Holly Knight
Throughout the 1980s, Holly Knight didn’t just compose anthems that became the soundtrack for millions of people’s lives, she also created and crafted empowering odes to independence, liberation and equality—and her work helped define the MTV 1980s. These universal themes have never been more relevant than they are today, which is why we still hear her music every day. On television, films, and commercials, Knight’s work has become not just ubiquitous, but also generation-defining.
Over her illustrious career, Knight has written a total of nine songs for Tina Turner, including, “The Best” and “Better Be Good To Me” ; “Love Is A Battlefield” and “Invincible” for Pat Benatar; “The Warrior” for Patty Smyth, “Ragdoll” by Aerosmith, “Change” for John Waite and many more with such legends as, Heart, Rod Stewart, Chaka Khan, Kiss, Cheap Trick, Bon Jovi, Hall and Oates and the list goes on.
Her songs have won three Grammys, and thirteen ASCAP awards. Many of her songs have been sampled by artists such as Pitbull, G -Eazy and Queen Latifah. In total, her songs have contributed to record sales in excess of 250,000,000 copies. Further, her songs have appeared in movies as varied as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Thelma and Louise, Thirteen Going On Thirty, Anchorman ll, Dallas Buyers Club, The Other Woman, Cocaine Bear, Eighty For Brady and have featured on TV shows including Schitt’s Creek, GLOW, Stranger Things, The Masked Singer, Saturday Night Live, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, American Idol, The Voice, The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy and American Horror Story. In 2013, Knight was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Holly’s early training began at age four when she began her studies as a classical pianist for ten years. “Music was my first language, even before my legs reached the floor when I climbed onto the piano bench.” An interviewer once asked Knight why so many of her songs seem to be about fighting. Her answer was simple: “My songs aren’t so much about fighting with someone as they are about fighting for something. Not one to sit back on her laurels, Holly is still as passionate and driven about music as she was in her late teens. Thriving on diversity, it’s her ability to move from one genre to the next that has given her a 40-year career in music.
Knight recently released her memoirs entitled, “I Am The Warrior- My Crazy Life Writing The Hits and Rocking The MTV Eighties.” The foreword was written by Tina Turner. Released on Permuted Press and distributed by Simon and Shuster, it has been listed as the #1 Hot New Release in Popular Music on both Amazon and Audible Books, which Knight narrated. Described as a love letter to the Eighties, it tells the story of rock n’ roll survival, written by a pioneering woman songwriter and producer whose stories, wild and true, are only matched in number by her amazing catalogue of songs.