![]() ![]() He watched the rest of the performance, and when the band was finished, Newman approached Benatar and demanded, “Who are you?”. ![]() 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. Benatar’s rendition of Judy Garland’s ‘Rock A Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody’ sent the crowd reeling. She was 27th in line to go on and didn’t hit the stage until 2:00 am. One night in 1975, Benatar decided to try an open mic night at Catch A Rising Star. She packed everything she owned into her car and headed back to NYC alone, with only $2500.00 in her pocket. In 1975, just as Coxon’s Army was about to break, and against the advice of everyone involved, Benatar quit the band. She got a gig singing with a local lounge band called Coxon’s Army, who soon became regulars at Sam Miller’s Café, in the historic Shockhoe Slip and well known in and around Richmond. In 1973, Benatar quit her job as a bank teller to pursue a singing career full time after being inspired by a concert she saw in Richmond, VA. ![]() The couple would eventually divorce, in 1979. ![]() At 19, after six months in college, she dropped out to marry her high school sweetheart Dennis Benatar, an army draftee who trained at Fort Jackson, South. Born Patricia Andrzejewski in Brooklyn, New York and raised in Lindenhurst, Long Island, Pat started singing in elementary school and never stopped, working on her craft throughout her teens. ![]()
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