Suzi Q: Expatriate Rockerette
by TOBY MAMIS
N.Y. "I didn't want to play with girls anymore," she told me via transatlantic phone conversation, from her manager's office in London.
Ma Bell says that long distance is the next best thing to being there, but, having been in the same room with Suzi Quatro more than once, talking to her all the way across the Atlantic Ocean somehow doesn't come any- where near close enough, because even three years ago, when she was just one of dozens of rock and rollers I knew amidst the backstage clamor of a rock and roll concert at Detroit's Eastowne Ballroom (or some such palace), even three years ago, her presence was felt.
Three years ago she was leading the first of the "New Breed" all-girl groups, Cradle.
"We were a pretty good rock and roll band but we weren't different musically," she explained.
Detroit seems so far away as she talks excitedly about her first album, "it's called just plain Suzi Quatro, no special title," which has just been released in England where she's been living, and living it up, for two years "or maybe three, I really can't re-
member, but it was right after I saw you in New York. That was the day before I went to London. Was it two or three years ago, do you member?" re-
My calculations and worn-out appointment calendars show that about 2½ years ago Suzi disbanded Cradle to migrate to England and be produced by legendary hit-maker Mickie Most, many thousands of miles from her birthplace, Detroit.
"One night Cradle was playing at the Eastowne and someone brought Mickie down to see us. I don't think he understood the idea of an all-girl group and, anyway, I'd been feeling limited and been thinking of splitting. He said he wanted me, but not the group. Well, the group wasn't really going anywhere, so I said OK."
"In a little while all the contracts were worked out. I stopped off in New York to sign the papers and then, the next day, I was in England. I haven't been back since."
Suzi Quatro is not an overnight success, although many a crude joke has been made about her successful overnights, much of the talk en- couraged by her sexy tigress image and recent salty quotes-to the British press. The pert little (she's barely more than five feet tall) "tigress" is another in a long line of American expatriates who have received recognition for their talents abroad before such recognition has been given back home. In rock and roll alone, the list includes Otis Redding, Jimi Hendrix, P.J. Proby, Eddie Cochran, Gene Vincent and the Walker Brothers. It is a great tradition, and Suzi thinks it may be for the best, as she says "there's a certain glamour in being the newest thing from England, which I am right now. A lot of American kids don't like American hard rock but they'll adore an English group playing exactly the same music.
Ironic, isn't it, that all the musicians over here in England idolize American musicians and are jealous of the American kids..."
In late summer of this past year, Suzi's single "Can The Can" reached number one in the British hit parade, the first time a woman's voice had arrived at the top since Bobbie Gentry's "Ode To Billie Joe" six years earlier. And in the fall she followed that one with two more charttopping smashes: "48 Crash" and "Daytona Demon." She couldn't have fallen in with better people, as the old saying goes, beginning with manager Mickie Most, who has, in the past, been responsible for hits by Herman's Hermits, Lulu, the Animals, and Donovan, and is one of the most respected men in the international music business. Mickie Most knows what the public wants, and how to sell it to them.
"Our original intent when I got to England was to cut an album with Mickie producing," Suzi told me, "and we started out with a single to see if we were on the right track. It flopped, SO we obviously weren't, although both songs I still think are great. I think it flopped because I didn't have a band together, we used studio cats. Having my own band has made all the difference in the world."
Yeah. That and a new songwriting/ producing team that has only written a half-dozen other top ten singles in the past year, all of them for The Sweet. Nicky Chinn and Mike Chapman en- tered the picture, according to Suzi, "at Mickie's request, he thought of it and we got together. They wrote a song in my style, whatever that is. Right away, it was a hit! So me and my band, which I'd gotten together in the meantime, we went on the road. At first the audiences were a bit surprised to see me up there pounding
away on my Les Paul bass leading a group of men. Like Mickie at first, they didn't understand where I was coming from. But I think I've proved that girls can rock and roll as good as anybody else. I'm back to my Detroit roots with this band, rock & roll. On guitar, and co-writing a lot of songs with me, is Len Tuckey who was with the Nashville Teens. Then there's Alastair McKenzie on keyboards, and Dave Neal on drums, with me singing and playing bass."
"Our first album has just come out over here, and besides the hits, there's a lot of songs I wrote with Len, and three oldies, you'll really dig these: 'I Wanna Be Your Man,' the song Lennon-McCartney wrote for the Stones, Elvis Presley's 'All Shook Up,' and a really outrageous version of the old Johnny Kidd & The Pirates tune, 'Shakin' All Over'!" Those are really Suzi Quatro-type songs, those three. Raw and brash, leathery big beat all-out rock numbers. No other woman but Suzi would attempt "I Wanna Be Your Man."
I start to visualize her more clearly during the conversation as we talk about old friends, and I can see her clearly, the birthmark, or is it a beauty mark(?), underneath one eye. I'm told she's got a rose tattooed on her shoulder and a star on her wrist, and it's entirely believable.
"I saw the MC5 down at the Speakeasy one night a long time ago, that's about it. I talk to my family, but not to anybody else. Patti's play- ing with my brother now in his Mike Quatro Jam Band, but she might join Fanny. Nancy's looking for a group to play organ with. I haven't seen any of them at all but my folks are coming over for Christmas. I'm really hoping my records are hits back home so I can come over. I haven't had a chance to keep in touch with anybody because I've been working really hard to make it big. Now that that's happening, as soon as I get a U.S. hit, I'll be over."
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