It was that extraordinary voice, on classic hit singles from the 80s – Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Shadows Of The Night, Love Is A Battlefield, We Belong – that made her a superstar. But there is another quality to Pat Benatar that has had a powerful influence on her career – call it self-belief, independence or a simple, no-bullshit attitude.
All that she has achieved (including those hits, seven US platinum-or-better albums, four Grammys), she has done so on her own terms, whatever the consequences. As a female rock star in an arena at the time dominated by men and rife with chauvinism, Benatar refused to be marketed as a sex object – she claimed that she once “whacked” the CEO of her record label over a sexist comment he made.
After people warned her not to get involved romantically with her guitarist, Neil Giraldo – because intra-band relationships always end in tears/disaster – she ended up marrying him. 40 years later they’re still together.
When, after a string of million-selling albums, she decided to change tack and make what she called “artsy music” – another slap in the face to that CEO – she ended up with another huge hit. And when she had children, she put her family before her career.
Born Patricia Mae Andrzejewski on January 10, 1953 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York, she trained in musical theatre and opera and worked as a cabaret singer before finding her true vocation in rock’n’roll. At 19 she married her highschool sweetheart Dennis Benatar, and kept his name after their divorce in 1979.
A pivotal moment came in 1977 when she performed at a Halloween show in New York City, singing rock songs and wearing a spandex cat suit. “Something remarkable happened that night,” she recalled. “I became really aggressive. I’m really a nice girl, but this other person exists, and when she came out I never looked back.”
After signing to Chrysalis, she found the perfect foil in Giraldo, whom she described as the Jimmy Page to her Robert Plant. On all her big albums of the 80s, through to the lesser-known records of recent years, Giraldo has been her chief collaborator. And they’re not done yet. After all these years, Pat Benatar is still doing it her way.
In November 2022, Pat Benatar and Neil Giraldo were finally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
And one to avoid...
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