The Great 80s

Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar was born Patricia (Patti) Mae to Andrew and Mildred Andrzejewski (AND-zhe-YEV-skee) on January 10, 1953 in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and grew up on North Hamilton Avenue in Lindenhurst, New York, on Long Island. Of Polish and Irish descent[citation needed], she would grow up to be one of the most recognized Rock Divas of all time[citation needed].

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 8. She said, "As a kid, I sang at any choir, any denomination, anywhere I could." "We did things like sing at the Christmas tree lighting in the middle of town on Main Street." At Lindenhurst Senior High School (1967 - 1971), Andrzejewski participated in musical-theater, played Queen Guinevere in the school production of Camelot and performed 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 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 . . . and singing in front of the mirror with a hairbrush as a microphone."

Trained as a coloratura and accepted to The Juilliard School, Andrzejewski suprised family, friends and teachers by deciding a classical career wasn't for her and pursuing health education instead at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. After one year and at age 19, Andrzejewski dropped out to marry her high school sweetheart, Dennis Benatar.

Dennis, an army draftee who had gone to Vietnam briefly after graduation while in the Army Special Forces, was stationed in Richmond, Virginia, for three years, where Patti went to work as a bank teller.

Discontented with her position, it was Liza Minnelli's concert at the Richmond Coliseum November 15, 1973, that inspired Patti to quit her job the next day and pursue a singing career. Patti took a job as a singing waitress at a flapperesque nightclub named The Roaring Twenties and began 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:

"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 moved back to New York that year 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 wasn't the only break Patti got in 1975. Patti landed the part of Zephyr in Harry Chapin's futuristic rock musical "The Zinger." 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," Patti said, "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..."

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.[citation needed]

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, Benatar 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.

Wikipedia contributors. Pat Benatar. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. December 1, 2008, 21:20 UTC. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Pat_Benatar&oldid=255280336. Accessed December 4, 2008.