Creative Captures

Suzi Quatro…50 years of Can the Can – Part two

The touring continued all over the world and new songs were constantly written and released. The band went through line-up changes, but over the years, Suzi spread her wings and has done many different things in her 58 years in the entertainment industry.

Acting came first, playing Leather Tuscadero in ‘Happy Days’ alongside Henry Winkler as the Fonz, a part Suzi was offered without an audition. British TV appearances included Minder, Dempsey & Makepeace, Absolutely Fabulous and Midsomer Murders. In 2006, she starred alongside Charles Dance in a play called ‘Exonerated’ in London, and the same year did the voice-over for ‘Rio’, a character in Bob the Builder’s big screen debut, Built to be Wild.

Suzi’s first theatre role came in 1986, starring as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun, which opened at the Chichester Festival Theatre before moving to London’s West End. There was another theatre role in 1991 – Tallulah Who? – about the life of American actress Tallulah Bankhead, which Suzi co-wrote the music for.

1999 saw Suzi host her own BBC Radio two show, which became popular for many years and later that year, she was the subject of ‘This is Your Life’, being surprised at the end of a concert at the London Palladium.

The 2000s saw Suzi continue to write, record and tour. She received the devastating news in May 2003 that Mickie Most had passed away. This came as a complete shock to Suzi; he had been ill for some time with lung cancer but did not want anyone to know.

Suzi wrote a tribute song for her idol, Elvis Presley. ‘Singing with Angels’ was recorded in 2005 in Nashville with Elvis’ original backing vocals group, ‘The Jordanaires’ and legendary guitarist James Burton. Back in 1974, Suzi received a call in her hotel room, inviting her to meet Elvis. She declined the offer and regrets it to this day.

Disaster struck in early 2012, when she fell boarding a plane in Kyiv, Ukraine, which left her with a broken right knee and left arm. She had to cancel what would have been her first performance in America for more than 30 years, an appearance alongside her sisters at the Detroit Music Awards, where she was to receive a lifetime achievement award.

Later that year, Suzi had recovered enough to star in her one-woman show at the Hippodrome Casino in London, entitled ‘Unzipped,’ after her 2006 autobiography of the same name.

Twelve months after her accident, she flew to Detroit to collect her award and gave a barnstorming live performance, backed by the Motor City Horns.

Suzi became ‘Doctor Quatro’ in October 2016, after receiving an Honorary Doctorate of Music from Anglia Ruskin University, something she is very proud of to this day.

Australia has always loved Suzi and she has notched up an amazing thirty-eight tours there, including playing a sell-out gig at the iconic Sydney Opera House in 2017. It was on that particular tour that Suzi was her own support act. She released an album earlier in the year with guitarist and close friend Andy Scott from The Sweet, and Slade’s drummer Don Powell. This ‘super-band’ called themselves QSP and debuted the album live in Australia.

On her first visit there in 1974, she was escorted from Sydney airport to her hotel by hundreds of Hell’s Angels. Another tour is already in the pipeline and Suzi always says it is her second home. In fact it was an Aussie, Melbourne-based Director Liam Firmager, who made a documentary, ‘Suzi Q,’ about her life, and after over four years in the making, it premiered in 2019 in the UK and Australia.

At 72-years-old, Suzi shows no signs of slowing down, and retiring is a definite no. She has crammed an awful lot into her long career. As well as acting, DJ, playing bass, piano, percussion and writing her own material, she published her first novel, ‘The Hurricane,’ in 2017 and has released four books in her ‘poetry and reminiscences’ collection.

A 7-CD box set was released in 2022 – the complete recordings from 1973 to 1979. It coincided with a debut gig at the Royal Albert Hall, which celebrated Suzi’s career. She was joined on-stage by Andy Scott and Don Powell to play a couple of songs from the QSP album. Another first later that year was ‘Uncovered,’ an EP from Sun Records, featuring six songs from legendary artists that have influenced Quatro’s career, including Bad Moon Rising, Midnight Hour and Walking the Dog.

The two latest album releases, No Control in 2019 and The Devil In Me in 2021, feature new material co-written with her son, Richard, who Suzi herself says is an excellent guitarist and very talented. He also joined Suzi on stage at the Royal Albert Hall for a couple of songs, as well as producing and playing on the ‘Uncovered’ EP. The two albums go back to the early Quatro sound and Suzi has said the latter is her best album to date and both releases received excellent reviews both in the UK and overseas.

Having sold over fifty million records worldwide, Suzi is up there with the greatest female artists of all-time. She brought a uniqueness and unquestionable talent to England all those years ago and fulfilled her dream to become the Queen of rock ‘n’ roll. She didn’t just open the door for female artists, she kicked it down with her platform boots and influenced a whole new generation of female singers and musicians all over the world, and still does today.