Season Three is here with Dr. Kristen Hillaire and Patti Quatro! We talk in depth about the groundbreaking all-female Detroit rock ‘n’ roll band, the Pleasure Seekers, formed in 1964.

At the ages of sixteen and seventeen, Patti and her two best friends, Nan Ball and Diane Baker, were hanging out together and noodling on their instruments in a basement in the suburbs of Detroit. Like so many other teens, the British invasion was having a huge influence on the cultural shifts occurring in music, and after seeing the Beatles live at Olympia Stadium, Patti was hooked on rock ‘n’ roll. She recruited younger sister, Suzi, and Nan’s younger sister, Mary Lou, at the age of fourteen, and the Pleasure Seekers were ready to go!

Also in 1964, Dave Leone’s and Ed “Punch” Andrews’ “Hideout” opened as a teen club in the suburbs of the city. It was an explosive time in Detroit – the music, the Motor City, the mayhem, and the magic! The Pleasure Seekers and the Quatro sisters were not only there to bear witness to it all, they helped to create the distinct and dynamic sounds of early rock ‘n’ roll in Detroit.

When the Pleasure Seekers (and Cradle) were inducted into the Detroit Music Awards at the Fillmore Theater in 2012, Dennis “Machine Gun” Thompson of the MC5 wrote, “The Quatro girls were the first all-female band that played instruments well, and forerunners for many bands to follow. One kick-ass band!”

On this episode, Patti and I round off the conversation about the New Jersey mob incident, including clarifying and distinguishing the good mobsters from the mob punks. We also shine a light on some special gigs the Pleasure Seekers played and attended in and around Detroit, including seeing the Blues Magoos and Paul Revere and the Raiders. We end with Patti sharing why and how the band ended up learning an entire album by the Beatles, and played it live as one of their sets. It is incredible to think that in 1964, at the age of sixteen, Patti had her epiphany of starting an all-female rock band, and less than three years later, they were signed to a top-notch booking agency, playing gigs across the U.S. and Canada, and now taking on covering the Beatles. “Full circle,” as Patti would say, and they played the set with such fierce prowess that the audiences were left with their mouths hanging open in awe.

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