Dancing About Architecture

In the Ether => On the spine... => Topic started by: Perplexio on July 09, 2010, 10:14:58 am



Title: Between a Heart and a Rock Place: a Memoir by Pat Benatar
Post by: Perplexio on July 09, 2010, 10:14:58 am
Katy Perry, Lady Gaga, the Donnas, Fergie... the list goes on and on.  But their careers likely would have been considerably rockier and likely even a bit less successful had women like Pat Benatar not paved the way for them.

Most of us know her hits Heartbreaker, Hit Me With Your Best Shot, Love is a Battlefield, Invincible, and We Belong to name but a few.  But there's so much more to her story than her hits and the path not only to her success but once she attained it was far more difficult than most realize.

Even if you're not a big fan of Ms. Benatar's music, and admittedly prior to being approached for this review my familiarity with her work was largely limited to her hits, Between a Heart and a Rock Place is a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Pat gives a very candid snapshot of the music industry of the late seventies and throughout the eighties-- its superficiality, its obsession with image, and the many double standards applied to female musicians that weren't necessarily applied to male musicians-- at least not to the same extent.

The stories that are told of record label executives and the peek behind the curtain to see the Wizard that Ms. Benatar provides throughout her book shows the considerably less glamorous and far less savory side of the music industry;  How they tried to tell her how to look, how to dress, discouraged her relationship with her guitarist and later husband Neil "Spyder" Giraldo, and even attempted to hide her pregnancy for her first daughter and make her feel ashamed of it; all of it would make for quite an incredible novel but what makes it even more chilling-- it's all true!

Without giving too much away-- this book is a must read for any fan of music, anyone curious about how the recording industry works, and certainly for any aspiring musicians whether or not you happen to be fans of Pat Benatar as a musician.  The insights provided give a glimpse of how much popular music has evolved from the late seventies to the present and it's all through the eyes of one of the most successful female rockers in the history of rock and roll!

(posted originally @: http://perplexio76.blogspot.com/2010/06/between-heart-and-rock-place-by-pat.html)


Title: Re: Between a Heart and a Rock Place: a Memoir by Pat Benatar
Post by: KATH on July 12, 2010, 04:06:53 pm
I'm next on the list to read the advance at work...and he took it with him on vacation.  We only got an initial ship of 2...so, I thought I'd have some behavior and wait to check one out.  heh.  (I could've been DONE with it by the time he got BACK...OY!)  I'm really lookin' forward to this...she's one of my favorite rock girls!