Four time Grammy winner Pat Benatar turns 70 today. Over her career she has recorded two multi-platinum selling albums and 14 top 40 singles.
Benatar grew up in Brooklyn, having an early interest in theater and singing. She began voice lessons as an elementary school student and in high school participated in school musicals. Her plans to attend The Juilliard School were derailed when she dropped out of college at Stony Brook to marry her high school sweetheart. His Army career took them to Fort Lee and Benatar worked for a time as a bank teller in Richmond.
Benatar quit her job after seeing Liza Minnelli perform in Richmond after which she got a job as a singing waitress at Hopewell’s speakeasy nightclub The Roaring Twenties. She recorded an early single on a Richmond label, but it was her return to New York that launched her career.
Through the 1980s Benatar released a series of successful albums, having eight consecutive releases become platinum sellers. Benatar stepped away from her trademark album oriented rock for 1991’s True Love, an album she recorded with Roomful of Blues. Despite limited radio support, the album sold well. It was her last Gold record and since then Benatar has released only three albums.
In 2020 Benatar was nominated for induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but she was not accepted into the Hall until last year. Also last year she announced that she would no longer perform Hit Me With Your Best Shot in deference to the families of victims of recent mass shootings.
