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 very special episode, Patti and I take a deep dive into her memories of bearing witness to the Detroit Rebellion/Uprisings/Riots in the summer of 1967. We explore everything from her time growing up in Grosse Pointe – a white suburban “bubble” outside the city, her musical interactions with Black artists, the moment Black citizens of Detroit were raided by white police at a nightclub, the Algiers Motel raid and murders, her parents last-minute decision to join/flee with the Pleasure Seekers who were going out of town to a gig, antics with Chuck Berry as all of this unfolded, and returning home to her beloved Detroit burning in ruins as the chaos had finally been quelled.

Patti and I discuss how The Chamber Bros. poignant and reflective song, “The Time Has Come,” deeply influenced and changed her perspective on the social and cultural injustices of racism, and she could never look back. So much so that it forever shifted her approach to music. It’s an important episode that Patti and I are very proud of, because we tell a historic, sometimes hilarious, and often heartbreaking story about the impact the Detroit Rebellion/Uprisings/Riots had on the citizens, the musicians, and on the collective psyche of devastation and trauma that still smolders in the ashes more than five decades later.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download