<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly Knight\u2019s rise from a wanna-be rock musician to a respected songwriter was addressed in this space in <\/span>FTV:\u00a0 Holly the Songsmith <\/span><\/i>(11-8-23).\u00a0 Telling her story only took us up to the first major hit she and her publisher, Mike Chapman, wrote for Pat Benatar in 1983, <\/span>Love is a Battlefield.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Digging further into her resume from that point on, it seemed a gross injustice to simply cut readers off with a curt, \u201cAnd you can do a web search for the hit songs she wrote for other artists during the heyday of MTV.\u201d\u00a0 Each time Knight was given the opportunity to write for or with a musical artist, she found herself on a journey of self-discovery.\u00a0 The more successful she became at her art, the more she learned about herself.\u00a0 With that subtext in mind, let us explore more of the music Holly Knight created that would become the soundtrack for the end of the 20th Century and the beginning of the 21st.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As mentioned in Part 1, moving to Los Angeles to work for Dreamland Records owner \/ producer \/ publisher Mike Chapman was the first rung on Knight\u2019s ladder of success as a songwriter.\u00a0 With his contacts, Chapman was able to put Holly in touch with a diverse group of artists and songwriters, more than she would have been able to meet on her own.\u00a0 One of the first collaborators Mike hooked her up with after the success she had writing for Pat Benatar was Michael Des Barres.\u00a0 Formerly of the British glam rock band Silverhead, he was also Knight\u2019s label-mate at Dreamland Records where he was signed as a solo artist.\u00a0 Chapman suggested she and Des Barres might be able to write a hit for another British band named Smokie whom he was about to begin recording with.\u00a0 The three of them put their heads together and came up with a song called <\/span>Looking Daggers.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The band\u2019s resume shows over twenty records in the can from 1975 to 2010, they didn\u2019t make a big impact on this side of the pond.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The collaboration with Des Barres went well so they made plans to get together to write again.\u00a0 Des Barres told Holly he had an idea for a song he wanted to call <\/span>Obsession.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Knight wondered (but didn\u2019t ask) if it had to do with his love affair with sex and drugs, but she felt the lyrics were compelling.\u00a0 As she recalled, \u201cImmediately inspired, I sat down to write the music, starting with this infectious bass sequence I programmed on my synthesizer, and then added chords over it.\u00a0 We finished the vocal melody and tweaked the rest of the lyrics together in a day.\u00a0 After we recorded a simple demo, we played it to Chapman who said, \u2018This is a bloody hit!.\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Knight and Des Barres version of the song was pitched to a film company distributed by Twentieth Century Fox.\u00a0 They in turn licensed it to a film called <\/span>A Night in Heaven <\/span><\/i>starring Christpher Atkikns (yes, the same actor who found fame starring opposite Brook Shields in <\/span>The Blue Lagoon<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>A year later, an L.A. based band named Animotion heard the track and decided to cut a more up-beat, pop sounding version.\u00a0 The song was akin to something like the Human League was peddling on MTV at the time.\u00a0 Sure enough, Animotion\u2019s <\/span>Obsession <\/span><\/i>became a staple on MTV and went to No 6 on the <\/span>Billboard Hot 100.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>It has since become one of Knight\u2019s most licensed songs.\u00a0 The Des Barres connection also led to Holly being introduced to Kathy Valentine, the bass player for the Go-Gos.\u00a0 They became fast friends and Knight was happy to make an acquaintance in the music business who understood, as she put it, \u201cthe pitfalls and trappings\u201dof the biz who also shared her sense of humor.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Chapman next proposed Knight try writing with Nick Gilder, a Canadian singer who Mike had produced a number one for called <\/span>Hot Child in the City.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Chapman told them he was going to be working with a New York band called Scandal and their feisty lead singer, Patty Smyth.\u00a0 Mike told Holly and Nick Scandal had some good songs ready for their album but, \u201cI need a hit for this record.\u201d\u00a0 Knight\u2019s first thought on the project was, \u201cWe needed to write the kind of male-driven lyrics that men were known for, but that a woman could sing instead.\u00a0 I felt that would be much more enticing.\u00a0 I knew I wanted to write something with \u2018Warrior\u2019 in the title.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cWhat do you think of this?\u00a0 <\/span>Shooting at the walls of heartache\u2026 <\/span><\/i>Nick asked.\u00a0 \u2018That\u2019s great, now try <\/span>I am the warrior,\u2019 <\/span><\/i>I said.\u00a0 \u2018Yeah, that\u2019s great,\u2019 he shot back, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s repeat that,\u2019 and then I came up with <\/span>heart to heart you win if you survive.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>We got together one more time to finish the lyric, and that\u2019s when Nick came up with my favorite part, the \u2018bang bang\u2019 after the first line of the chorus.\u00a0 It was so hooky and iconic.\u00a0 We demoed it with Nick\u2019s vocals – he sounded great:\u00a0 <\/span>Shooting at the walls of heartache, bang bang, I am the warrior, well I am the warrior, Heart to Heart, you win if you survive, The warrior, The warrior.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/i>As excited as she was about the song, she was disappointed when Mike\u2019s response after he listened to it was a lukewarm, \u2018It\u2019s not bad.\u2019\u00a0 Gilder wasn\u2019t as crushed because he figured if Chapman didn\u2019t want it for Scandal, he would record it himself – he loved the track.\u00a0 A week later, Mike asked her to resend the tune to him and after the cassette was dropped off (no file sharing across the internet back in 1984), he called her back:\u00a0 \u201cThis song is a (expletive deleted) hit, and I\u2019m going to going to record it with Patty.\u201d\u00a0 When Nick pleaded his case that the tune was just what he needed to resurrect his stagnant career, Chapman pulled out the big guns.<\/span><\/p>\n He told Gilder, \u201cLook.\u00a0 I am the publisher on this song,\u00a0 You wrote it for an artist I\u2019m producing because I asked you to, and if you don\u2019t let me have it, I won\u2019t grant the license to you or anyone else to record it.\u201d\u00a0 Chapman got his way and <\/span>The Warrior<\/span><\/i> was released as the first single off the album and it went to number one in Canada, number seven in the United States and number one on the US Rock Chart.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As had become vogue, the video made for the song made no sense with the lyrics. \u00a0 Knight now says, \u201cThe makeup artist should\u2019ve been shot, although it was probably the director who told him (or her) to make Patty look like a multi-colored bolt of lightning had struck her in the face.\u00a0 The band looked like extras from the Broadway production of <\/span>Cats.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Did they really think she looked anything like a ninja warrior?\u201d\u00a0 The video went into heavy rotation and Holly often wondered what Patty thought about it.\u00a0 It took nearly thirty years for them to actually have a conversation about it:\u00a0 \u201cWe got together for lunch in New York and I learned she hated it as much as I did.\u00a0 We shared a good laugh over it.\u201d\u00a0 MTV thought it newsworthy that a young woman was the songwriter behind the hit and the VJs took to talking about Holly Knight a lot during the newsbreaks they did every half hour.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Knight had her share of success to be sure, but it wasn\u2019t always smooth sailing.\u00a0 Chapman had her pegged to work with an Australian band called the Divinyls on their second album <\/span>What a Life!<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 She and Mike produced a couple of tunes for the album.\u00a0 One called <\/span>Pleasure and Pain <\/span><\/i>was left unfinished so Holly and lead singer Chrissy Amphlett could finish it together.\u00a0 This was a common thing to do so a band would feel more buy in on songs written by outside writers.\u00a0 Knight remembers, \u201cWe laid some lines of cocaine out on the table (another common thing in the 1980s recording studio process) and started to have a pleasant enough conversation.\u00a0 I asked her if she and Mark, the lead guitarist, were a couple, because it seems like they were a perfect fit and they were seen together a lot in photographs.\u00a0 It seemed like an innocent enough question.\u00a0 I\u2019d been in a band and had a relationship with the drummer, so it was no big deal.\u00a0 Instead of answering, Chrissy stood up and said, \u2018I think I\u2019m going to go for a walk,\u2019 and she left…and never returned.\u201d\u00a0 The label got back to Holly the next day and told her she had upset the singer with her personal questions and Amphlett didn\u2019t want to write with her any more.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As Knight continued to climb the songwriter ladder of success, she found out exactly how far the support of a superstar could propel her career.\u00a0 In 1984, the then forty-four year old Tina Turner was embarking on a solo career after coming up through the ranks performing with (and being abused by) her husband Ike Turner.\u00a0 As her team was screening songs for her first solo album (<\/span>Private Dancer<\/span><\/i>), Tina jumped out of her seat when she heard Holly\u2019s Spider song <\/span>Better Be Good to Me.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u201cThis is the perfect song for me!\u201d she exclaimed.\u00a0 She felt it had an empowering message and a lot of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll attitude.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It turned out to be a big record indeed.\u00a0 <\/span>Private Dancer<\/span><\/i> sold twenty million copies, won the Grammy for Record of the Year, and <\/span>Better Be Good to Me <\/span><\/i>earned the Best Rock Vocal Performance award.\u00a0 Of course, it was a huge win for Holly also, but one of the big things she remembers about it now is how she was invited into Tina\u2019s inner circle during the writing of her next Turner song.\u00a0 Tina had just wrapped up filming the second sequel in the <\/span>Mad Max<\/span><\/i> movie series (<\/span>Beyond Thunderdome<\/span><\/i>) and the director wanted a song written that would be tailor made\u00a0 for the opening scene.\u00a0 Mike called Holly and asked if she would like to take a stab at it.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With a script and some movie footage in hand, Knight started to work up a song to capture the dystopian nature of the movie.\u00a0 Having read Carl Sagan\u2019s book <\/span>Cosmos, <\/span><\/i>she recalled his comments that said, \u201cIf there was a nuclear war, the living would envy the dead.\u201d\u00a0 She used this as inspiration and came up with <\/span>No, you can\u2019t stop the pain of your children crying out in your head . . .They always said that the living would envy the dead.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>A week later, she had the track <\/span>One of the Living<\/span><\/i> crafted and demoed to share with Turner.\u00a0 Tina happened to be touring in Europe so Holly messengered (as in \u2018hand delivered\u2019, not over the wire like it would be today) the tape to her manager who overnighted it to her overseas.\u00a0 \u201cI have great news! Tina\u2019s Australian\u00a0 manager Roger Davies said.\u00a0 \u201cTina wants to record the song.\u00a0 She absolutely loves it!\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Knight was thrilled and suggested that she and her guitarist Gene work up an arrangement with Mike Chapman producing.\u00a0 When Tina returned from Europe, they would have it ready so she could drop in her vocals.\u00a0 Roger thought it was a great idea and suggested they do demo\u00a0 tracks in a couple of different keys that he could bring with him to London the next day.\u00a0 Tina could pick out the one she felt the most comfortable with before they cut the final track.\u00a0 Holly pointed out that differences in European power and how even playing the demos on different tape machines would not give them an accurate reading on the right key.\u00a0 Davies agreed and solved the problem after thinking about it for a few minutes.\u00a0 He asked, \u201cDo you have a passport?\u00a0 Pack your bags and your passport, you\u2019re coming to London with me in the morning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Such is the life of a hit making songwriter.\u00a0 Knight found herself in a limo with Tina the next day as they were whisked off to a studio so they could try the song in different keys.\u00a0 It turned out to be a five minute process.\u00a0 Holly figured she had a few days to kill in England so she might as well make use of it and play tourist.\u00a0 She had already gotten the mega star treatment (as in staying in a high class hotel with a personal butler to meet her very need) and it was going great, until Tina threw her a curve ball:\u00a0 \u201cHow would you like to come on the road with us for a few days before you head back to LA?\u00a0 You have a few free days don\u2019t you?\u201d\u00a0 It was an offer she could hardly refuse.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After bopping around the continent for a few days, Holly was back in LA with guitarist Gene Black and producer Mike Chapman laying down the basic tracks. \u00a0 When Tina got back to LA, Holly let Mike run the vocal session with her.\u00a0 Holly figured it would be better to not be looking over their shoulders so she planned to purposely arrive a little late.\u00a0 By the time she got to the studio, Tina was packing.\u00a0 Mike was obviously upset and it didn\u2019t take a PhD in body language to figure out something was wrong.\u00a0 Before she could even ask, Turner asked her to leave with her to another studio so they could finish the background vocals.\u00a0 Holly couldn\u2019t exactly say no to the request even if it put her old friend Mike\u2019s nose a bit out of joint.\u00a0 Eventually Knight pieced it all together:\u00a0 Tina Turner wasn\u2019t used to being told what to do in the studio and Mike Chapman was used to giving directions.\u00a0 It quickly became a water and oil situation.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the new studio, Holly was settled in the control room when Tina pressed the talk-back button from the recording studio:\u00a0 \u201cHolly, I love the background vocals on the demo.\u00a0 Is that you singing?\u201d\u00a0 When Knight nodded \u2018yes\u2019 Tina continued, \u201cWell, get in here \u2018cause I want you to sing them with me.\u00a0 Humberto (Gatica – the engineer who was known for his work with Michael Jackson), let\u2019s get another set of headphones in here please.\u201d\u00a0 After they were set up, Tina pulled Holly closer to her and instructed, \u201cRoll the tape.\u201d\u00a0 Knight recalled, \u201cThe background vocals came out great.\u00a0 We sang all the choruses together and all the \u2018yeah, yeah, yahoos.\u2019\u00a0 Not only that, but we had fun doing it.\u00a0 That day with Tina stands as the most memorable session I\u2019ve ever done, and the quickest.\u00a0 It is definitely a top ten moment in my life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly Knight would meet up with Turner again in 1990 when Tina\u2019s signature song <\/span>The Best <\/span><\/i>was recorded.\u00a0 Between 1985 and then, she found her services in demand by a host of artists looking for the hit song that would revive their careers.\u00a0 <\/span>Never<\/span><\/i> was co-written with the Wilson sisters of the band Heart and it gave their career a quick kick in the pants.\u00a0 Rod Steward wasn\u2019t much of a writing partner as his life was one big distracted moment at the time (even though he was a talented writer himself).\u00a0 Not only did he eventually cut a hit song written by Holly, (<\/span>Love Touch)<\/span><\/i>, he invited her into his inner circle of friends.\u00a0 She wasn\u2019t his type (dark hair and her legs were too short, according to Holly), but they did become friends.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A diverse group of artists like Elvira the Mistress of the Dark, Jon Bon Jovi, Ozzy Osbourne, Kiss, and Pat Benatar (again) would turn to Holly Knight to work her magic and produce hit songs for them.\u00a0 The music video\u2019s importance faded over time as MTV turned its attention to becoming a different kind of entertainment channel.\u00a0 Holly Knight\u2019s hit\u2019s defined the MTV era and it is no surprise to find they are still staples of classic rock radio in the 2020s.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 Okay, neither songwriter or artist understood the video, but it still sold a lot of records!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly Knight\u2019s rise from a wanna-be rock musician to a respected songwriter was addressed in this space in FTV:\u00a0 Holly the Songsmith (11-8-23).\u00a0 Telling her story only took us up to the first major hit she and her publisher, Mike Chapman, wrote for Pat Benatar in 1983, Love is a Battlefield.\u00a0 Digging further into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2999"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3002,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2999\/revisions\/3002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}