Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar was the most successful female hard-rock singer of the '80s. She grew up on Long Island, where at age 17 she began vocal training in preparation for study at the Juilliard School of Music. She soon rebelled against the rigorous training and ended her studies. After turning 18, she married Dennis Benatar, a GI stationed in Richmond, Virginia. There she worked as a bank clerk before taking a job as a singing waitress. In 1975 the couple returned to New York; they later divorced.

Benatar began working Manhattan's cabaret circuit in 1975 with a chanteuse style derived from Barbra Streisand and Diana Ross. At Catch a Rising Star, she attracted the attention of club owner Rick Newman, who became her manager. By 1978 she had switched to a more aggressive rock approach, and after being rejected by several labels was signed to Chrysalis.

Benatar’s debut went platinum (the first of six) on the strength of the #23 single “Heartbreaker.” Her 1980 followup, Crimes of Passion, sold over 4 million, yielding two hit singles, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” (#9, 1980) and “Treat Me Right” (#18, 1981). Precious Time (also multiplatinum), boasted “Promises in the Dark” (#38, 1981) and “Fire and Ice” (#17, 1981).

Benatar’s early sex-kitten image - which she later stated had been thrust upon her - belied the singer’s choice of assertive, tough-girl lyrics and take-no-crap delivery. In 1982 she married her guitarist and musical director, Neil Giraldo, with whom she wrote most of her songs. Her streak of hits continued with “Shadows of the Night” (#13, 1982), “Little Too Late” (#20, 1983), “Love Is a Battlefield” (#5, 1983), and “We Belong” (#5, 1984). She returned to recording after the birth of her first daughter, Haley, with “Invincible” (#10, 1985), “Sex as a Weapon” (#28, 1985), and “All Fired Up” (#19, 1988). Something of a stylistic departure, True Love, a collection of blues recordings, produced no hits. Two years later, Benatar was back with Gravity’s Rainbow, which failed to chart.

The disappointing response to her comeback, along with the birth of her second daughter, Hana, in 1994 and the absorption of her longtime label, Chrysalis, by EMI in 1995, caused an extended break in Benatar’s recording career. She left Chrysalis and recorded 1997’s largely acoustic Innamorata for CMC International, a label that focuses on artists who had their heyday in the ’70s and ’80s. (The label also released a recording of a 1980 Benatar concert.) In addition to joining new labelmates Styx on a summer tour that year, she performed two dates of the first Lilith Fair. In 1999 Benatar and Giraldo were given carte blanche to select songs for the three-disc hits collection Synchronistic Wanderings, distributed by Chrysalis’ new parent company. The box set includes eight previously unreleased tracks, including an early cover of Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” In 2000 the couple began recording a new album for Sony’s Portrait label and had turned their attention to encouraging their teenage daughter Haley’s band, GLO.

from The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Simon & Schuster, 2001)a