Holly Knight
Holly Knight is an American songwriter, musician, and singer. She was a member of the 1980s pop rock groups Spider and Device, and wrote or co-wrote several hit singles for other artists, such as "Rag Doll", "Obsession", "Love Is a Battlefield", "The Best", "Invincible", "Better Be Good to Me", "The Warrior", and "Change". In 2013, she was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. She has won thirteen ASCAP Awards, and has co-written hits for numerous successful musicians, including Tina Turner and Pat Benatar who each won Grammy Awards for their recordings of her songs. Early  life and education. Knight was born in New York City. She started playing classical piano at the age of four, continuing her studies for ten years at the Mannes School of Music. Career. In 1980, her first big break came when she played keyboards (uncredited) on Kiss' "Unmasked" album. In the early 1980s, she joined Spider (featuring Anton Fig of "Late Show with David Letterman") and her band, managed by Bill Aucoin, manager of Kiss and Billy Idol, among others, got a recording contract with Dreamland Records, an RSO-distributed label, and released two albums: "Spider" (self-titled; 1980) and  Between the Lines (1981). Knight was already planning to leave Spider, when Dreamland president, songwriter and record producer Mike Chapman urged her to 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 "Love Is a Battlefield" (1983) by Pat Benatar, each of which won a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance. Knight was replaced on keyboards in Spider, later renamed Shanghai for its eponymous  and final album, by famed producer Beau Hill, before her former band folded in 1984. 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, Rod Stewart, Bon Jovi, 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" from their lone album "22B3" (1986). 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 television 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. Most recently her songs have been featured in the Netflix hit show, "GLOW" ("The Warrior"- theme song), "Stranger Things", "Mixed-ish", "The Masked Singer", and "Schitt's Creek". 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. In 1988, Knight was listed in the "Best Songwriter Category/Readers Poll" of "Rolling Stone" along with Bruce Springsteen, Phil Collins, Paul Simon, and Billy Joel. In the 21st century, Knight 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, titled  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 Donnas, the Australian band Porcelain, and 2014 Tony Award winner Lena Hall. Knight has been mentioned in several autobiographical books, "I Tina" by Tina Turner (1986), "Between a Rock and a Hard Place" by Pat Benatar (2010), "Kicking and Screaming" by Ann and Nancy Wilson (of Heart; 2013), "I'm with The Band" by Pamela Des Barres (2005), "My Love Story" by  Tina Turner (2018), and "All I Ever Wanted" by Kathy Valentine (2020), In 2017, she contributed a chapter to the book "Because I Was a Girl", published by Holt. Her song, "The Best" has appeared in three episodes of the Netflix Emmy award-winning show, "Schitt's Creek" season four, episode one - "The Olive Branch" where David lip-synched to the original Tina Turner recording; season four, episode six: "Open Mic", where actor Noah Reid performed an acoustic version of the song; The finale of the series, season six, episode 13, performed by an a cappella group, The Jazz Girls  - where David and Patrick get married. This final episode caused "The Best" to become a popular wedding song with the LGBT community. Three of Knight's songs, "The Best", "Better Be Good to Me", and "Be Tender with Me Baby" appear in the theater production of "The Tina Turner Musical", which began previews at the Aldwych Theatre in The West End in London, on March 21, 2018, and officially opened on April 17. In November 2019, the musical made its Broadway debut at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre in New York. Both premieres saw the attendance of Tina Turner. In March  2019, the show opened at the Stage Operettenhaus in Hamburg, and on February 9, 2020, the show opened at the Beatrix Theater in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Knight is also an investor in the Broadway production. In 2020, the musical won eleven Tony Awards. "The Best" was featured at the end of Joe Biden's victory speech for his election to the presidency of the United States in 2021. Holly Knight is currently working on writing her memoir. She also does fine art photography. Personal life. Knight has two grown sons and lives in Los Angeles. She has been married twice , and dated Anton Fig and Paul Stanley in the 1980s. Discography. Soundtrack appearances. Songs in theater productions