Hell we all wanted to be Suzi Groupies and many of us were. Why should female groupies have all he fun and sex and backstage trysts. If the Plaster Casters could excel at rock and roll penis art, we should be allowed to dabble in breast sculptures. It's all about liberation guys. No more fucking double standards.
Suzi grew up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, which is a rich suburb of Detroit (all the Mafia godfathers hang their hats and guns there as well including Tony Giacalone who was to have a lunch date with Jimmy Hoffa the day he disappeared from the landscape and into the realm of conspiracy theory, or the Meadowlands in New Jersey, which ever you prefer.) In fact Suzi lived a mere four blocks from my house growing up and we went to the same Catholic school although she was a few years behind (and what a behind!) and never did get a chance to see if black patent leather Tuscadero shoes actually do reflect up a school girls dress. Her father art was a noted musician and so were her sisters and brother Mike who was very prominent in the Detroit rock scene of the the late 60's and 70's as a keyboard virtuoso so I got to know him pretty well in my radio days and through him meet the the cream in my jeans dream girl once at one of Mike's shows when she returned to Detroit for a visit after moving to England. I had to fight the battle of the bulge in my pants all night long at the bar sitting next to her during Mike's sets.
Suzi was born in 1950 and got her first guitar from her dad in 1957. Her career started early in her fathers jazz band as a drummer playing gigs around the Detroit area. She also played bongo's! Later as she started filling out beyond training bra's she worked as a go go dancer on a local Detroit music show, of which we had plenty.
In 1964 she saw the Beatles on the telly along with her sisters, and they formed a band called the Pleasure Seekers and eventually changed the name to Suzi Soul and the Pleasure Seekers. Wearing mini-skirts and wigs they were getting gigs at a time when female rock bands were unknown, and those that did exist rarely got bookings. The mini-skirts got them over that hurdle! The group recorded three singles, played sock hops in Detroit and by 1969 had changed their name to Cradle.
It was Suzi's brother, Michael who knew her talent and promoted her to producer Mickie Most who had his own label. He came to see Cradle perform in Detroit. Mike was also the bands manager at this point. Mickie was fascinated by her stage persona and skills as a bass guitarist and referred to her as the bands "chief show off" in fact Electra Records wanted to sign her and make her the "next Janis Joplin" but as Suzi relates in her autobiography, "Mickie offered to take me to England and me the FIRST Suzi Quatro! I didn't want to be the "new" anybody." So off they went and Suzi was now solo and spent a year under his tutelage developing her new on-stage persona and maturing as an adult and a woman..and what a woman!
Ready to give her a test run in 1972 Mickie had formed a band around her and sent them out on a UK tour with Thin Lizzy and Slade..ah, Slade..music to make your ears bleed we used to say at CJOM radio in Windsor. In 1973 she recorded "Can the Can" followed up by "48 Crash", "Devil Gate Drive" oll of which sold over one million copies each ....overseas....success in her homeland was still eluding her. Finally Mickey got her booked on a tour of the US on the bill with fellow Detroiter Alice Cooper which only brought minor success in record sales. This was the same year she bared all as centerfold in "Penthouse Magazine" stripped of leather....
Her songs were chart busters in England and Australia, but US success didn't come her way until 1978 with the release of "Stumblin In" a duet with Chris Norman of the band Smokie, which did reach number 4 on the US charts. She is best known in the US however as Leather Tuscadero on the sit com "Happy Days" when she got signed on for the role she never auditioned. She was hired by producer Garry Marshall who saw her picture on his daughters bedroom wall!!!
More acting roles followed on British TV and she even appeared on the London stage as Annie Oakley in "Annie Get Your Gun"!! From there she played the role in the musical based on the life of Tallulah Bankhead in the play "Tahllulah Who?" Today she hosts her own radio shows on the BBC called "Rockin' with Suzi Q" and is in the Detroit Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the same hometown that felt left behind when she left. She is also a mother and grandmother living with her second husband in Essex, England, and dotes on her two grandkids on their country estate.
Not bad for the Leather Goddess from the Motor City...sex, rock and leather pants. Lets face it she may be a grandma now but at one time every guy wanted to be her bicycle seat! Rock on Leather Tuscadero....and that is the Quatro Equation.