Pat Benatar: From Rock Icon to Legend, 1980–2025

There was nev­er much doubt that Patri­cia Mae Andrze­jew­s­ki would chase her dream of a life in music. Over the course of more than four decades, that dream became a remark­able real­i­ty. With four Gram­my Awards, a dozen stu­dio albums, dozens of hit sin­gles, and decades spent elec­tri­fy­ing audi­ences on tour, Patri­cia — known to the world as Pat Benatar — carved out a lega­cy as one of rock’s most pow­er­ful voic­es.

“I didn’t set out to be a solo artist,” she admits in her auto­bi­og­ra­phy Between a Heart and a Rock Place. “My dream was to be the singer in a rockin’ band, like Robert Plant was to Led Zep­pelin or Lou Gramm to For­eign­er. I want­ed a part­ner­ship, like Mick Jag­ger and Kei­th Richards had — an unre­lent­ing back-and-forth between tal­ent­ed musi­cians. The sound I heard in my head was rau­cous, with hard-dri­ving gui­tars speed­ing every­thing for­ward. I was a clas­si­cal­ly trained singer with a great deal of musi­cal knowl­edge, but I had no idea how to make that vis­cer­al, intense sound hap­pen. I had to evolve.”

That evo­lu­tion required not just tal­ent, but deter­mi­na­tion. In an inter­view with Ernie Manouse on InnerVIEWS, she recalled how, as a teenag­er prepar­ing for a future at Juil­liard, she sud­den­ly ques­tioned whether her gift could ever trans­late beyond the class­room. “Just because every­one says I’m a real­ly great singer for a kid and all that, why would that trans­late into the big pond?” she asked. At one point she even con­sid­ered pur­su­ing a safer path — going to col­lege and becom­ing a teacher. “Which is ridicu­lous,” she laughed, “because my kids always say, ‘Mom, you would be the worst teacher. You have no patience what­so­ev­er.’” Music, how­ev­er, was as nat­ur­al to her as breath­ing. “I can’t imag­ine not doing it ever,” she said.

Impor­tant­ly, her self-doubt nev­er stemmed from inse­cu­ri­ty. “It was nev­er, ‘Oh, I don’t think I’m good enough,’” Benatar clar­i­fied. “I thought I was absolute­ly good enough. I just thought the prob­a­bil­i­ty of it hap­pen­ing was numer­i­cal­ly ridicu­lous. It just didn’t make any sense that out of all the peo­ple who were try­ing — and there were so many that were real­ly great — why would it be me? … But I’m an imple­menter. That’s my real gift. It’s not just about tal­ent — it’s about know­ing how to keep putting one foot in front of the oth­er.”

That steady per­sis­tence began in her ear­li­est years. Born on Jan­u­ary 10, 1953, in Brook­lyn, New York, to a beau­ti­cian moth­er and a sheet-met­al work­er father, Patri­cia grew up in Lin­den­hurst, Long Island. By age eight she had already dis­cov­ered her pas­sion for the­ater and music, tak­ing voice lessons and per­form­ing her first solo at Daniel Street Ele­men­tary School. From that moment, she was hooked. Musi­cal the­ater quick­ly became a dri­ving force in her young life, and dur­ing her years at Lin­den­hurst Senior High School she shined in numer­ous pro­duc­tions — most notably star­ring as Queen Guin­e­vere in Camelot.

By the time she grad­u­at­ed, her path was unde­ni­able. She pos­sessed the rare com­bi­na­tion of clas­si­cal train­ing, unshak­able deter­mi­na­tion, and a hunger to cre­ate the kind of vis­cer­al, hard-edged sound she had always imag­ined. These qual­i­ties would car­ry her from Long Island stages to glob­al fame, trans­form­ing Patri­cia Mae Andrze­jew­s­ki into Pat Benatar — one of rock’s most endur­ing icons.

Bank Teller by Day, Singer by Night

As not­ed above, she was think­ing of attend­ing Juil­liard, but ulti­mate­ly decid­ed to study health edu­ca­tion at Stony Brook Uni­ver­si­ty. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, that didn’t take. She dropped out and mar­ried high school boyfriend Den­nis Benatar, who was part of the U.S. Army. In 1973 they end­ed up in Vir­ginia, where Benatar spent her days work­ing as a bank teller. She’d quit that job, though, so that she could spend her time in pur­suit of a singing career and found a gig with a lounge band named Coxon’s Army. Things real­ly start­ed to heat up for them, when Pat, whose mar­riage to Den­nis would end in divorce at the end of the decade, decid­ed in 1975 that she want­ed to head to New York to improve her odds.

She actu­al­ly con­tin­ues the sto­ry on her offi­cial web­site, noth­ing that one night in 1975 she “decid­ed to try open mic night at Catch a Ris­ing Star. She was 27^th in line to go on and didn’t hit the stage until 2:00 a.m. Benatar’s ren­di­tion of Judy Garland’s ‘Rock a Bye Your Baby with a Dix­ie Melody’ sent the crowd reel­ing. Hear­ing the room explode, the own­er of the club, Rick New­man, rushed in to see who could pos­si­bly be com­mand­ing such a response from the room. He watched the rest of the per­for­mance, and when the band was fin­ished, New­man approached Benatar and demand­ed, ‘Who are you?’ Thus began their rela­tion­ship as man­ag­er and artist; a work­ing rela­tion­ship which would con­tin­ue for near­ly 15 years.”

A Quick Discog­ra­phy

“So in my world,” she adds, “there was no way that women were not the same as far as I was con­cerned. And pos­si­bly supe­ri­or as far as I was con­cerned. So that’s how I went into the world. I remem­ber the first cou­ple of times when peo­ple looked at me like I had two heads when I told them what I want­ed to do. They would say things like, ‘Women can’t sell out Madi­son Square Gar­den and can’t be on the road.’ … It nev­er occurred to me that it couldn’t be done, which was great, because I was so naïve — when you’re blind, you have no fear.”

Now, a lit­tle over 40 years from the time she began pur­su­ing the dream, she can look back at a life­time of both suc­cess and fail­ures, with two great kids and a rock and roll mar­riage that has stood the test of time like few have. And she remains philo­soph­i­cal about it all

“I’ve noth­ing left to prove, which is prob­a­bly the most lib­er­at­ing feel­ing in the world,” Benatar writes in her mem­oir. “I’m not hold­ing on for dear life, try­ing to recap­ture some fleet­ing move­ment that’s long since evap­o­rat­ed … I have been a singer, a lover, a busi­ness­woman, a daugh­ter, a friend, a wife, a moth­er, and, yes, some­times even a rock star. In my jour­ney, I tried my best to hon­or all of these things. In the end, I sup­pose that’s all that’s real­ly required … I am exact­ly where I want to be.”

Life, like love, can be a bat­tle­field, but Pat Benatar stands vic­to­ri­ous. At age 72, we’re hop­ing to see more of her soon — though obvi­ous­ly we won’t have to look very far to do so.