Between a Heart and a Rock Place Read online

  I was scared to death the first time I sang there. Early that afternoon, I’d gone to the club and waited outside with all the other hopefuls to get a number. It was first come, first served—the number you got determined when you went on. I got number 29, which meant that I wouldn’t go on until nearly three A.M. Luckily the club had a good late-night crowd. When it was finally my turn, I sang a cover of Judy Garland’s “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody.” I was so nervous I had to hide my shakes. After I’d sung the final note, I closed my eyes, terrified to open them and see the crowd’s reaction. The next sound I heard was everyone in the joint going absolutely crazy. I was in total shock.

  While I was singing, Rick Newman, the club owner, had been drinking with some of his friends in the bar at the front of the club, not paying much attention to the contestants. When he heard the audience cheering for me he burst through the doors as I was exiting the stage.

  “Who are you and where did you come from?” he asked with a smile. I don’t know what reaction I was expecting from my performance, but that was not it. I laughed and told him my story. Newman was a big, tall guy—very seventies with his open shirts and gold chains. He had curly dark hair and a big mustache that made him look like he was wearing one of those fake noses with glasses. (Richard Belzer even poked fun at him about it in his act: “Hey, does that nose go with the glasses?”) My performance made Newman an instant fan, and he offered to do anything he could to help me get started. That at least meant more performances at Catch a Rising Star.

  It didn’t take me long to become a fixture at Catch, and hanging out there became one of my favorite things to do, whether I was performing or not. The comics weren’t just funny onstage. They were “on” most of the time. We would stay up all night and then go for breakfast at a local coffee shop called the Green Kitchen. Between Richard Belzer and the other guys, I think I had coffee and milk shooting out of my nose every fifteen minutes. I finally figured out that Belzer waited until I had just taken a big gulp of my coffee to jump in with a one-liner. Then, of course, I looked like an idiot for all to see. The best part though was nobody thought you looked like an idiot.

  I loved to play poker, and on some nights, I’d stay there with the comedians until five in the morning in a card game. With the exception of a few times when some girlfriend of Newman’s played with us, I was the only woman in those games, but it wasn’t something that ever really occurred to me. In my mind I was just laughing with the boys—John Belushi, Chevy Chase, John DeBellis, The Untouchables. I learned everything about humor, timing, and swearing from these guys, hence my extensive collection of obscenities. The whole scene was just fun, and I fit right in.

  Those became some of the happiest times of my life. Everyone was trying to make it, and in the process we were a family. We were all working toward the same end. We cheered each other’s successes and stood by each other when auditions went badly. It didn’t matter that you didn’t have any money or that your name wasn’t on any marquee yet. Everyone was more or less in the same position, with some closer to the brass ring than others but everyone trying. When you find creative people who are all trying to do similar things, so often resentment and competition overtake everything. It’s so rare to find people who are confident enough in themselves and their own talents that they’re able to honestly be there for one another. But that was precisely what we had. It was a close-knit community, with all of us encouraging and supporting each other. You didn’t find much negativity there. It was tough in New York; Catch was a safe haven.

  But while Catch was good fun and good exposure, it didn’t pay anything, and I needed a paycheck at least once in a while. One day I was talking to a good friend named Mel Pralgo, who was a partner in a band that played weddings and bar mitzvahs, and laid it on the line.

  “Shit, Mel! I’m dying here. I need to make some money!”

  He shrugged. “Why don’t you come sing with me? We’ll do parties, weddings, and bar mitzvahs. You won’t get rich. It pays a couple of hundred at a time. But it’s something.”

  And so I did. I decided something was a lot better than nothing, and off we went every weekend. I sang “The Way We Were” and “Feelings” so many times I’d probably do something requiring jail time if I ever had to sing them again. One night, we were playing a party in Huntington, Long Island, and I was sitting in a local club when in walked Harry Chapin. He was truly one of the most casual stars ever, basically a modern-day troubadour. That night, he looked like he’d just rolled out of bed. After I got to know Harry, I realized he always looked like that. His hair was always messed up, and he couldn’t have cared less what he wore. He also never, ever, carried any money on him. Even that first night I met him, he had to ask the bartender to spot him.

  Harry and I started talking about a play that he was doing at a local theater.

  “I think you’d be perfect for this one part.”

  I hesitated, because I hadn’t done any theater work since high school.

  “Why don’t you just come audition and see?” he said.

  So that’s what I did, and I landed a role in his rock musical, The Zinger, which played at the Performing Arts Foundation for a month. It was a thrilling opportunity, especially because I got to work with Christine Lahti and Beverly D’Angelo. I was a step behind them professionally. They were on their way up, while I was pre–on my way up. I didn’t expect this gig to be the big break I hoped for, but I did see it as a wonderful learning experience, a way to be onstage with pros. (Most of all I got to know Harry and his darling family. When he died, it absolutely broke my heart.)

  The best part about all this was that I had the freedom to experiment. I was trying to make it, but I wasn’t limiting myself. New York offered endless ways to experiment musically and push the envelope. I just had to find those opportunities and take advantage of them. In the process, I ended up doing a lot of different things and meeting cool people. Meanwhile I was singing anywhere and everywhere that I could—always looking to get in front of a crowd. I ran in different circles because that was a good way to meet people, but I didn’t think that every single thing I did would result in the big time. That goal was first and foremost in my mind, but I also wanted to experience all that New York City had to offer. I was driven but I was also having fun.

  And when I wasn’t on performing or trying to line up my next gig, having fun meant hanging out with my friends. New York was an insane place to be in the late seventies, and while I didn’t participate in the drug scene, I was definitely around it all the time. You’d show up at parties and there would just be mounds of coke, and, of course, pot was everywhere. But none of that was my thing. Now, I’m not saying I was an angel, but that stuff really didn’t interest me. I wanted to be in control of the situation, and in my experience, that control was usually the first thing drugs made you relinquish. Doing drugs would’ve produced so much anxiety that it wouldn’t have been worth it. (Thanks, Mom, finally a situation where those scare tactics paid off.) Besides, I always worried that I’d hurt my throat or ruin my face or eat too many M&M’s. I was too responsible to let go like that.

  Eventually it just became a given that although I was cool being around people who were wasted, I didn’t indulge personally. I had a lot of druggie friends (some of the comedians I hung around were notorious drug users), but the bulk of my close friends were lay people or musical theater people, both of which were much more benign. The choice to not spend a lot of time with the hard-core rockers was mine. For me, it was about the music; for a lot of them it was a lifestyle. I was a nice girl, a little square and cautious perhaps, but with an edge. Still, I would not be a casualty. I had a plan to succeed and not succumb.

  After I’d been living in the city for a bit, I started looking for a manager, and I decided to take a chance on a semi-well-known guy named Jeff Nicholas who wanted to represent me. When I told Newman about him, he was skeptical, but he told me to give it a try.

  “Just don’t si
gn anything” were his only words of caution.

  I began working with Nicholas, and at first, things were okay. He seemed interested in my career and we seemed to have a similar vision of what I needed to do. I spent most of my time hanging around Catch with the gang, always keeping Newman informed about what I was up to. One afternoon, Nicholas set up a meeting with a songwriter he wanted me to meet. The guy lived on Central Park West, and the plan was for me to meet him at his apartment by myself so that we could start talking over ideas. Walking up the pristine avenue across from the park, it occurred to me that with this address, this songwriter had to be a big shot of some kind. Clearly this meeting was a good one for me to take. When I arrived at his door, I saw he was in his midforties with a thin comb-over on his shiny, balding head. At first, he seemed nice enough, but there was an anxiety to him that seemed off. For one thing he had several locks on his door, which was odd given the neighborhood and the fact that this was a doorman building. I quickly found out why.

  I spent the next hour being chased around the piano—literally. At every turn the guy kept trying to put his hands all over me, refusing to let me out of the apartment. I finally began to cry, and with the tears, he seemed to realize how green and young I was. He took pity on me and let me leave, but the damage had been done. I rode the crosstown bus back to the East Side, shaking and crying the whole way home. I went straight to the club and told Newman what happened. Instantly his paternal instinct for me kicked in. He sent some people to Nicholas’s house to convince him that he should gracefully walk away from any relationship with me.

  That was where my association with Jeff Nicholas ended. I had always been cautious about the people I trusted, but after that run-in, I came to see just how guarded I needed to be. As open and progressive as the music business was supposed to be, it was still very much a man’s world. Men held the power, and they weren’t afraid to wield it in order to get what they wanted.

  The whole experience left me feeling demoralized. As great as my support system at Catch was, none of those guys ever had to deal with something like this. It was Newman, though, who was able to lift my spirits, when he and I began to discuss the possibility of him managing me. He was hesitant because he’d never managed a music act before and had absolutely no experience in the music business. But neither of us let that stand in the way. We both believed I had the goods necessary to make it. Whatever we didn’t know, we’d figure out as we went. We were taking baby steps. How hard could it be?

  Once he started repping me, I got thrown into Newman’s world headfirst. I’d always known that Newman had some colorful friends, and when we’d first started working together, I had periodic run-ins with some of these guys, many of whom were total characters.

  One morning, before I’d signed with Chrysalis, I was meeting Rick at a restaurant-bar called Friar Tuck where he was going to introduce me to a prospective agent. The restaurant was closed during the day, so only a skeleton staff was there prepping for the evening. I was sitting at the bar and waiting for Newman, but since it was eleven A.M. I wasn’t drinking. However, there was an older gentleman who was also sitting at the bar, and he was drinking. We sat there a long time, not speaking and occasionally smiling politely at each other.

  When it became clear that Rick was officially very late, the gentleman finally spoke. “Hey, doll, whattaya doin’ here?”

  “I’m waiting for my manager—we’re having a meeting,” I told him.

  “Oh, are you waiting for Ricky?” he asked.

  “Yes.” I was surprised he knew Rick. He shook his head.

  “Now that’s wrong. It’s rude to keep a pretty girl like you waiting so long. Whatsamatter with him? Me, I got an excuse, I’ve been hit in the head a lot of times.” He smiled and went on eating his meal. I later found out that the gentleman was legendary boxer Rocky Graziano.

  Another time, Rick and I went out for some Italian food at a restaurant called Jilly’s in midtown. Jilly Rizzo, the owner, was a longtime friend of Frank Sinatra, and right as we were walking in, Frank was walking out. He stopped to say hello to Newman, and looking at me he said, “Who’s this little girl?”

  “Frank,” Newman said, “her name is Pat Benatar and she’s an amazing singer. You’d love her voice.”

  Frank smiled, those famous blue eyes twinkling, and then pinched both my cheeks. “With this doll face, she’ll have no problem. Good luck, kid, maybe I’ll see ya around.”

  Then he was gone, and the only thing running through my head was, Oh my God, did Frank Sinatra really just pinch my cheeks and call me doll face? Newman and I may not have known where we were going together, but at least with him it was never a dull moment.

  IN 1977 I ACCIDENTALLY hit on my stage image thanks to an old science fiction movie and a Halloween party.

  It was a 1953 D-movie titled Cat-Women of the Moon that inspired me to dress up in black spandex with a lot of eye makeup. It’s pretty shocking that Ed Wood didn’t have a hand in making this movie. It’s that bad. But I was a junkie for terrible sci-fi and horror flicks, so I knew it well. There was something about the campiness of their outfits that was too good to pass up—especially for Halloween.

  That night, I carried a ray gun and wore black tights, short black boots, and a sheer black top—not to mention lots of eyeliner. A bunch of us dressed up and decided to go to the Village to see all the outrageous costumes. With a large gay population, most of whom made dressing up for Halloween an art form, the Village was the only place to be. We all entered a costume contest at Café Figaro on Bleecker Street, and given the competition, I figured there was no way my Cat-Woman of the Moon outfit would win. Unbelievably, it did. After the contest, I had to go back uptown for a show at Catch, and to celebrate, I decided to perform in costume. So, there I was, in this crazy getup, singing the same songs I’d been singing for months, only this time I looked like I stepped out of a fifties sci-fi flick.

  That night, though, something changed. I don’t know if it was because I felt like I was playing a role or I simply removed my personal shell, but I had newfound bravado, a sexual swagger that wasn’t there before. The notes were the same, but they had an attitude to them, an aggression. In the years since, I’ve returned to that night countless times, and even now, I’m not totally sure what prompted the change inside me. I’d been on that stage for months, and I’d had the spotlight on me for years; never before had I owned the stage like I did that Halloween.

  The audience ate it up. They stood and applauded, yelled and stomped—not exactly the reaction I was used to. Don’t get me wrong, I usually got a good reception, especially at Catch, but this crowd was going crazy. As I took in the moment and looked around the packed, costumed room, I tried to piece together just what had happened. It didn’t take long for me to figure it out.

  Now, I may have been a newbie, but I was no dummy. I decided to wear the outfit again the next night (minus the ray gun), and the crowd had the same reaction, even bigger than the night before. That was all the proof I needed. From that moment on I wore variations of that outfit every time I played. My stage persona was born. Later on when people asked my mother about my skimpy outfits, she quipped that she was relieved I was wearing clothes at all because she’d been worried I would end up a stripper. (When one journalist was obviously fishing for a negative comment from her about my stage outfits, her response was simply, “If I had her shape I’d dress like that too!”)

  Riding the wave of my newly energized live show, Newman got some demo tapes together that were beautifully produced—but that was precisely the problem. They didn’t sound like rock and roll. My attitude, which I honed through performing, was solid, but my vocal delivery was still too controlled, too trained. Because I sang a lot of other singers’ music, I tended to emulate their voices when I was performing their songs. Part of the blessing of having a wide vocal range was also a curse: I sang songs too closely to the sound on the actual recording, making it hard to hear my voice.

  I
could see this was creating a problem, so I sought out songwriters with original material that I could put my own vocal stamp on. This proved to be the right move, and when we had enough original songs, we made more demos. Newman and I were both convinced a record deal was right out there waiting for me. For a long time it seemed like we spent every spare minute trying to get a name of some record label rep who would let us drop off a tape. Sometimes we didn’t have a name. We just dropped the tape off at the front desk. Everybody passed.

  I shared the demos with people I knew, and while everyone agreed they were wonderful, the tapes were still missing something only I could hear. Never one to give up, I went back to performing live, figuring that was where I needed to be in order to work toward the sound I heard in my head. I stopped playing at cabaret clubs like Gypsy’s, Goodtimes, and Dangerfield’s, and I moved into rock venues. Through singing original songs, my voice began to emerge, and though it still wasn’t quite what I wanted, it was getting closer all the time. My stage persona was growing by leaps and bounds; it became sensual, aggressive, and on occasion I was compared to Jagger. I was beginning to have control over an audience in ways I’d never had before.

  It was exciting, but even then I knew a huge part of what I wanted to achieve was absent. While I loved bands and singers from every genre of music—the Beatles, Linda Ronstadt, Simon and Garfunkel, Dylan, and all things Motown—none of those were how I envisioned myself. I wanted that amazing, blistering guitar player, a partner to play off. Musically, I wasn’t getting that monstrous chordal “bed” I was looking for. Zeppelin, the Stones, the Clash, Foreigner—all had that intense, guitar-driven sound. I was well aware that this was new territory for a woman, but that made it all the more attractive. I had listened to Grace Slick and Janis Joplin, and I admired them. But neither of them had the sound I wanted. I wanted to be Robert Plant.