Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Undoubtedly Suzi Quatro will go down in history as one of the godmothers of Rock ‘n’ Roll. That she broke through in a time of Glam Rock means little, for this musician could have forced her way into the charts and into the national collective psyche at any point, and yet she strode the stage as a colossus of the period, a million racing hearts cheered her on, captivated by her drive, her presence, and the generosity of spirit, the woman who came from under the shadow of her sister’s band, The Pleasure Seekers, and stormed the world, who spun like a Catherine Wheel fuelled by an nuclear power source.

In a myriad of bands and solo artists who were shaped by the 1970s, it is fair to argue to that Suzi Quatro shaped the decade to come. A woman who set the standard of female rock to come, who showed her feminist class without concern, but who also was, and remains, an icon of sincerity, and as the listener rummages through the outstanding back catalogue of the early albums that Ms. Quatro released as part of The Rock Box 1973-1979: The Complete Recordings collection, so they will come across a storm of persuasion, a bounty of drama, of personal songs, of the creativity of collaboration, notably with the song writers Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn, and with her then husband, Len Tuckey.

If an album release is a slice of Time, then the ability to observe an entire decade of art and performance is a rarity of existence, and one that being able to hold in your own hand is pleasure sought and found.

The studio albums that make up this gorgeous presentation are to be seen as not just pieces of a soul, but the outcome of what Shakespeare himself would have described as the seven ages, and in this second part of life, far beyond what Suzi was doing with The Pleasure Seekers, the entire stage was flooded with framing the zeitgeist, the first true female bombshell to be witnessed worldwide, and one to whom it could be argued rivalled for a while the presence of Elvis Presley.

From the beginning of the journey, Suzi storms the air between the ears, she sets the brain on fire, and gives the soul a reason to smile, and as memories, or even first-time appreciation is garnered as the eponymous debut album leads directly on to Quatro, Your Mama Won’t Like Me, Aggro-Phobia, If You Knew Suzi…, Suzi…And Other Four Letter Words, so the tingle of live becomes a fascination, a joy, a weekend spent indoors with no distractions and just a musical experience in which to savour.

We are not always afforded an insight into the way someone grows in life, but in The Rock Box 1973-1979: The Complete Recordings, the listener will surely feel blessed, welcomed by posterity, gratified by Time in its most benevolent form, and once more acknowledge that Suzi Quatro is a musician that we owe a large debt to.

Captivating, passionate, uncompromising, The Rock Box 1973-1979: The Complete Recordings is time in a bottle and in a box of delight.

Ian D. Hall