Her Best Shot

Aug. 5, 2016

Pat Benetar’s Musical Legacy

The story of singer and four-time Gram-my Award winner Pat Benetar isn't your clas-sic rags-to-rock-n-roll legend. Benetar's interest in music started in Lindenhurst, Long Island, N.Y., where she pursued musical theater and trained as an accomplished soprano. Benetar had plans to attend The Juilliard School, but by the end of high school, she'd decided a classical music career wasn't in her cards. So in 1971, she'd moved into New York City and got a job as a singing waitress. She also started performing at open mic shows and in off-Broadway plays, slowly homing in on the spandex-clad stage persona that would become her signature look in the '80s.

LADDER OF ROCK

By 1979, she'd met guitarist and producer Neil Giraldo in a small rehearsal room at SIR Studios in New York City; their connection was an instant one. Giraldo would become both Benetar's long-time collaborator and her husband. From the time of their pairing, the two built an impressive ladder of pop-rock hits for the singer: "Love is a Battlefield," "Heart-breaker;' "Shadows of the Night:' "Hit Me With Your Best Shot:' and "We Belong:' She was also the first female to appear on MTV — in the music video for her hit sin-gle, "You Better Run" — and would become one of the heaviest-played artists during the channel's first decade.

NEVER FADE AWAY

Even as the sounds of the '80s faded, Benetar continued to release and perform music, always with Giraldo by her side. Along the way, she tackled a few musical experiments — her 1991 jump-blues record, True Love, on which Rhode Island blues re-vival band Roomful of Blues served as her backing band for the up-tempo tracks; and her often overlooked 1997 album, Innamo-rata, which put her voice front and center against a backdrop of acoustic guitars and carefully-arranged strings. Her most recent album is 2003's Go, a contemporary, guitar-driven set that showed off Giraldo's guitar skills.

DIVA POWER

In recent years, Benetar primarily has focused on touring, sometimes on her own and sometimes with musical pals from the same era (Blondie, Rick Springfield, Cheap Trick), as well as writing and publishing her memoir, Between a Rock and a Hard Place, which chronicles her life to date and her ex-periences in the music industry. Benetar and Giraldo — who call each other Patricia and Spyder — are selective with interviews, but they told Rolling Stone Magazine late last year that they consider themselves a rock 'n roll Johnny and June (a reference to Johnny Cash and his wife, June Carter Cash) in that their bond is as un-breakable as their drive to make music. Appropriately, their setlist often includes a crowd-wowing mash-up of Cash's "Ring of Fire" with Benetar's own "Heartbreaket" Pair that up with the rest of Benetar's long roster of hits, and their upcoming show here in northern Michigan is sure to be a hit from this legendary rock diva.

Pat Benetar will be in concert at Interlochen Center for the Arts' Kresge Auditorium on August 9 at 8pm. Also appearing will be Neil Giraldo and opening act Melissa Etheridge. For tickets and more information, visit tickets. interlochen.org or call 231-276-7800.