This track from Quatro’s debut album Suzi Quatro was a huge hit in the UK, with its propulsive guitar riff and pile-driving drums. In fact, the 2010 biopic about The Runaways features Kristen Stewart as a young Jett trying to play this very song on her guitar. Definitely her signature song, “The Wild One” also inspired rocker-to-be Joan Jett, who has long proclaimed herself an avowed fan of Quatro. This tune from her second album Quatro (1974) fuels its opening declaration “All my life I wanted to be somebody, and here I am…” with a striking vocal and thrashing guitars. If that’s not enough, here are five more reasons that this bass-playing firebrand rocks. There, Most teamed her with writer-producers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn (songwriters for glam-pop groups like Sweet) who helped her create a string of hits in Europe, including “Can The Can” and “48 Crash.” Quatro has influenced artists as diverse as Tina Weymouth (of Talking Heads) and the all-female heavy metal group, Girlschool. While touring the Midwest in this later incarnation, the group was spotted by British producer Mickie Most, who believed Quatro could succeed as a solo artist, so he signed her to a contract, and Quatro moved to England. The group had some local success and even released a single before changing their name to Cradle. You might chuckle when you hear the name, recalling she played “Leather Tuscadero” on Happy Days but there’s more to her story than that and her pop duet with Chris Norman on “Stumblin’ In.” Quatro was born in Detroit, where she and her two sisters formed a band called The Pleasure Seekers. The eventual rise of bands like Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, Heart, and The Pretenders (led by Chrissie Hynde) changed all that, but there was someone who helped pave the way for them Suzi Quatro. Female rockers slinging guitars are common enough in today’s music world, but back in the early 1970s, they were fewer in number.

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