Suzi Quatro: No Control

Suzi Quatro
No Control
(Marquee)

The roiling and snarling “No Soul/No Control” opens Suzi Quatro’s latest album No Control. The bassist and vocalist, turning 69 in June, shows she can still rock hard nearing their 7th decade with this mix of 11 tracks.

“Goin’ Home,” which follows, is a big strut that features a splashy organ and Quatro telling off her lover. The boppin’ “Strings,” is one of my favorite early tunes. Featuring piano, strings, and horns punctuating the tune wholly unlike the other heavy quick riffery; I just love it!

Quatro manages a Bosa Nova beat across “Love Isn’t Fair,” complete with trumpet, steel drums, and her bass given some breath all its own; another stand-out track. The lady leads with harmonica (there’s actually lots of harmonica throughout the tunes here) and bluesy piano on “Easy Pickings,” an almost 70s funk and tight ivory-tickling informs “Bass Line,” and slide and harmonica wail over the staccato strut of probably the best out and rock tune here, “Don’t Do Me Wrong.”

No Control ends with big horn rocker, “Going Down Blues.” Here we get full on ‘tude and rockin’ blues to end a rather fabulous album.

Sure she played “Leather” Tuscadero on Happy Days, but Quatro has been rocking for more than half a century, enjoyed her first real success in the U.K. (although she was born in Detroit) from 1973-74 and as she says of her future, “I’ll retire when I go onstage, shake my ass, and there is silence.”

Listeners can undoubtedly shake their asses and thoroughly enjoy No Control.