New Pat Benatar

[Nathan Shafer]

I just picked up Pat Benatar's new album, and MAN IS IT GOOD! She's
done something totally new on this one: she did a whole album of blues
and jazz-blues tunes. I'm sure anyone who listens to the radio has heard
her new cut, "Payin' the Cost to Be the Boss," which is a B.B. King cover.
Well, that is fairly representative of the album. It's all uptown urban
blues, with a five piece horn section (tpt/trb/as/ts/bs) in addition to
a rhythm section that includes her (I think?) husband Neil Giraldo on
guitar (boy can he sound like B.B. on that "Payin'" single!), plus piano
(+organ and accordion), bass, drums, and Lenny Castro on percussion.
There are slow and fast tunes, one or two fast boogie-woogies, one slow
minor blues in the shifting root vein (for the musicians on the group:
|: F- F-/Eb | F-/Db F-/C :| )
and some blues-rock grooves. It's a tremendous work, and much like Linda
Ronstadt's series of albums with Nelson Riddle in the sense that this is
Pat doing what SHE wants to do, not the record company or the pop market-
place. Has anybody else heard it, and are there any other commensts?

Nathan Shafer
Dartmouth College, NH

P.S: Get it in CD if you can; there's a CD-only cut called "Please come home
for Christmas", and it is, like the rest of the album, tremendous.