Suzi Quatro has been awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music by Anglia Ruskin University. She received the award from Professor Iain Martin, Vice Chancellor of Anglia Ruskin, during this year’s graduation ceremony at the Cambridge Corn Exchange.
Anglia Ruskin has enjoyed links with Suzi for some time, and she has expressed an interest in collaborating on a number of projects, specifically the Popular Music undergraduate degree course, and ongoing work in Music Therapy. As an adopted East Anglian, and a globally-recognised, pioneering talent in a previously male-dominated arena, Suzi will be an inspirational role model to Anglia Ruskin students.
Suzi Quatro was the most successful female artist of the entire Glam Rock period (Suzi’s style and music were not truly ‘Glam’ but this was the era, which saw her shoot to stardom) and her influence on subsequent generations of female rock musicians are widely acknowledged.
t’s been well-documented that Chrissie Hynde and Joan Jett both drew inspiration from Suzi but so have many others, including Talking Heads’ Tina Weymouth, who was encouraged to learn to play bass by listening to Quatro albums and, more recently, KT Tunstall revealed that the cover photo of her 2007 album Drastic Fantastic was based on Suzi’s image.
In celebration of Suzi’s 50th year in the music business in 2014, the BBC hosted a special performance of her one-woman show, Unzipped, which was recorded for broadcast on Radio 2 in the October of that year. A special 4-CD box set, The Girl From Detroit City was also released.
50 years on and Suzi Quatro has no intention of slowing down. She continues to tour and record and in 2015 she published her poetry in a book called Through My Eyes.
