Suzi Quatro - A's,B's & Rarities (2004)

Rock Legend Series.

Artist: Suzi Quatro
Type: Compilation
Year: 2004 CD Release
Style: Oldies Rock 70's / Glam Rock / Hard Rock
Country: United States
Quality: CBR 320 Kbps Mp3 / 44,1Khz / Joint-Stereo
Size: 90,00 MB + 86,20 MB
Download Server: RapidShare.com





Editorial Reviews

It seems strange to see the output of Mickie Most's RAK label finally being taken seriously by record labels as well as collectors, 30-plus years after the imprint established itself as the epitome of disposable pop tunes. Yet EMI's ongoing As, Bs & Rarities series offers nothing less than the same thorough treatment that any other, more hallowed, label could expect. The format is essentially the same throughout: a gathering up of every RAK single (A-sides and B-sides) released by a given band, with the remainder of the CD filled with choice outtakes and oddities -- a treatment that Suzi Quatro has long demanded. Listeners could hardly be surprised, after all, as hits collection after hits collection has descended from the skies, to be faced with one more go-round for "Can the Can," "48 Crash," "Daytona Demon," et al. -- but it is easy to overlook the fact that scarcely any of the same singles' B-sides have ever been collected together. Indeed, no less than seven of the 20 tracks here, B-sides one and all, are making their debut on CD, while four previously unreleased numbers come together to create the first truly essential Quatro document in years. In keeping with the remainder of the series, the album concentrates on Quatro's earliest years, the first half of the 1970s, during which she could do little wrong. Beginning with three songs recorded at the 1972 session that produced her 1972 debut 45, "Rolling Stone," including the archived outtake "Ain't Got No Home," the album then marches through Quatro's next seven singles, through to 1975's "Your Mamma Won't Like Me." An eighth, 1977's "Tear Me Apart," then appears in alternate -- and unreleased -- form, one of two cuts drawn from the initial sessions for her Aggro Phobia album; famously, the album was originally cut with producer Mike Chapman, before label head Mickie Most decided he could do it better, scrapped the sessions, and started again. The album then closes with another unissued gem, a ten-minute (Yes! Ten!) outtake from 1974's Quatro album. Heavily orchestrated and supremely overwrought, "Angel Flight" might well be the most adventurous track Quatro ever recorded, and it works sensationally. All of which means that it doesn't matter how many times you already own the rest of Quatro's hits. This package will wipe the floor with all that have come before. Dave Thompson, All Music Guide



About Suzi Quatro:

It's pretty far-fetched, as some revisionists are now claiming, to view Suzi Quatro as a precursor to the "riot grrrls" of the '90s. Her brand of mid-'70s glam pop was far more innocuous and, in any case, often supplied by professional songwriters. What she did prove was that it was possible for a petite woman to play bass, sing, and wear leather with a reasonable degree of raunch and pride. That, with enough musical hooks to draw in the teen pop crowd, was enough to reel off a series of big British hit singles just before the advent of punk, although she remained virtually unknown in her native U.S.

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" (both sides were reissued in the 1980s on the What a Way to Die '60s garage compilation). 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), to be replaced by yet another sister, Nancy.

The Pleasure Seekers became Cradle, which placed more emphasis on hard rock and original material. In the early '70s, British producer Mickie Most (the Animals, Lulu, Donovan, Herman's Hermits) happened to see Cradle while he was in Detroit to work on an album with Jeff Beck at Motown's studios. Most let Quatro know he was interested in working with her as a solo act; six months later, Cradle split, and Suzy was on her way to London (Patti joined the all-woman rock band Fanny in Los Angeles).

After her first single flopped, Most hooked her up with songwriters Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, who were also supplying material to the Sweet. The Chapman-Chinn-penned "Can the Can" went to number one in the U.K. in 1973, and over the next few years the same team would write about ten other British chart hits for her, including four Top Ten entries. These fused glitter and bubblegum in much the same way as the Sweet did, though Quatro was perhaps a tad raunchier (without ever getting downright scary). Quatro and her guitarist (and husband) Len Tuckey did write some of her material, though these efforts were usually confined to albums. In the U.S., though, she could barely get into the Top 100, though she did get on the cover of Rolling Stone.

Her American fortunes changed in the late '70s, when she had a short-lived, semi-regular stint on the sitcom Happy Days as the guitar-playing, sassy Leather Tuscadero. In 1979, she made the American Top Five with "Stumblin' In," although this was a duet with Chris Norman. Undoubtedly an influence upon the Runaways and Joan Jett, and thus by extension a mild influence on a subsequent generation of female rockers, she's kept a low profile in the '80s and '90s, although she's done some television and theatrical work in Britain.





Tracklist:

1. Rolling Stone
2. Brain Confusion (For All The Lonely People)
3. Ain't Got No Home
4. Can The Can
5. Ain't Ya Somethin' Honey
6. 48 Crash
7. Little Bitch Blue
8. Daytona Demon
9. Roman Fingers
10. Devil Gate Drive
11. In The Morning
12. Too Big
13. I Wanna Be Free
14. The Wild One
15. Shake My Sugar
16. Your Mamma Won't Like Me
17. Peter Peter
18. Tear Me Apart (Alternate Version)
19. Kids Of Tragedy
20. Angel Flight

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