Standing ‘Pat’
Finally Rock Legend Pat Benatar gets her Due
Never one to back down or compromise her creative integrity, after making that mistake many years ago, Pat Benatar made it her mission to stay strong in a music industry that is unforgiving. At almost 70 years old her tough stance against the record companies may have cost her years of getting her election into the hall. In hindsight, she wouldn’t have changed a thing.
The team of husband Neil Giraldo and Pat Benatar have never stopped touring and give full strength performances despite an industry who promote only the young and vulnerable. Having attended several intimate performances at The Count Basie Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey, and The St. George Theater in Staten Island, New York, Benatar and Giraldo are never short on stamina and vigor. Pat’s voice is still operettic as she hits the highest of notes only dreamed of by new performers. She has outlasted and out-lived frankely those in her hit-generation like Whitney Houston, Prince, Meat Loaf and George Michael while watching other Rock groups and singers enter the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with fewer hits and with lesser impact. Afterall Pat was one of the pioneering members of a female few breaking into a heavily Rock-Male dominated industry. Oh by the way, she had a voice that wanted to be heard. Almost never allowed in the late 1970’s.
In June 2010, Benatar’s memoir, Between a Heart and a Rock Place, was released.[34] The book was published by HarperCollins and was acquired by Lisa Sharkey. Benatar’s memoir touches on her battles with her record company Chrysalis, the difficulties that her career caused in her personal life, and feminism. In the memoir, she is quoted as saying,
“For every day since I was old enough to think, I’ve considered myself a feminist … It’s empowering to watch and to know that, perhaps in some way, I made the hard path [women] have to walk just a little bit easier.”
The book went on to become a New York Times bestseller. Initially reluctant to undertake the project, she found the actual writing process so enjoyable that it inspired her with plans to write a novel.
PROMISES IN THE DARK
Eligible since the year 2000, Benatar and Giraldo — her chief creative partner since 1979 and husband since 1982 — have only been nominated once before, in 2020. A classically trained mezzo-soprano, she helped make strides for women in rock with success that’s included five platinum-or-better albums, 15 Top 40 singles and four Grammy Awards. Benatar and Giraldo will get their due on Nov. 5 2022 at the Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. It’s been a long time coming, but Benatar promises the two will be ready to rock when it’s time to accept their trophies.
“The people who came before us started to really tear down the walls, and we just continued it and refined it and embellished it. The rest is now up to everybody else to keep adding to the path. It’s a real collaboration of everyone who historically goes in front of you and then comes in after you.”
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