She’s the rock n’roll pioneer who topped the charts and inspired Courtney Love, Chrissie Hynde and KT Tunstall.
But it’s taken 50 years for Suzi Quatro to receive her first major honour from the UK music industry.
Famed for her leather jumpsuits and “tomboy” image, the bass-toting singer from Detroit moved to the UK in the early 70s, scoring huge hits during the glam rock era with singles like Can The Can.
Overlooked
Selling 55m records, Quatro influenced female rockers including Joan Jett and Tina Weymouth, the Talking Heads bassist who said she learned to play by listening to Suzi’s music.
Still playing to sold-out crowds at 68, Quatro has been unfairly overlooked by awards committees. She criticised her absence from the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when Joan Jett was inducted.
Rock Icon
This week however Quatro will be given the Rock N’Roll Icon award and named a “legend” by Vive Le Rock, the magazine celebrating rock and punk music, at an O2 Islington Academy ceremony.
“It’s nice to get an award and I accept it humbly,” said Quatro, who is proud of her musical contribution. “I didn’t have a blueprint when I started out.”
“I was the first. I paved the way for all those women who kindly said I influenced them. After me, they had permission to be in rock n’roll.”
Fired up by Quatro
Joan Jett
Leather-clad Los Angeles rocker who formed breakthrough all-female band Runaways topped the charts with I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll in 1982 cited Quatro as her primary influence.
Chrissie Hynde
Before forming new-wave hitmakers The Pretenders, US singer-guitarist wrote for NME and cornered inspiration Quatro for a 1974 interview in a ladies’ toilet.
Tina Weymouth
Provided the metronomic basslines for Talking Heads classics Psycho Killer and Once In a Lifetime before creating oft-sampled club hits with Tom Tom Club.
Courtney Love
Hole singer adapted Quatro’s assertive persona and throat-shredding vocal attack. Quatro’s new No Control album updates Hole’s punk-metal 90s peak.
Never a ‘female musician’
Quatro, who settled in Essex and recently wrote songs with fan KT Tunstall, said she wasn’t intimidated by the male-dominated music industry she encountered in the 70s. “I never called myself a female musician, just a musician,” she told i.
Happy Days star
“I’m not one to be pressured in situations, I just stuck to being me. My leather look was androgynous, it was borrowed from Elvis to appeal to boys and girls, gay and straight.”
The singer, who also enjoyed an acting career, starring in cult US sitcom Happy Days, has no plans to retire.
“The critics agree my new album No Control is the record of my career. I finish every set with Sweet Little Rock & Roller and I’m going to keep on rocking.”
