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Pat Benatar
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Pat Benatar (born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski on January 10, 1953) is a four-time Grammy Award-winning American singer best known for hit songs like "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Hit Me with Your Best Shot". Benatar is a top-selling artist according to the RIAA with 12.5 million certified units, including two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums, five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, three RIAA-certified Gold albums, and 19 Top 40 singles to her credit.
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:We are strong
:Hateache to hartache we stand
:No promises, no demands
:Love is a battlefield
Encyclopedia
Pat Benatar (born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski on January 10, 1953) is a four-time Grammy Award-winning American singer best known for hit songs like "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Hit Me with Your Best Shot". Benatar is a top-selling artist according to the RIAA with 12.5 million certified units, including two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums, five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, three RIAA-certified Gold albums, and 19 Top 40 singles to her credit. Billboard Magazine ranked Benatar as the most successful female rock vocalist of all-time. Benatar became eligible for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2005. Benatar is also known for her thrilling mezzo-soprano vocal range.
Biography
Born Patricia (Patti) Mae on January 10, 1953 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, to Andrew and Mildred Andrzejewski, the family moved from Brooklyn when she was 3 years old to N Hamilton Ave, Lindenhurst, Long Island. "I have wonderful childhood memories of picking berries in the "woods" by our house, driving to the "docks" on the South Bay to get freshly harvested clams," she said.
The daughter of a sheet-metal worker and a beautician who once sang with the New York City Opera, Andrzejewski became interested in theater and began voice lessons, singing at Daniel Street Elementary School her first solo, a song called “It Must Be Spring,” at age eight. She said, "As a kid, I sang at any choir, any denomination, anywhere I could." At Lindenhurst Senior High School (1967 - 1971), Andrzejewski participated in musical theater, playing Queen Guinevere in the school production of Camelot, marching in the homecoming parade, singing at the annual Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony, and performing a solo of "The Christmas Song" on a holiday recording of the Lindenhurst High School Choir her senior year.
Andrzejewski was cut off from the rock scene in nearby Manhattan though because her parents were "ridiculously strict - I was allowed to go to symphonies, opera and theater but I couldn't go to clubs," and her musical training was strictly classical and theatrical. She said, "I was singing Puccini and "West Side Story" but I spent every afternoon after school with my little transistor radio listening to the Rolling Stones..."
Training as a coloratura and accepted to The Juilliard School, Andrzejewski surprised family, friends and teachers by deciding a classical career was not for her and pursuing health education at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. At 19, after one year at Stony Brook, Andrzejewski dropped out to marry her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, an army draftee who had gone to Vietnam briefly after graduation while in the Army Special Forces. Dennis was stationed in Richmond, Virginia, for three years, where Patti worked as a bank teller.
Discontented with her position, Liza Minnelli's concert at the Richmond Coliseum November 15, 1973, inspired Patti to quit her job the next day and pursue a singing career. Patti got a job as a singing waitress at a flapper-esque nightclub named The Roaring Twenties and got a gig singing in lounge band Coxon's Army, a regular at Sam Miller's basement club. The band garnered enough attention to be the subject of a never aired PBS special, and the band's bassist Roger Capps also would go on to be the original bass player for the Pat Benatar band. The period also yielded Patti’s first and only single until her eventual 1979 debut on Chrysalis Records: "Day Gig," 1974, Trace Records, written and produced by Coxon's Army band leader Phil Coxon and locally released in Richmond.
Patti's big break came in 1975 at an amateur night at the renowned comedy club Catch a Rising Star in New York. Patti's rousing rendition of Judy Garland's Rock-A-Bye Your Baby With a Dixie Melody earned her a call back by club owner Rick Newman, who would become her manager. Patti said,
"I came in from Virginia one night. I had straight red hair and I wore a dress. I sang a Judy Garland song and I don’t know what happened, I never sang in New York before in my life, even though I grew up there, everybody just went crazy. I didn’t do anything spectacular. I don’t know what happened, it was just one of those magical things. [Rick Newman] came right in and said, ‘Let’s talk about you playing here some more.’"
Mr. Newman said, "It was 2:45 in the morning. We had 30 performers and she was about #27. I was on the other side of the room drinking with some friends--then I suddenly heard this voice!"
The couple headed back to New York following Dennis' discharge from the army, and Patti went on to be a regular member of "Catch" for close to three years, until signing a record contract.
Catch was not the only break Patti got in 1975. Patti landed the part of Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical "The Zinger." Patti's first foray into rock. The production, which debuted on March 19, 1976, at the Performing Arts Foundation's (PAF) Playhouse in Huntington Station, Long Island, ran for a month and also featured Beverly D'Angelo and Christine Lahti.
"I was 22 by the time I started to sing rock, so at first I was very conscious of technique and I was overly technical. That proved to be inhibiting so it was a disadvantage until I began to sing intuitively. That’s the only way to sing rock – from your gut level feelings. It’s the instinct that the best singers have."
Halloween 1977 proved a pivotal night in Patti's early, spandexed stage persona. Rather than change out of the vampire costume she had worn to a Greenwich Village cafe party that evening, she went on-stage wearing black tights, black eyeliner and short black top. All of a sudden, despite performing her usual array of songs, Catch's audience was hit with this strong visual image that matched her exceptional singing and powerful vocal range. This time she received a standing ovation. Patti said, "The crowd was always polite, but this time they went out of their minds. It was the same songs, sung the same way, and I thought, 'Oh my god...it's these clothes and this makeup!'"
In between appearances at Catch and recording commercial jingles for Pepsi Cola and a number of regional concerns, Pat Benatar headlined New York City’s famous Tramps nightclub March 29 - April 1, 1978, where their knockout performance devoted to original rock material and ballads, plus a few rearranged favorites, including "Bird of Paradise" and "My My My" by Taro Meyers, Roy Orbison's "Crying," and a reggae arrangement of Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven," impressed representatives from several record companies. They were signed to Chrysalis Records by founder Terry Ellis the following week. Patti said, "There was a long period of three years, when I spent my time taking demo tapes around and being rejected by one record company after another. Then just two days after the debut concert with the band, we were signed to a record contract..."
Record company executives did not share Patti's ambition to write and sing original rock material at first. They wanted to promote her as a balladeer, claiming that suited women better. It was the beginning of an often contentious relationship with Chrysalis Records executives over promotiomal material, plus a dispute over advertising her air brushed image in a Billboard advertisement, manipulated to make Patti appear nude and her image after Patti remarried and started a family.
Recorded in June and July 1979, Pat Benatar debuted the week of August 27, 1979 with the release of I Need A Lover from the album In the Heat of the Night. Patti said, "My album was the last of a bunch by female singers to come out so I was told not to expect much, even though Mike Chapman was producing."
Pat Benatar won an unprecedented four consecutive Grammy Awards for "Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female" from 1980 to 1983 for Crimes of Passion, "Fire And Ice," "Shadows Of The Night," and "Love Is a Battlefield," and was nominated four more times: "Invincible" in 1985, "Sex As A Weapon" in 1986, "All Fired Up" in 1988 and in 1989 for "Let's Stay Together." Benatar also earned Grammy Award nominations in 1985 for Best Pop Vocal Performance, Female with "We Belong" and in 1986 for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Duo or Group as a member of Artists United Against Apartheid for their single "Sun City." Benatar is also the winner of three American Music Awards: Favorite Female Pop/Rock Vocalist of 1981 and 1983, and Favorite Female Pop/Rock Video Artist of 1985. Benatar was twice named Rolling Stone magazine's Favorite Female Vocalist, and Billboard magazine ranks her as the most successful female rock vocalist of all time based on overall record sales and the number of hit songs and their charted positions.
Pat Benatar was inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame at the Second Induction Award Ceremony and Fundraising Gala held October 30, 2008. In her acceptance letter, Patti said, “My upbringing, and the values and ideals I learned back in my hometown kept me grounded. I never forget that a small town girl from Lindenhurst, LI actually got the chance to live her dreams.” She added, “Long Island girls ROCK!”
The Benatars divorced in 1979. Patti and band leader/lead guitarist Neil Giraldo married February 20, 1982. The Giraldos have two daughters: Haley Egeana born February 16, 1985, and Hana Juliana born March 12, 1994.
The Music
In the Heat of the Night
"I Need a Lover" was the first single to be released on August 27, 1979. The next single, "If You Think You Know How to Love Me" was released on September 14th 1979. Benatar's third single "Heartbreaker" released in October 1979, was an immediate hit, climbing to #23 in the U.S. Patti said, "That was written by these two English guys, Gill and Wade, and it had all these little English colloquialisms that Americans would never say. So the publisher gave it to me to clean up, and I had to figure out all these lyrics. It was making me crazy. But I loved the song from the first time I heard it, so I rewrote the lyrics and we did the song as it appears here. It's one of my favorites." A fourth single "We Live for Love" is released in February 1980, and reaches US #27.
Her debut LP In the Heat of the Night released in October 1979, reached #12 and established Benatar as a new force in rock. Michael Chapman, (Blondie, The Knack), overwhelmed by Benatar's talent, broke a self-vow not to take on any new artists when he heard a demo tape. Chapman personally produced three tracks on the album, while his long-time engineer and now independent producer, Peter Coleman (who also supervised Nick Gilder) oversaw the rest. In addition, Chapman and his partner, Nicky Chinn, wrote three original songs for the LP, in addition to a rearranged version of a song they wrote for Sweet, "No You Don't." The LP also featured two songs written by Roger Capps and Patti, "I Need a Lover" written by John Mellencamp, "Don't Let It Show" written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson, and the single "We Live for Love" by band leader/lead guitarist Neil Giraldo, a fusion of rock and New Wave that saw it reach the U.S. Top 30 and become a hit as far away as Australia.
The album would be her first RIAA certified platinum album.
Crimes of Passion
In August 1980, Benatar released her second and most popular LP, Crimes of Passion, featuring her signature song "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" along with the controversial song Hell is for Children, which was inspired by reading a series of articles in the New York Times about child abuse in America. "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" (U.S. #9) was her first single to break the U.S. Top 10 and eventually sells more than 1 million copies (gold status) in the United States alone. The album peakes at U.S. #2 in January 1981 for 6 consecutive weeks (behind Yoko Ono and John Lennon's Double Fantasy) and sells over 5 million copies, and a month later, Benatar won her first Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1980. Other singles released from Crimes of Passion were "Treat Me Right" (US #18) and the Rascal's cover, "You Better Run" (US #42), which gained some later notoriety when it was the second music video played on MTV, after the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star". The album also featured a changed-tempo cover of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Crimes of Passion remained on the US album charts for 93 weeks, eventually becoming her second consecutive platinum certification by the RIAA. In October of 1980, Benatar (along with future husband Neil Giraldo) grace the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.
Precious Time
In August 1981, Benatar hit #1 on the Billboard U.S. Top 200 LP chart with her third LP, "Precious Time". It was also her first to chart in the UK, reaching #30. The album's lead single, "Fire and Ice", was another big hit (U.S. #17, AUS #30) and would win Benatar her second Grammy Award, this time for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1981 and her third consecutive RIAA certified platinum album. Two more singles, "Promises in the Dark" (US #38) and "Take It Any Way You Want
It" are also released.
Get Nervous
A hit single, "Shadows of the Night", (US #13, AUS #19) heralded a new LP, Get Nervous, released in late 1982. The album was another smash, reaching US #4, her fourth consecutive RIAA platinum certification, and the single would garner Benatar yet another Grammy, again for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1982. The follow-up singles, "Little Too Late" and "Looking for a Stranger", were also successful, hitting US #20 and #39 respectively. The last single, "Anxiety (Get Nervous)", failed to make the Top 40. The WWII-themed music video for "Shadows of the Night" featured then-unknown actors Judge Reinhold and Bill Paxton as an American fighter copilot and a German radio operator, respectively.
Live from Earth
By 1983, Benatar had established a reputation for singing about "tough" subject matters, with a significant amount of songs featuring a "battle" metaphor. This was best exemplified by one of the biggest hits of her career, "Love Is a Battlefield" (penned by noted hit songwriter Holly Knight with Mike Chapman), released in December 1983. By then her sound had mellowed from hard rock to more atmospheric pop and the story-based video clip for "Love Is a Battlefield" was aimed squarely at MTV, even featuring Benatar in a Michael Jackson-inspired group dance number. This new pop direction was a huge commercial success, with the single peaking at #5 in the United States, her first hit single in the UK at #49, and #1 in Australia for seven weeks. The song would also net Benatar her fourth consecutive Grammy Award for "Best Female Rock Vocal Performance" of 1983. A live album, Live from Earth, from which "Love Is a Battlefield" was one of two studio-recorded tracks hit U.S. #13 and her fifth consecutive RIAA platinum winner.
Tropico
In October 1984, the single "We Belong" became another Top 5 smash in America (also hitting UK #22 and AUS #7). In November, Benatar releases her 6th album, Tropico (US #14, AUS #9). A second single release, "Ooh Ooh Song," reached U.S. #36. It is also said by Benatar and Giraldo that this album is the first where they moved away from Benatar's famed "hard rock" sound and start experimenting with new, sometimes "gentler," styles and sounds. Despite not making the US Top 10, it earned her a sixth consecutive RIAA platinum certification. A third single, "Temporary Heroes" is also released in March 1985.
Seven the Hard Way
Benatar would hit the U.S. Top 10 with the #10 single "Invincible" in 1985. "Sex As a Weapon" would climb as high as #28 in January 1986, and "Le Bel Age" (#54) in February. While the LP Seven the Hard Way peaked at #26, earning an RIAA Gold certification.
Wide Awake in Dreamland
In July 1988, Benatar released her eighth album, "Wide Awake in Dreamland" (US #28, UK #29). A single lifted from the album, "All Fired Up" (written by Kerryn Tolhurst, ex-The Dingoes) hits US #19, and was a #2 smash in Australia, becoming one of the biggest hits of 1988 in that country. Other singles released from the LP are "Don't Walk Away" (UK #42), "Let's Stay Together", and "One Love" (UK #59). The album also earned an RIAA gold certification.
Best Shots: International Success
Best Shots (US #67) was first released in the UK in 1987 and in the US in November 1989. The US version included 15 tracks on 1 CD, 1 live version of "Hell Is for Children" with Suffer the Little Children intro, "Painted Desert" (from Tropico) and a remixed version of "Outlaw Blues" (also from Tropico) and would be another certified RIAA gold (later platinum) album. Best Shots was the only official greatest hits compilation until 1994 when All Fired Up: The Very Best of Pat Benatar was released (2 CD) in 1994. The box set Synchronistic Wanderings (3 CD) was released in 1999. "Classic Masters" was released in October 2002. Pat Benatar - "Greatest Hits" was released in June 2005. The most recent collection, "Ultimate Collection" (2 CD set) was released in June 2008 under the Capitol Records label with forty 24 bit-digitally remastered tracks.
Her appeal in the UK began to grow with the 1987 greatest hits LP, Best Shots, reaching #6 and gold sales status, and re-released singles "Love Is a Battlefield" and "Shadows of the Night" charting at #17 and #50, respectively. Her standing in Australia (always Benatar's most successful territory outside of North America), also remained undiminished, with Seven the Hard Way hitting the Top 10, and Best Shots the top 20.
The 1990s
During the 1990s Pat Benatar released 3 original albums.
True Love (US #37) was a jump blues record, released in 1991 and featured the blues band Roomful of Blues, backing up Pat Benatar, Neil Giraldo and Myron Grombacher. The album sold over 339,000. albums without any radio airplay and limited exposure on VH-1.
Gravity's Rainbow (US #85) was released in 1993 and was a return to the AOR genre. "Everybody Lay Down" was released as a single to rock radio and went all the way to #3. The single was never released to Top 40 radio and a music video was never produced. "Somebody's Baby" was instead released as the 1st single to Top 40 radio and a music video produced. A third single was scheduled and a video shot for "Everytime I Fall Back", but the single was never released and the music video was lost when Chrysalis was sold to EMI records. Pat Benatar had become pregnant and this may have had an effect on her label's support of the album. This was the last album recorded for Chrysalis records.
Innamorata (US #171) was released in 1997 on the CMC International record label. A single video was produced for "Strawberry Wine (Life is Sweet)".
The 2000s and beyond
Pat Benatar has released only one album of new material since 1997's Innamorata, which is 2003's Go (US #187). The album included the 9/11 charity single, "Christmas in America" as a bonus track. A compilation video was produced for the single "Have it All", but was never released, the only video from this album is for the bonus track.
Many best of/greatest hits compilations have been released over the years by Pat Benatar's former record company. Most notably, 1989's Best Shots (album), 2005's Greatest Hits (Pat Benatar album) and 2008's Pat Benatar Ultimate Collection (featuring the version of "Everytime I Fall Back" from her appearance on The Young and the Restless).
2009 will mark the 30th anniversary for Pat Benatar's 1st album. During the 2008 summer tour Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo have said that many "big things" are in the works for the 30th anniversary.
The band
Although billed as a solo artist, Benatar recorded and toured with a consistent set of band members over most of her career, who contributed greatly to the writing and producing of songs and are recognizable characters on album photos and in many of her music videos.
- Neil "Spyder" Giraldo (incorrectly spelled as "Geraldo" in early liner notes/credits) is the distinctive lead guitarist of the band and has performed on all of Benatar's albums. (He is also Pat's second husband.) He was born on December 29, 1955. Neil also sings, plays keyboards and harmonica, and has many writing and producing credits on the Benatar albums. Neil performed with Myron Grombacher in Rick Derringer's touring band, appearing in a possible bootleg entitled Derringer Live At The Paradise Theater Boston, Massachusetts, July 7, 1978 (UPC 672627400428).
- Myron Grombacher is billed as drummer on nine of Benatar's albums and has numerous writing credits. Myron is easily recognizable in the music videos, particularly as the mad dentist in Get Nervous.
- Charlie Giordano performed keyboard duties on five albums, and is identifiable by his glasses and distinctive array of berets, blazers and 80s-style ties. In 2007, he replaced the late Danny Federici in the E Street Band.
- The original bass guitarist was Roger Capps, replaced on Tropico by Donnie Nossov, and then later by Frank Linx.
- Scott Sheets is credited on rhythm guitar on the first few albums.
Other achievements
Benatar still writes and tours with her husband Neil Giraldo.
In the summer of 2005, the couple's older daughter Haley Giraldo starred in E!'s reality TV series Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive.
Stage and screen
Benatar played the character Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical "The Zinger". Set in a recording studio sometime around the year 2000, the production, which debuted on March 19, 1976, at the Performing Arts Foundation's (PAF) Playhouse in Huntington Station, Long Island, renamed the Harry Chapin Center, ran for a month and also featured Beverly D'Angelo and Christine Lahti. Benatar said, "It was great. I had an afro wig with glitter on! It was so fabulous." Benatar performed the solo "Shooting Star" in honor of Chapin for the Harry Chapin Tribute, Carnegie Hall, December 7, 1987.
In 1980, she portrayed the character "Jeanette Florescu" in Marcus Reichert's film noir Union City.
In 1982, the song 'Treat Me Right' and, very briefly, the Crimes of Passion album cover too, featured in the 1982 movie, An Officer and a Gentleman, starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger.
Benatar had a song entitled Here's My Heart, featured in the 1984 version of the 1926 movie Metropolis.
In 1985, "Invincible" was the title track to the cult movie The Legend of Billie Jean.
Benatar contributed the original tune "Sometimes the Good Guys Finish First" to the The Secret of My Success (1987) soundtrack.
In April 1989 she appeared in an "ABC Afterschool Special" entitled "Torn Between Two Fathers" about a teenage girl who sues her natural father for the right to remain in her step-family's home following the accidental death of her natural mother. Pat played "Donna", the current wife of the teenager's natural father.
Benatar contributed a cover of the Fontella Bass hit "Rescue Me" to the 1994 Speed soundtrack.
Benatar has made numerous TV appearances, mostly as herself. She appeared with her husband in the Charmed episode "Lucky Charmed" on which "Heartbreaker" was used and in an episode of Dharma & Greg as herself singing "We've Only Just Begun" at an impromptu wedding in an airport.
"Love Is a Battlefield" was featured twice on South Park, the first being the Season 2 episode "Ike's Wee Wee", but most notably in the episode "Red Man's Greed".
Benatar appeared in an episode of the short lived sitcom That '80s Show as herself as an old rival of the character Margaret. Her "Love Is a Battlefield" video appeared on an earlier episode of the show.
"Love Is a Battlefield" was used in the 2004 comedy movie 13 Going on 30 starring Jennifer Garner.
On February 14-15 2008 Benatar and husband appeared as themselves on The Young and the Restless performing at the Indigo Club.
In 2007-2008 Benatar's single "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" was put into the songlist for Guitar Hero 3 in the first tier of songs, and is also available as a downloadable song in the video game Rock Band. Her song "Heartbreaker" is a playable song in the 2008 video game followup Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Shadows of the Night was covered in 2008 by Ashley Tisdale for the television movie Picture This.
Advertising
In 2006, the song "We Belong" was part of a $20 million dollar ad campaign for Sheraton hotels, although the version used in the commercial was not Benatar's. Her version of the song is featured in the 2006 comedy Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, starring Will Ferrell and directed by Adam McKay.
Though she had earlier expressed dismay for rock stars endorsing products (including onetime cohort Debbie Harry, who had developed her modeling career simultaneously to her rock career), Benatar herself has now become a commercial spokeswoman for the Energizer company, and is currently being featured in an ad for Candies Vintage shoes for Kohl's department store. Her 2007 song "Passion" can be downloaded free from the Jell-O official site.
Discography
See also
External links
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