Pat Benatar

Pat Benatar
Pat Benatar is a popular American rock singer. Benatar has the honor of winning four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Rock Vocal Performance, Female from 1980 to 1983. She also received nominations four additional times in 1985, 1986, 1988, and 1989. Three American Music Awards are also won by her. Benatar was Rolling Stone magazine's Favorite Female Vocalist twice. Billboard magazine ranks her as the most successful female rock vocalist of all time based on number of songs and their charted positions. Benatar will be inducted into the Long Island Music Hall of Fame in 2007.

Biography
Pat Benatar was born in Brooklyn, New York on January 10, 1953. She belonged to a Polish/Irish family. While growing up in Lindenhurst, New York, on Long Island, She followed in the footsteps of her mother by studying voice and opera initially.She married her high school sweetHeart, Dennis T. Benatar in 1971. After her marriage, She immediately moved to Richmond, Virginia with her husband, where she worked as a bank clerk and sang gigs at night.

Pat began to pursue her singing career in earnest while she was in New York. In 1977, She was discovered at an amateur-night contest in the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star After performing successfully several times at the club, Benatar finally found her onstage persona in the form of a wild Halloween costume (a vampire) which she had worn as a joke.

Pat Benatar then embarked upon a very successful singing career. Her first single, Heartbreaker was released in October 1979. It proved to be an immediate hit, climbing to #23 in the US. Her debut LP, In the Heat of the Night, was even more successful. It reached #12 and established Benatar as a new force in rock. The LP featured a cover of John Cougar Mellencamp's I Need a Lover as well as the single We Live for Love,. It reach the US Top 30. It also earned her international reputation. It become a hit as far away as Australia (#28).

Her second LP, Crimes of Passion, featuring her signature song Hit Me with Your Best Shot was released by Benatar in August 1980. The single was her first to break the US Top 10 (#9). It went gold as there were record sales of over million copies. The album reached US #2 in January 1981.

Benatar was also successful in winning a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance of 1980. Treat Me Right (US #18) and a cover of Young Rascal's You Better Run (US #42, AUS #31) were other singles released from Crimes of Passion. The album became so much popular that it remained on the US album charts for 93 weeks.Released in August 1981, the LP Precious Time was Benatar's first (and only) US chart-topper.It was also her first to chart in the UK, reaching #30. The album's lead single, Fire and Ice, was another big hit (US #17, AUS #30) . Benatar won her second Grammy Award for this single.This time for Best Female Rock Performance of 1981.

A new LP, Get Nervous, was released in January 1983. It was another super hit album, reaching US #4. It included a hit single, Shadows of the Night, (US #13, AUS #19).. The single would earn Benatar yet another Grammy, for Best Female Rock Performance of 1982. The follow-up single, Little Too Late was proved to be very successful, hitting US #20.

With a significant amount of songs featuring a battle metaphor, Benatar had established a reputation for writing about 'tough' subject matter by 1983. This was best exemplified by one of the biggest hits of her career, Love Is a Battlefield, released in December 1983.

In late 1984, the single We Belong became another Top 5 smash in the US (also hitting UK #22 and AUS #7). But the LP Tropico became her first studio album since the 1979 debut to fail to crack the US Top 10, reaching only #14 (AUS #9). A second single release, Ooh Ooh Song, continued this trend by struggling to US #36.

With the single Invincible in 1985, Benatar would hit the US Top 10 once more but her days of assured commercial success in the US were over. Sex As a Weapon would only climb as high as #28 in January 1986.

At the same time, With a 1987 greatest hits LP, Best Shots, reaching #6 and re-released singles Love is a Battlefield and Shadows of the Night charting at #17 and #50, respectively, her appeal in the UK began to grow. She also remained popular in Australia through out her career. Australia was always been Benatar's most successful territory outside of the US.