Happy birthday to the the great rock vocalist Patricia Mae Andrzejewski (born January 10, 1953), known professionally as Pat Benatar, an American singer and four-time Grammy Award winner. She is a mezzo-soprano. She has had considerable commercial success, particularly in the United States. During the 1980s, Benatar had two RIAA-certified Multi-Platinum albums, five RIAA-certified Platinum albums, three RIAA-certified Gold albums and 15 Top 40 singles, including the Top 10 hits, Hit Me with Your Best Shot, Love Is a Battlefield, We Belong and Invincible. Other popular singles include Heartbreaker, Treat Me Right, Fire and Ice, Promises in the Dark, Shadows of the Night, and All Fired Up. Benatar was one of the most heavily played artists in the early days of MTV. She was the first female artist to play on MTV, performing You Better Run. Patricia Mae Andrzejewski was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City. Her mother, Mildred (née Knapp), was a beautician, and her father, Andrew Andrzejewski, was a sheet-metal worker. Her father was of Polish descent and her mother was of English, Irish, and German ancestry. Her family moved to North Hamilton Avenue in Lindenhurst, New York, a village in the Long Island township of Babylon. She became interested in theater and began voice lessons, singing her first solo at age eight, at Daniel Street Elementary School, a song called It Must Be Spring. At Lindenhurst Senior High School (1967–71), she 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. Benatars debut album In the Heat of the Night was released in August 1979, and reached #12 in the US in early 1980. It established Benatar as a new force in rock. Producer Mike Chapman, who had worked with Blondie and the Knack, broke his vow not to take on any new artists when he heard Benatars 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 song-writing partner, Nicky Chinn, wrote three songs that appear on the LP, In the Heat of the Night and If You Think You Know How to Love Me which were previously recorded by Smokie, as well as a rearranged version of a song they wrote for Sweet, No You Dont. The album also featured two songs written by Roger Capps and Benatar as well as I Need a Lover written by John Mellencamp (then billed as John Cougar) and Dont Let It Show written by Alan Parsons and Eric Woolfson. The album would be Benatars first RIAA-certified platinum album. In Canada it was certified 4x platinum where it peaked at number 3 on the RPM albums chart. Benatar has released only one album of new material since 1997s Innamorata, which is 2003s Go (US #187). The album included the 9/11 charity single, Christmas in America as a bonus track. A video was produced for the single Have It All, but was never released until it was leaked on YouTube in 2012; the only video from this album is for the bonus track. They reunited with Holly Knight with Neil and Holly cowriting the tune Girl. The hard rock title track Go! became a popular performance song for Benatars future concerts. According to SoundScan, the album has now sold nearly 34,000 copies.
Posted on: Sat, 10 Jan 2015 15:02:37 +0000
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