Five 1960s bands that broke up far too soon

THE PLEASURE SEEKERS – 1965-1971 (0 ALBUMS)

The Pleasure Seekers never released an album during their brief run. They released singles and appeared on compilation albums. They toured and played on local television. But mainstream success eluded them. So history has largely forgotten that ten years before the Runaways and the Raincoats, even before Fanny or the Slits, Suzi Quattro and her sisters were rocking as hard as any boys could in the 1960s.

Check out “What a Way to Die.” It is more punk than anything you will hear from 1965. Or “Never Thought You’d Leave Me,” which is better than most garage rock from the decade. With “Where Have You Gone,” Suzi and sister Patti (later joined by another sister, Arlene) are dabbling in proto-metal.

Though they released successful singles and became a popular live act, it seems the world had no idea what to do with female rockers. And the Quattro sisters weren’t giving in. They just got harder and heavier into the late 60s, now rechristened as Cradle, and with yet another sister, Nancy, taking over when Arlene moved the management side of the business.

Suzi, who was just 15 when the band formed in the mid-1960s, went solo in 1971 and Cradle essentially ended.

Patti hooked up with Fanny – another seminal all-female rock group – briefly, while Suzi, for better or worse, went onto her biggest fame as Leather Tuscadero, a recurring character in Happy Days. That gig made her known to a wider audience, but it also diminished her street cred, so a lot of music fans considered Suzi Quattro a caricature on a sitcom, and not the stone-cold killer rock and roller that she was.