There was a time when Peter Frampton very nearly joined Suzi Quatro’s band. In September 1971, Quatro packed her suitcase and headed to England, chasing the promise of famed record producer Mickie Most to make her a star.
It took more or less a year of trial and error for the formula to work out, but eventually the two settled on a song – Rolling Stone – that Quatro had written with Hot Chocolate’s Errol Brown.
Most’s reputation meant that he was able to hire some very promising names as session players, including a post-Humble Pie Frampton.
Article continues below“We were making a song called Rolling Stone for my debut album,” Quatro recalls in an interview with Classic Rock. “Mickie said to me: ‘I’ve got this guitar player coming in and I’ve kind of earmarked him for your band.’
“I didn’t have a band yet, and Peter was a very sweet, unassuming guy, and a good guitar player who’d gone solo after being in Humble Pie. When the session was over, Mickie said, ‘Nope, Peter can’t be in your band. There’s only going to be one star, and that’s you.” Who knew Peter would be so successful? Mickie had picked up on it.”
“When I first put the band together in early ’72, and we started to do college gigs, Mickie put us out on the circuit, got us an agent, and helped to buy equipment,” she recalled of those heady days in an interview with Bass Player.
“I remember him saying to the rest of the band, and it’s quite funny when I think about it, ‘You guys are gonna have this amp and that amp, but Suzi has an Acoustic amp because it’s her band and she’s the star. She gets the best equipment because she’s the most important.’
“I thought, ‘Thanks a lot, Mickie – the band are really gonna love me now!’ But he was looking after me, he really was.”
In more recent Suzi Quatro news, the bass legend, who has just released her 18th studio album, Freedom, also revealed that she once jammed with Jeff Beck and Cozy Powell, all while playing James Jamerson’s bass.
