Belinda Jo Carlisle is an American singer. She gained worldwide fame as the lead singer of the Go-Go's, one of the most successful all-female bands of all time, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo act.
Background
Belinda Jo Carlisle was born in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California on August 17, 1958 to Harold Carlisle, a gas station employee, and his wife, Joanne (née Thompson), a homemaker. Her mother met her father, who was twenty years her senior, at age eighteen, and Carlisle was born nine months later. She was named after her mother's favorite film, Johnny Belinda (1948). Carlisle was the first of seven siblings, with three brothers and three sisters. When she was five years old, Carlisle's father abandoned their family, and she has stated that she spent most of her childhood poor. As a teenager, she recalled owning "like, two outfits."
Her mother would later remarry Walt Kurczeski, whom Carlisle says was an alcoholic, and with whom she had a tumultuous relationship. The family moved frequently during her childhood, from Simi Valley to Reseda, before settling in Burbank when Carlisle was seven years old. At age ten, Carlisle began to express interest in music, and recalled the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Stylistics, and the Animals as being early musical influences.
Education
The family relocated again during Carlisle's adolescence, this time to Newbury Park; she attended Colina Junior High School in Thousand Oaks, and later Newbury Park High School, where she was a cheerleader. During her teenage years, Carlisle became rebellious: "By the time I hit fourteen, I'd gone really wild," she said. "I ran away from home, smoked pot, dropped acid ... you name it, I'd try it."
Carlisle fell in love with the 1970s punk scene in Los Angeles, passing up college for life as a musician. She adopted the stage name Dottie Danger and became the drummer for an early version of the punk band the Germs. In 1978, she formed an all-female band with Jane Wiedlin (guitar, vocals), Margot Olavarria (bass) and Elissa Bello (drums), named the Misfits. They soon added Charlotte Caffey (guitar, keyboards), and by the time they replaced Bello with Gina Schock in 1979, they were known as the Go-Go's.
After another change to their lineup, with Kathy Valentine taking over for Olavarria, the Go-Go's released their debut album, Beauty and the Beat, in 1981. The record surged to the top spot on the Billboard album chart and stayed there for six weeks, eventually going triple platinum. The first all-female band ever to hit No. 1 on the charts by writing and playing their own songs, the Go-Go's were nominated for a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1982. Over the next few years, the Go-Go's remained one of the most popular bands in America, with hit songs like "We Got the Beat," "Our Lips Are Sealed" and "Vacation" dominating radio airwaves and MTV video play.
The Go-Go's were eager to prove that they could do anything their male counterparts could do, and that applied to the hard-living side of the rock star scene as well. "I remember thinking to myself: OK, I'm young and I'm a musician," Carlisle later recalled. "People are going to have certain expectations of me. They're going to think I'm a flake, they're going to think I'm a drug addict and they're going to think I'm irresponsible - so I might as well become all those things." She settled on cocaine as her drug of choice - a substance, she said, that "always made me feel better no matter what else was bothering me." Carlisle wasn't the only member of the Go-Go's to succumb to addiction, as other members of the band would send drugs via FedEx to their locations when they went on tour.
Personality conflicts and spiraling drug use took a toll on the band, and the Go-Go's broke up in 1985. A year later, Carlisle married Morgan Mason, a former aide to President Ronald Reagan, and reinvented herself as a solo pop star. Her first solo album, Belinda (1986), went gold. Her second album, Heaven on Earth (1987), was even more successful, and she earned a Grammy nomination for the hit single "Heaven is a Place on Earth."
Carlisle experienced a new feeling of accomplishment when she gave birth to son James in 1992. Two years later, the family moved to France, where Carlisle continued to record solo albums. However, all was not perfect for the pop star, who continued to struggle with a cocaine addiction.
At the age of 42, Carlisle posed naked for Playboy magazine in an attempt to revitalize her career, but her drug abuse continued to hold her back professionally. Finally, in 2005, Carlisle embarked on kicking her drug habit through a combination of yoga and Alcoholics Anonymous.
In 2007, Carlisle released the French-language album Voila, her first solo album in 10 years. She competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2009, and was scheduled to take part in a Go-Go's reunion tour in 2010, before it was canceled when Jane Wiedlin hurt her leg. That same year, Carlisle released her tell-all memoir, Lips Unsealed, which became a best seller.
Between 2011 and 2012, Carlisle embarked on a United States tour with the Go-Go's, which included concerts at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles in August 2011 and the Hollywood Bowl in September 2012. In March 2013, Carlisle released her first U.S. single in 17 years titled "Sun", an up-tempo pop song, which was included on "ICON", a new greatest hits compilation album. The single was also released in the United Kingdom. The song was written by Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin of the Go-Go's and singer-songwriter Gabe Lopez. Lopez also produced the song. While the track did not chart, it received positive reviews.
Carlisle confirmed in a radio interview in August 2015 that she has completed work on a new album, tentatively earmarked for release in January 2016. She commented that the music on the album will be partly inspired by Kundalini yoga, which she had taken up while pregnant in 1991/1992 and of which she had qualified as a teacher since becoming sober in 2005. Also in August 2015, Edsel released a box set of all the commercially released singles from Carlisle's studio albums, plus a bonus disc featuring a previously-unreleased recording of "In My Wildest Dreams", which had featured in the 1987 film Mannequin. In late 2016, the Go-Go's completed an international tour with Best Coast as a supporting act, which Carlisle stated would likely be their last tour together.
Carlisle's eighth studio album, a selection of Gurmukhi chants titled Wilder Shores, was released in September 2017.
Belinda is best-known as the lead singer of the Go-Go's, one of the most successful all-female bands of all time. In 1999, Carlisle was ranked #76 with the Go-Go's in VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll.
She voiced her endorsement of Bernie Sanders as the Democratic Party's presidential nominee for the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Views
Carlisle is a supporter of several causes. She has been an ardent supporter of LGBT rights, which she made public after her son, Duke, came out to her at age fourteen. Carlisle is also a vegetarian and a supporter of animal rights. She and her bandmates were the first stars to pose for PETA's "Rather Go Naked Than Wear Fur" campaign in 1990.
Personality
Carlisle has been alternately described by critics as a "punk diva" and "pop princess."
During the initial stages of her tenure with the Go-Go's, Carlisle developed a serious addiction to cocaine and alcohol that would span thirty years. Simultaneously, she had also developed an eating disorder, which she said stemmed from media comments regarding her appearance; Carlisle's excessive cocaine use helped keep her weight down. Additionally, Carlisle admitted to using LSD, quaaludes, and MDA regularly as both a teenager and adult. In a 2017 interview, she told The Guardian that she "couldn't believe she wasn't dead."
Physical Characteristics:
Carlisle has been noted by critics for her dynamic soprano vocal range.
Interests
Music & Bands
the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Stylistics, the Animals
Connections
In 1986, Carlisle married political operative and film producer Morgan Mason, son of actor James Mason. They have one son, James Duke Mason, who was born in 1992.
