Mae Andrzejewski Benatar Giraldo, professionally known as Pat Benatar, was born in 1953 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City to a beautician mother and a sheet metal worker father.

Trained as a coloratura, which, simply put, is the elaborate ornamentation of a vocal melody, especially in operatic singing by a soprano, Pat had plans to attend the Juilliard School, but decided to pursue health education instead. After only one year, though, at Stony Brook University, and at the tender age of only 19, she dropped out to marry her first husband, her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar. Because of his military service, they moved to Virginia where she worked as a bank teller near Richmond.

NOTE: It should be noted that Pat Benatar has a five-octave singing range, giving her the musical chops within the operatic and mainstream-music world.

But in 1973, she decided to quit that bank job in order to pursue her singing career full time. She performed at a local Virginia lounge with the (at the time) up-and-coming band Coxon’s Army for several years. But, just as Coxon’s Army was about to break, and against the advice of everyone, Pat quit the band, packed everything she owned and headed back to New York City.

Then one night in 1975, Pat decided to try an open mic night at Catch a Rising Star, the comedy club in Princeton, New Jersey, and it was like magic in a bottle. She sang a rendition of Judy Garland’s “Rock A Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody,” which sent the crowd reeling. The owner of the club at the time, Rick Newman, rushed in to see who was commanding such a response from the room, finding Pat at the center of attention. That began their relationship as manager and artist, a relationship that would continue for nearly 15 years.

That same year, she landed the part of Zephyr in The Zinger, Harry Chapin’s off Broadway, futuristic rock musical, which debuted in Long Island at the Performing Arts Foundation Playhouse. The production only ran for a month, but it also featured actresses Beverly D’Angelo and Christine Lahti.

It was two years later that would turn the tide for Pat. It was Halloween and she dressed up as a character from the cult sci-fi movie Cat Women of the Moon and headed out on the town with friends. They went to Cafe Figaro in the Village, which was holding a costume contest, and she won the top prize. To celebrate they went back to Catch a Rising Star and she performed there in costume, receiving a standing ovation. Realizing that this spandexed stage persona was a hit, she continued to perform in costume, tweaking the outfit a little and, viola, her signature look was born.

In 1978, between appearances at Catch a Rising Star and recording commercial jingles, she headlined New York City’s Tramps nightclub, catching the attention of several record companies.

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She was quickly signed to Chrysalis Records, and in the spring of the following year, producer and writer Mike Chapman, introduced her to Neil Giraldo, an up-and-coming guitarist, who became not just a musical director and on-stage partner to Benatar, but after her divorce from Dennis in 1979, Giraldo later (more specifically in 1982) became her second and current husband.

It was in 1979 that her first album In the Heat of the Night was released, introducing to the world the partnership of Pat and Neil. The album not only went platinum (which means it sold over 1 million copies) but also included the classic hits “Heartbreaker” and “We Live For Love.”

The very next year, her Grammy winning album Crimes of Passion was released. That album included her hit single “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” This album went quintuple platinum and gave Pat her first Top 10, million-selling hit.

She and Neil were then on a roll, releasing the 1981 album Precious Time with Neil on board as producer and arranger in addition to playing the guitar and keyboards and providing vocals. She received her second Grammy for that album’s hit single “Fire and Ice.” This album went double platinum and hit #1 on the charts.

The following year, the album Get Nervous was released, featuring the top five and Grammy-winning single “Shadows of the Night.” Then in 1983, the album Live From Earth was released with the million-selling Gold single “Love Is A Battlefield” being released, earning Pat another Grammy. It was at this time that I was a sophomore in high school, and this song was playing everywhere.  As you can imagine, I became a big fan of Pat Benatar at this time.

Over the course of the next few years, Pat released the album Tropico in 1984 which included Grammy-nominated single “We Belong” and Seven The Hard Way in 1985, which hit the US Top 10 with the hit single “Invincible,” which became the theme for the movie The Legend of Billie Jean.

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Her 8th album, Wide Awake in Dreamland, was released in 1988 and featured the Top 20 hit single “All Fired Up.” This album earned Pat another Grammy nomination for the single “Let’s Stay Together.” Then in 1989 the album Best Shots came out, featuring all of her hit singles to date.

In 1991, she released the blues/swing-inspired album True Love followed by the 1993 critically acclaimed album Gravity’s Rainbow. It was four years later when she released the new album Innamorata and then in 1998, a live recording from her concert at the Old Waldorf in San Franciso entitled 8-18-80 was released.

The following year, taking from their private vaults, Pat and Neil released Synchronistic Wanderings: Recorded Anthology 1979-1999, an extensive 3-CD collection, which included songs from soundtracks (like the box office movie Speed), contributions to tribute projects and benefits, previously unreleased live recordings, outtakes and demos, B-sides and rarities never before available on CD.

In 2002, the couple released a live CD and DVD set Summer Vacation Soundtrack Live and Summer Vacation Live that featured a 90-minute concert at the Grove Theatre in Anaheim, California. And, it was in the following year Pat released the album Go, her first album of new songs in seven years.

She was inducted into the Long Island Hall of Fame in 2008 and then in 2010 Pat released her autobiography Between a Heart and a Rock Place in 2010. The memoir touched on her battles with her record company, the difficulties that her career caused in her personal life and feminism. In fact, she was quoted in that memoir as saying, “For every day since I was old enough to think, I’ve considered myself a feminist…It’s empowering to watch and to know that, perhaps in some way, I made the hard path [women] have to walk just a little bit easier.”

That memoir went on to become a New York Times bestseller.

Pat and Neil live in Malibu, California and have two daughters.

You can learn more about Pat Benatar and her husband Neil Giraldo at their website.

Featured Image Photo Credit: Theatre World Backdrops