About Belinda Carlisle
Belinda Jo Carlisle is an American singer and songwriter. She gained fame as the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's, the most successful all-female rock band of all time, and went on to have a prolific career as a solo artist.
Raised in Southern California, Carlisle became the lead vocalist of the Go-Go's after the band's formation in 1978. With their chart-topping debut studio album Beauty and the Beat in 1981, the group helped popularize new wave music in the United States. The Go-Go's were the first all-female band in history who wrote their own songs and played their own instruments to achieve a No. 1 album. The Go-Go's have sold over seven million records worldwide.
After the break-up of the Go-Go's in 1985, Carlisle went on to have a successful solo career with radio hits such as "Mad About You", "I Get Weak", "Circle in the Sand", "Leave a Light On", "Summer Rain", and "Heaven Is a Place on Earth". The Go-Go's reformed in 1999, and Carlisle performed with them until their disbandment in 2022, while also maintaining her solo career.
Carlisle's autobiography, Lips Unsealed, published in June 2010, was a New York Times Best Seller and received favorable reviews. In 1999, Carlisle was ranked No. 76 with the Go-Go's in VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll. In 2011, Carlisle, as a member of the Go-Go's, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. She and the band were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2021, and the California Hall of Fame in 2024.
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 , a homemaker. Her mother met her father, who was 20 years her senior, at age 18, and Carlisle was born nine months later. She was named after her mother's favorite film, Johnny Belinda . Carlisle was the first of seven siblings; she has 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 impoverished. As a teenager, she recalled owning "like, two outfits." According to Carlisle, her mother was very religious, while her father was not. In an interview with Slash magazine, she described herself as a reject from a Southern Baptist household.
Her mother later married Walt Kurczeski, who Carlisle says was an alcoholic, and with whom she had a tumultuous relationship. She took on his last name during her high school years. 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.
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