"My dream was to be the singer in a rockin' band, like Robert Plant was to Led Zeppelin or Lou Gramm to Foreigner," the former Patricia Mae Andrzejewski wrote in her 2010 memoir: Between a Rock and a Hard Place. "I wanted a partnership, like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had, an unrelenting back-and-forth between talented musicians. The sound I heard in my head was raucous, with hard-driving guitars speeding everything forward. I was a classically trained singer with a great deal of musical knowledge, but I had no idea how to make that visceral, intense sound happen. I had to evolve, but I didn't know how to make that evolution happen."
Everything changed when she was introduced to Neil Giraldo, a hard-charging rock guitarist whose licks gave Benatar the exact sound she'd been looking for. With Giraldo backing her, Benatar released her debut album, In the Heat of the Night in 1979. The record was a smash success and included two monster hit singles, "Heartbreaker" and "I Need a Lover."
A year later, Benatar cemented her status as rock's premier female vocalist with her second album, Crimes of Passion. Backed by three big singles, "Hit Me With Your Best Shot", "Treat Me Right" and "You Better Run", the record went platinum immediately. As the decade continued, Benatar's career only grew. There were more albums and further popular singles, like "Love is a Battlefield" and "We Belong," whose videos got heavy play on MTV.
Her status as a 1980s icon, however, didn't translate entirely well in the 1990s. While Benatar continued to produce music, including albums like Gravity's Rainbow (1993) and Innamorata (1997), the singer struggled to match her earlier success.
She was also sidetracked by her family life. In 1982, Benatar and her guitarist, Neil Giraldo, married. The couple maintains a strong partnership on and off stage and they have two daughters, Haley and Hana.
In recent years Benatar, whose last album, Go, was released in 2003, has tapped into the nostalgia surrounding the 1980s. She continues to perform live, and in 2009 hit the road with another pioneering female rock musician, Blondie, for a series of concerts.
In all, Pat Benatar's career includes 10 platinum albums, eight No. 1 singles, and four Grammy awards.
-Gioia Patton
WHEN: Thursday, July 16th @ 8 PM
WHERE: Brown Theatre
TICKETS: $55-$65
CONTACT: Standard tickets are available online at www.kentuckycenter.org/presents, by phone (502)-584-7777, (800)-775-7777, and in-person at The Kentucky Center box office and drive-thru. Please call (502) 566-5111 (V) for information about the range of accessibility options we offer to enhance your performance experience. Kentucky Center Members please call the Member hotline at (502) 566-5144.
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