Patty Donahue
{{short description|American singer (1956–1996)}}
{{Infobox musical artist
| name = Patty Donahue
| image = File:Patty Donahue (1956-1996) onstage 1982.jpg
| alt =
| caption = Donahue onstage, 1982
| image_size =
| background = solo_singer
| birth_name = Patricia Jean Donahue
| alias =
| birth_date = {{birth date|1956|03|29}}
Akron, Ohio, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|1996|12|09|1956|03|29}}
New York City, U.S.
| instrument = {{hlist|Vocals|guitar}}
| genre = New wave
| years_active = 1978–1996
| label =
| past_member_of = The Waitresses
| website =
}}
Patricia Jean Donahue (March 29, 1956 – December 9, 1996) was the lead singer of the American new wave group The Waitresses, most active in the 1980s. She is best known for the band's singles "I Know What Boys Like" and "Christmas Wrapping".
Early life
Patricia Jean Donahue was born on March 29, 1956, in Akron, Ohio.{{cite book |last=Wilson |first=Scott |year=2016 |title=Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons |edition=3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7-DgDAAAQBAJ&pg=PA201 |location=Jefferson, NC |publisher=McFarland |page=201 |isbn=9780786479924}}{{cite book |last=Simmonds |first=Jeremy |year=2012 |title=The Encyclopedia of Dead Rock Stars: Heroin, Handguns, and Ham Sandwiches |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PtpkCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA361 |location=Chicago |publisher=Chicago Review Press |page=361 |isbn=9781613744789}} Her parents divorced when she was two years old. She told an interviewer that her mother raised her to be an independent woman.{{cite news |last=Righi |first=Len |date=July 7, 1982 |title=Head Waitress talks about her on-the-job training |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28980189/patty_donahue/ |newspaper=The Morning Call |location=Allentown, PA |page=D11 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190620004241/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28980189/patty_donahue/ |archive-date=June 20, 2019 |url-status=live}} {{Open access}}
Like her mother and sister, Donahue attended St. Joseph Academy in Cleveland. She studied at Ohio State University but dropped out for financial reasons. She tried to finish at Cleveland State University but left there too, dissatisfied with the school. She eventually graduated from Kent State University.{{cite news |last=Fricke |first=David |date=May 6, 1982 |title=Waitresses Finally Get Some Tips |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28980384/the_waitresses/ |newspaper=Wisconsin State Journal |location=Madison, WI |page=61 |agency=Rolling Stone |via=Newspapers.com |access-date=April 4, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190407015134/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28980384/the_waitresses/ |archive-date=April 7, 2019 |url-status=live}} {{Open access}} In her early 20s, before joining The Waitresses, she worked as a waitress.
Music career
Donahue met Chris Butler while at Kent State. Butler was in the art rock band Tin Huey but he had written a number of songs that were not used in their repertoire. As he later explained in the liner notes of The Best of the Waitresses (1990), he met Donahue in a barroom challenge: "One day I write this song and then it's noon and the liquid lunchers are packed into a...bar. I stand on a chair and bang a beer bottle for attention and declare: 'I need a chanteuse to coo a tune. The song is funny and stupid and cool and different and is anybody interested?' A voice in the back says, 'Uh-huh.' It's Patty."{{cite web |last=Allen |first=Craig |title=Craig Allen Says: Meet the Waitresses |url=https://nj1015.com/craig-allen-says-meet-the-waitresses/ |website=NJ1015.com |publisher=WKXW |date=December 6, 2014 |access-date=June 21, 2019}}
Donahue was among the performers who developed a new standard for women in rock music during the new wave era.{{cite news |last=Harrington |first=Richard |date=May 15, 1982 |title='Girl Groups' Take On Rock |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2186528/patty_donahue/ |newspaper=The Pantagraph |location=Bloomington, IL |page=53 |agency=The Washington Post |via=Newspapers.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190712210415/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/2186528/patty_donahue/ |archive-date=July 12, 2019 |url-status=live}} {{Open access}} Although Butler was the leader and songwriter of the Waitresses, fans and music journalists often singled out Donahue as the band's primary asset. Butler wrote the lyrics but, as Rolling Stone asserted, "Donahue is no pop-band puppet". She rejected the notion that she was simply singing another person's words: "I'm relating my experiences too" she told an interviewer; "He wrote the songs, but I'm not just singing what he feels". Syndicated music columnist Hugh Wyatt considered her an exceptional artist despite her lack of formal training, calling her "one of only a handful of rock singers who has truly harnessed the attitudinal approach of post-punk".{{cite news |last=Wyatt |first=Hugh |date=June 10, 1983 |title=Waiting on new Waitresses |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28980347/patty_donahue/ |newspaper=New York Daily News |page=F18 |via=Newspapers.com |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190618022804/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/28980347/patty_donahue/ |archive-date=June 18, 2019 |url-status=live}} {{Open access}}
During the recording of the second and final Waitresses' album Bruiseology, Donahue left the band and was replaced temporarily by Holly Beth Vincent before Donahue rejoined soon afterward.{{cite book |last=Talevski |first=Nick |title=Knocking on Heaven's Door: Rock Obituaries |publisher=Omnibus Press |year=2007 |page=137 |isbn=978-1-84609-091-2}} Donahue was sought personally by Alice Cooper to duet with him on the single "I Like Girls". Cooper exuberantly told an interviewer: "I'd be driving in the car...and every time I'd want to turn up the radio, it was Patty Donahue."{{cite magazine |last=Goldstein |first=Toby |title=Alice Cooper Jokers Wild |url=https://www.alicecooperechive.com/articles/feature/hitp/830300 |magazine=Hit Parader |date=March 1983 |pages=28–29}} "I Like Girls" appears on Cooper's album Zipper Catches Skin with Donahue credited for "vocals and sarcasm".{{cite AV media notes |title=Zipper Catches Skin (CD reissue) |title-link=Zipper Catches Skin |others=Alice Cooper |year=2009 |type=Liner notes |publisher=Collectors' Choice Music |id=CCM-2079}}
Soon Donahue stepped away from performance altogether. She took work as a talent scout for MCA Publishing and later became an A&R rep for MCA Records.{{cite web |last=Gensler |first=Andy |title=When Quitting Pays Off: David Gray Talks Leaving His Music Behind to Build Up Shawn Mendes, DNCE & Other Hitmakers |url=https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/7511138/david-gray-umpg-executive-interview |website=Billboard.com |date=September 16, 2016 |access-date=June 19, 2019}}
Death
File:Patty Donahue gravesite.jpg
On December 9, 1996, Donahue, who had been a heavy smoker most of her adult life, died of lung cancer in New York at the age of 40. She was interred in the {{ill|Holy Cross Cemetery (Brook Park, Ohio)|qid=Q99522956|lt=Holy Cross Cemetery}} in Brook Park, a suburb of Cleveland.
References
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Category:American women new wave singers
Category:The Waitresses members
Category:Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state)
Category:Musicians from Akron, Ohio
Category:20th-century American singers
Category:20th-century American women singers
Category:Kent State University alumni