Suzi Quatro
photo: jeanie mackinder · cc by 2.0 ↗Susan Kay Quatro grew up in Detroit and cut her teeth in the all-female garage band the Pleasure Seekers before relocating to England, where producer Mickie Most and the songwriting team of Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman helped make her a glam-rock star. Clad in a leather jumpsuit and slinging a bass, she scored UK number ones with 'Can the Can' and 'Devil Gate Drive' in 1973-74, becoming one of the first women to front a hard-rock band as a bass-playing lead and a widely cited trailblazer for the female rockers who followed.
Quatro has said that seeing Elvis Presley on television as a small child made her decide she wanted to be a performer — 'I wanted to be him.' His hip-shaking rockabilly energy and rebellious sexuality are the wellspring of her own leather-clad rock persona.
listen forLine up Presley's coiled 'Jailhouse Rock' with Quatro's '48 Crash' — hear the same rockabilly-rooted, uptempo strut and a vocal that leans into a playful, aggressive sneer.
It was a Beatles television appearance in 1964 that prompted Quatro and her sister to form their first band, the Pleasure Seekers, setting her on the path to a music career. The Beatles' early, hard-charging beat-group rock and roll shaped her sense of what a young band could be.
listen forPut the Beatles' breathless 'I Saw Her Standing There' next to Quatro's 'Devil Gate Drive' — both ride a driving, four-on-the-floor rock-and-roll pulse and a shouted, crowd-igniting energy.
Quatro has cited the Shangri-Las' Mary Weiss as a style influence, admiring the group's tough-girl attitude and streetwise teen drama. That leather-jacket toughness carried into Quatro's own hard-edged persona.
listen forSet the Shangri-Las' melodramatic 'Leader of the Pack' against Quatro's 'The Wild One' — listen for the shared bad-girl bravado and defiant, rebel-anthem posture.