Glamrock Of The 70s - SUZI QUATRO

THE SUZI QUATRO BIOGRAPHY

It all began in Detroit...

Susan Kay Quatro was born on 3 June 1950 to parents Helen and Art Quatro and being second youngest in a family of 3 sisters and one brother. Her father, Art, a part time jazz musician, was of Italian descent,while her mother, Helen Sanislay, was Hungarian.

Suzi grew up in a suburb of Detroit called Grosse Pointe. Art Quatro had a band called the Art Quatro Trio which Suzi made her musical debut at the age of eight. Continuing with her musical family influences Suzi was trained on classical piano and then turned to rock'n'roll working in bands at the age of 14, being the rebel and tomboy of the family Suzi called herself Suzi Soul. Another famous name from Detroit Suzi worked with at this time was her friend Alice Cooper.

To the British audience, it seemed as if Quatro emerged out of nowhere in 1973, but in fact she'd been playing professionally for nearly a decade. While still in her early teens, she joined The Pleasure Seekers, a Detroit band also featuring her sisters Arlene and Patti. One of the few all-girl garage bands who played their own instruments, they recorded a fine, gritty single for the local Hideout label, "Never Thought You'd Leave Me"/"What a Way to Die". Another single followed for Mercury, and the group even toured Vietnam to entertain troops. In 1968, though, Arlene quit the band to raise her kids (one of whom is actress Sherilyn Fenn, who came to fame in the “Twin Peaks” TV-series many years later), to be replaced by yet another sister, Nancy, who again is the mother of young TV-actress Kristen Glass.

The Pleasure Seekers changed name to Cradle, playing more hard rock and original material. In the early '70s, British producer Mickie Most happened to see Cradle while he was in Detroit. He let her know he was interested in working with her and soon after Suzy was on her way to London without her band to persue a solo career and Patti joined the all-woman rock band Fanny in Los Angeles.

London, here we come...

In late '71 Suzi arrives in London with a suitcase and a bass guitar. She was to spend 2 lonely years working on songwriting and recording. In december Suzi spend her first christmas away from home, walking around the streets of London with tears in her eyes longing for her family back in Detroit. Later her mother told her, that this was the period where she got tough and ready for the hard times ahead in showbizz. Mickie Most and his wife Chris had taken Suzi under their wings and assured her parents in the US that she was being looked after in a good and safe way.

After some 18 months nothing had happened and during the new year Mickie Most one day asked if it was time to give up and go home to Detroit. Suzi luckily wanted to to work on in London and said, the problem was, that she needed a band to rehearse and tour with. Mickie agreed and hooked here up with Bill Harry, who once worked with The Beatles back in Liverpool. Her partnership with Bill lasted for 15 years.

Her first single, 'Rolling Stone', was being a flop everywhere but in Portugal, where it surprisingly went to No.1 in 1972. Suzi gets her band together and is keen to go on tour.

Finally: SUCCES!

After the first single flopped, Most hooked her up with songwriters Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, who were also supplying material to The Sweet. The Chinnichap-penned "Can the Can" went to number one in the U.K. in 1973, and over the next few years Chinnichap would write about ten other British chart hits for her, including four Top Ten entries. She and her guitarist (and later husband) Len Tuckey did write some of her material, though these efforts were usually confined to albums.

Suzi tours Australia for the first time in 1974 and is greeted by the Hells Angels at the the airport, they then escorted her to her hotel in Melbourne.

Suzi was now becoming famous for her leather outfit, with the following hits '48 Crash', 'Daytona Demon', The Wild One`and her anthem, “Devil Gate Drive”. Suzi's first appearance on Top Of The Pops in England was with “Can The Can". Suzi also recorded a version of “All Shook Up”, made famous 20 years earlier by her idol Elvis Presley.

Back to the States and rejecting Elvis...

In 1974, Suzi went on a tour in the USA, starting at Madison Square Garden in New York, supporting Grand Funk Railroad and the concert was sold out. Next stop was back home in Detroit, where she was supported by Kiss. Sadly, the return to her childhood home wasn´t as big a succes as the concert, since her room had been cleared out and all her old belongings - including all her records - had been shared out to family and friends after she left for London.

After this she toured the States for 3 weeks and when playing in Memphis she made one of the biggest mistakes in her life: She turned down a personal invitation from Elvis Presley himself, since he liked her version of "All Shook Up" and wanted to meet her. Suzi didn´t feel ready meet her biggest idol and turned the offer down!!! She has regreted that ever since. In december 2009 she finally - 35 years after declining his invitation - returned to Memphis and visited Graceland for the first time. She was there to record a BBC Radio 2 documentary about Presley's home.

Marriage to Len and Happy Days with The Fonz...

In 1978 Suzi and her long time lead guitarist, Len Tuckey, were married in England and later repeated the ceremony in a traditional Japanese style in Japan.

She had a short-lived 7 episodes appearence in 1977 on the american 1950s retro-sitcom Happy Days as the guitar-playing Leather Tuscadero. In 1979, she made the American Top Five with "Stumblin' In," although this was a duet with Chris Norman.

Through the late '70's and early '80's, Suzis' music grows and matures, a slightly different style but still rock, with songs like “She´s In Love With You”, “Mamas Boy”, “If You Can´t Give Me Love”, and her first No.1 hit, in the U.S.A, “Stumblin In”.

Leaving RAK and acting in the 80s...

Sadly the RAK years were over by the early '80's but Suzi continued to work with Mike Chapman on his own record label Dreamland. After leaving RAK to try and to have more control of her career, Mickie Most then signed Kim Wilde and had major succes with her during the 80s. Mickie was very upset with her leaving, since he felt she had him to thank for all her succes and ended both thier personal friendship and proffesional relation. They later again got a close personal relation after the proffesional split all the way up to Mickie´s death in 2003, aged only 64. Suzi saw Mickie as both har mentor and a fatherfigure and is still to this day very close to his wife Chris.

Suzi´s later career as an actress began with Happy Days during the late 1970s. Cameos in UK television shows Minder and Dempsey And Makepeace followed, before landing the role of the quick-drawing heroine in the 1986 London production of Irving Berlin's Annie Get Your Gun. She then went on to write and star in Tallulah Who?, a stage musical about the actress Tallulah Bankhead.

She bought the manor Hyde Hall, near Chelmsford, Essex, in 1980 for “about £120,000” after spotting it in Country Life. Suzi believes in incarnation and also soon felt the spirits of the house. She has sweared to never sell the house, where both her girls were raised, but in 2008 she changed her mind and put the house up for sale. Suzi suffers from the Empty Nest Syndrome, after her two daugthers has grown up and left home. Read the full article on the manor underneath under "Links". Here in 2010 the house hasn´t been sold though and Suzi still lives there.

Touring heavily in the 90s...

By the late 90s she was concentrating on touring and recording once more and carving a career as a broadcaster on BBC radio.

The 1990's showed a more musical direction for Suzi. Tours in Europe, Japan and Australia and for the first time we get to buy a lot of Suzi's albums re-released on compact disc. Suzi is signed to a new record label and production team, Bolland and Bolland in the Neatherlands.

Suzi's first album in 9 years was released in 1990, 'OH SUZI Q'.

A very bad year and a happy one...

In 1992 Suzi and her husband of 16 years decide to divorce, also a very sad year for Suzi when her mother Helen Quatro also passed away.

1993 Suzi tours Australia and brings her Dad with her, this is the first time Art Quatro has seen Suzi constantly doing gigs night after night and he is amazed at her energy levels.

In October Suzi marries her second husband, German Tour Promoter Rainer Haas. Suzi and Rainer Haas had their wedding on October 22, 1993. Suzi proposed to Rainer while in Egypt and they then flew by Concorde to the USA for a small ceremony in Las Vegas.

Also in 1993, a rumour started, that she - only months before the upcoming marriage to Rainer - had an affair with Gary Glitter! This was all down to a conversation during an attempt to have Suzi as a special guest in his then very succesfull christmas tour in the UK. At one point during a meeting, Suzi remarked that Gary had a piece of food on his mouth, and he replied, that could just "lick it of". Suzi felt very uncomfortable and flew out of the office and never saw him again. Need one say, the the guest appearance was dropped? No one knows what started the rumour, and seeing what became of Gary Glitter. it seemed a good idea to leave the building....

1994 marks Suzi's 20th year of touring Australia. In 1997 Suzi tours Australia on her 14th tour to promote the release of the "What Goes Around" album which was relaesed in Australia in 1996, this tour we see Suzi back into leather cat suits.

In 1995 she recorded a new album "Latest and Greatest" at the PUK Studios in Denmark, where old hits were re-recorded along with some new stuff.

In february 1997 Suzi has returned to New York to finish recording 2 tracks for a new album working again with Mike Chapman. 1999 was a big year for Suzi, with one of her most extensive tours including England, Germany, Australia, Malaysia and Finland. There is also some talk of a North American tour.

Suzi was on the BBC TV show "This Is Your Life" in 1997, an emotional show for Suzi catching up with Family and friends from the USA and pop icons from the 70,s and surprise guest Chrisie Hynde from the Pretenders and gusts including Noddy Holder, Andy Scott, Steve Priest, Mickie Most, Nicky Chinn and Roy Wood. What a GLAM night that was.

Still rocking in the new millenium...

In 2003 Suzi received a very supprising call from Nicky Chinn, saying that her mentor Mickie Most had died after a very short period of fighting lung cancer.

In December 2005, a documentary chronicling her life, "Naked under leather" appeared. In February 2006, she released "Back To the Drive", produced by Sweet guitarist Andy Scott. The album's title track was written by her former collaborator Mike Chapman. In 2006 she performed the voice of Rio in the Bob the Builder film Built To Be Wild. In March 2007, she released a version of the Eagles song "Desperado", followed by the publication of her autobiography, Unzipped.

In october 2008 she sadly lost her father Art Quatro.

January 11, 2010 finally saw the release of an Elvis Presley tribute single “Singing With Angels”, recorded with Elvis’ original vocal backing group The Jordanaires and Elvis- guitarist James Burton at the Emerald Studio in Nashville on the 25th May 2005.