Patrick Hernandez

Patrick Hernandez (born 6 April 1949, Le Blanc-Mesnil, Seine-Saint-Denis) is a French singer who had a worldwide hit with "Born to Be Alive" in 1979. Hernandez was born to a Spanish father and a half-Austrian and half-Italian mother. Growing up in the 1960s, he became interested in music. He toured dancehalls and ballrooms of southern France with a number of groups over the next decade. Hernandez met his music partner Herv├® Tholance, an arranger, guitarist, and vocalist, during that period. The two formed a duo and started achieving local success backing French musicians such as Francis Cabrel, Laurent Voulzy, and the French group Gold. In 1978, Hernandez met the producer Jean Vanloo with disco music at its peak, and signed a recording contract. Hernandez went to Waterloo, Belgium to work on songs. After working for about a year, the songs were released on the Aariana sub-label Aquarius Records (in France) in November 1978. The first single that was released was the disco song "Born to Be Alive". Its success was immediate, and in January 1979, Hernandez received his first gold record from Italy. The song spread throughout Europe, where it hit #1 in France in April and remained there until July. By then, the United States had caught on, and after some remixing, the record was signed to the A-Tom-Mik label. The remixed version was released on a commercial 12" single, and it peaked in the US Billboard Hot Dance Club Play chart at #1 and crossed over to the Billboard Hot 100 peaking at #16. It sold over one million copies in the US. The track reached #10 in the UK Singles Chart. By year''s end, Hernandez had racked up fifty two gold and platinum record awards from more than fifty different countries.[citation needed]