Music database

Musician

Holly Knight

Holly Knight - © www.hollyknight.com

born on 1/1/1953 in New York City, NY, United States

Holly Knight

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Holly Knight is an American songwriter, vocalist and musician of pop and rock music. In 2013 she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has won thirteen ASCAP awards and three Grammys, and has written hits for some of the most successful artists in music.

Early life and education

Born in New York City,[1] Knight started playing classical piano at the age of four, continuing her studies for ten years at The Mannes School of Music.[2]

Career

Knight started studying classical piano at age four, continuing her studies for ten years at The Mannes School of Music. She left home at sixteen to pursue her dreams. Five years later, in the early 1980s, her band Spider (featuring Anton Fig of Late Show with David Letterman), managed by Bill Aucoin, manager for Kiss and Billy Idol, among others, got a recording contract with Dreamland Records, and released two albums: Spider (self-titled; 1980) and Between the Lines (1981).

Dreamland president, songwriter and record producer Mike Chapman urged her to leave the band and move to Los Angeles to pursue her songwriting career. She signed a publishing deal with his company, eventually signing to EMI Publishing. Knight and Chapman worked together on the Top 5 U.S. hit "Better Be Good to Me" (1984) by Tina Turner and Pat Benatar's "Love Is a Battlefield" (1983), each of which won a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance.

Knight has written hits for some of the most successful artists in music. For Pat Benatar, in addition to "Love Is a Battlefield", she wrote "Invincible"; she co-wrote "The Best", performed by Bonnie Tyler and later a No. 1 single around the world for Tina Turner. On her own and in collaboration with others, Knight wrote songs with Heart, Aerosmith, Bonnie Tyler, Rod Stewart, and many more. Tina Turner has recorded nine of her tunes, including "The Best", "Better Be Good to Me", and "In Your Wildest Dreams" (1996). She was voted the Best Songwriter in Rolling Stone Magazine's 11th annual poll, along with Phil Collins, Paul Simon, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

Knight had a second band called Device in the mid-1980s, who had a hit with "Hanging on a Heart Attack" off their 22B3 (1986) album. Spider and Device both had Top 40 hits, while Device was on MTV's heavy-rotation playlist for four consecutive months. Knight also released a self-titled solo album in 1988. This album featured her own rendition of the song she co-wrote, "Love is a Battlefield", as well as the single "Heart Don't Fail Me Now", which featured background vocals from Daryl Hall.

Her songs have featured on the soundtracks of numerous films, including Thelma & Louise (1991), Vision Quest (1985), Legend of Billie Jean (1985), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), The Secret of My Success (1987), Stuart Little II (2002), 13 Going on 30 (2004), What the Bleep Do We Know!? (2004), and hit TV shows such as Nip/Tuck (2003–2010), The Singing Bee (2007–), American Idol, The Oprah Winfrey Show, The Simpsons, Family Guy, 30 Rock, South Park, Dallas Buyers Club, Glee, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Necessary Roughness, the 40th anniversary Saturday Night Live, and the finale episode of The Voice (2011), in which Cee Lo Green performed a duet of "Love Is a Battlefield" with one of the final contestants.

Knight wrote the theme song for the popular Joss Whedon television show Angel (1999–2004), performed by Darling Violetta. She also wrote and produced the title theme for the sitcom Still Standing (2002–2006), performed by Will Hoge, which received the ASCAP award for recognition as one of the top TV music themes of 2003, as well as the same award again in 2004.

Although primarily known for her songwriting and membership in other bands, Knight also released a self-titled solo album in 1988, which included her own rendition of "Love is a Battlefield" as well as the single "Heart Don't Fail Me Now", which featured background vocals from Daryl Hall. In the 21st century she has also been active as a record producer. In 2009 she produced a jazz EP called Natural for Antonia Bennett, daughter of Tony Bennett, and in 2012 an alternative pop record of original songs for her, entitled Ordinary Girl. In 2014 she produced a second full-length jazz record for Antonia Bennett of songs from the "Great American Songbook" called Embrace Me, on Perseverance records. She has also produced tracks for Otep, Fefe Dobson, the Australian band, Porcelain,[3] and 2014 Tony winner Lena Hall.

In 2017, she contributed a chapter to the book Because I Was A Girl, published by Holt.

Personal life

Knight has two sons and lives in Los Angeles.

Discography

Studio albums

  • Holly Knight (1988)

Collaborative albums

  • 22B3 (with Device) (1986)

Songs

  • Ace Frehley - "Hide Your Heart"
  • Aerosmith - "Rag Doll" (with Steven Tyler, Joe Perry, and Jim Vallance)
  • Angel (TV series) - theme music
  • Animotion - "Obsession" (with Michael Des Barres); "I Engineer" (with Bernie Taupin)
  • Jimmy Barnes - "Between Two Fires"
  • Pat Benatar - "Love Is a Battlefield"; "Invincible"; "Sometimes the Good Guys Finish First"; "Girl"
  • Bon Jovi - "Stick to Your Guns"
  • Bonnie Tyler - "Hide Your Heart"; "The Best"; "Where Were You"
  • Cheap Trick - "Space"
  • Shawn Colvin - "Hold on to the Good Things"
  • Device - "Hanging on a Heart Attack"; "Who Says"
  • Divinyls - "Pleasure and Pain"
  • Fefe Dobson - "Get Over Me"
  • The Donnas - "Wasted", "Here for the Party"
  • Eighth Wonder - "When the Phone Stops Ringing"
  • Elvira - "Here Comes the Bride (of Frankenstein)"; "Haunted House"
  • Agnetha Fältskog (ABBA) - "Wrap Your Arms Around Me"
  • Lita Ford - "Stiletto"
  • Lou Gramm - "Just Between You And Me"
  • Hall & Oates - "Soul Love"
  • Lisa Hartman - "New Romance (It's a Mystery)"
  • Heart - "Never" (with Greg Bloch); "All Eyes"; "There's the Girl" (with Nancy Wilson); "Tall, Dark Handsome Stranger"; "I Love You"
  • Grayson Hugh, Thelma and Louise soundtrack - "Can't Untie You from Me"; "Don't Look Back"; "Road to Freedom"
  • Chaka Khan - "Baby Me"
  • Kidd Video - "When the Phone Stops Ringing"
  • Kids Incorporated - "Change"
  • KISS - "Hide Your Heart"; "I Pledge Allegiance to the State of Rock & Roll"; "Raise Your Glasses"
  • Holly Knight - "Heart Don't Fail Me Now"; "Howling at the Moon"; "Love Is a Battlefield"
  • Less Than Jake - "Overrated (Everything Is)"
  • Marilyn Martin - "Turn It On"
  • Christopher Max - "I Burn for You"
  • Suzie McNeil - "Help Me Out"
  • Meat Loaf - "Monstro"; "Alive"
  • Leigh Nash - "Angel Tonight"
  • Hawk Nelson - "Not the Same"
  • Aaron Neville - "Try a Little Harder"
  • Otep - "Perfectly Flawed", "UR A WMN NOW"
  • Ozzy Osbourne - "Slow Burn"
  • Suzi Quatro - "Fear of the Unknown", "Whatever Love Is"
  • Real Life - "Babies"
  • Riff - "My Heart is Failing Me"
  • Scandal featuring Patty Smyth - "The Warrior"; "Hands Tied"
  • Sheila - "Little Darlin'"
  • Charlie Sexton - "Space"
  • Spider - "Better Be Good to Me"; "New Romance (It's a Mystery)"; "Change"
  • Dusty Springfield - "Time Waits for No One"
  • Paul Stanley - "It's Not Me"
  • Rod Stewart - "Love Touch"
  • Still Standing (TV Series) - "Still Standing"
  • Rachel Sweet - "Little Darlin'"
  • Tina Turner - "Better Be Good to Me"; "One of the Living"; "The Best"; "You Can't Stop Me Loving You"; "Be Tender with Me Baby"; "Ask Me How I Feel"; "Love Thing"; "In Your Wildest Dreams"; "Do Something"
  • John Waite - "Change"
  • Kim Wilde - "Turn It On"

References

  1. ^ "Holly Knight". Discogs.com. Retrieved 2017-08-20. 
  2. ^ "Biography". Hollyknight.com. Retrieved 2017-08-20. 
  3. ^ "Porcelain Delivers Rock-Hard Performance". BMI. February 26, 2007. Retrieved 2017-08-20. 

External links

This page was last modified 04.12.2017 01:21:29

This article uses material from the article Holly Knight from the free encyclopedia Wikipedia and it is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.