Two recent documentaries. Two current podcasts. Four rock-and-roll lives.
Suzi Quatro.
Cherie Currie.
Michael Des Barres.
Donna Halper.
Okay, Halper is a radio consultant (and now a professor and media historian), not a recording artist, but she’s often in the trades these days in a very rock-and-roll context. Halper has already been in a rock documentary: 2010’s Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage helped spread the story of how Halper found “Working Man” on an advance pressing of an import at WMMS Cleveland in the ‘70s. It’s an almost unthinkable act of programmer enterprise in today’s radio.
Halper’s Rush story has become, in fact, the best-known story of music-director heroism these days. But on Boston air personality Candy O’Terry’s The Story Behind Her Success podcast, Halper begins several stories with “I’ve never talked about this before,” and some are harrowing. When I came to the business in the early ‘80s, Halper was already an established consultant. Her two-part interview with O’Terry makes one further appreciate what Halper had to overcome to get there; some men had probably gotten in and out of radio in the time it took her to get her first job alone
Halper’s topics go well beyond radio: how Judaism gave her a code of conduct; why today’s charges of media bias are by no means unprecedented. O’Terry’s recent guests range from life coaches to superstar chefs to Sharon, Lois & Bram. Michael Friedman’s guests on the Hardcore Humanism with Dr. Mike podcast are from the music world — Nile Rodgers, Dee Snider, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels, Anthrax’s Scott Ian, Steve Albini — but they’re also there to discuss self-help and emotional wellness, specifically how to be and protect yourself as an individual. Runaways lead vocalist Cherie Currie is a great interview about music, mental health, and her current passion for chainsaw art — which Friedman correctly identifies as the only possible artisan path the pioneering female rocker could have chosen.
Currie and ex-bandmates Joan Jett and Lita Ford all give Runaway love to Suzi Q in Liam Firmager’s documentary salute to Suzi Quatro, who deserves to be known in the U.S. for more than one uncharacteristic hit (1979s “Stumblin’ In”) and her recurring role on Happy Days. Quatro’s 1973-75 international glam-rock-era hits — “Can the Can,” “48 Crash,” “Devil Gate Drive” — were the hardest-rocking female-led hits to date, as well as showcases for the off-kilter, bubble-glam writing and producing of Mike Chapman & Nicky Chinn, several years before Chapman’s ascent to mega-producer status.
Quatro’s first hit streak with Chapman came to an end just as Heart broke through in North America. Her 1979 U.S. breakthrough was upstaged a few months later by the debut of another Chapman-produced act, Pat Benatar. Of course, neither of those should have been stoppers, but U.S. radio was usually able to deal with just one female rocker at a time, even to the point where Heart and Benatar never had hits at the same time. Neither act is mentioned in Suzi Q, but there is discussion of how Jett’s “I Love Rock & Roll” sounded so much like Quatro that people constantly congratulated the latter on her megahit.
Quatro has always come off as unusually grounded among rock stars. (One of the first recent interviews I saw with her a few years ago was about her wise investments and financial stability.) Her mellower late ‘70s hits, and starring role in a production of Annie Get Your Gun took Quatro away from the rock world, something Suzi Q looks to rectify. But any regret Quatro expresses isn’t about the magnitude of her career, but the wedge that it drove between her and her sisters (and former band members), who are more than candid here in their resentment that Suzi accepted a solo offer without them.
Quatro’s last bid at U.S. hits came when Chapman launched an unsuccessful, short-lived subsidiary of RSO Records. One of her Dreamland label-mates was Michael Des Barres, whose own documentary, Who Do You Want Me To Be? was recently released after years of clearance issues. Quatro became the host of several limited-run series on the UK’s BBC Radio 2; Des Barres is now on SiriusXM satellite radio doing mid-mornings on the Little Steven’s Underground Garage channel (a relatively recent development dealt with in the end credits).
Halper, Currie, and Quatro’s rock lives take them through second chapters and reinvention. As the title suggests, Des Barres’ entire career was reinvention; when the term “Zelig” comes up, it’s admiringly from a friend. By the time he came to Dreamland, Des Barres had already fronted two unsuccessful rock bands, under the respective tutelage of Robert Stigwood and Led Zeppelin. He appeared in To Sir With Love, sang Judas in the demos for (but not the original album of) Jesus Christ Superstar. He played a punk rocker on WKRP in Cincinnati, ahead of a real-life friendship and collaborations with the Sex Pistols’ Steve Jones. (Recently, Des Barres released a cover of “Anarchy in the UK” as a ballad.)
Des Barres’ personal life was tumultuous as well: a Dickensian early childhood with a sudden fortunate turn; a second marriage to Pamela Des Barres (I’m With the Band) marred by addiction. When Des Barres went into Alcoholics Anonymous, it was the language of recovery that inspired “Obsession,” the song that gives Who Do You Want Me to Be? its title, and finally gave Des Barres his hit record. Typically, for him, it was written and released with another Dreamland artist, Holly Knight, for the A Night in Heaven soundtrack, but became a hit for a second act (Animotion) while he was performing it as the touring lead singer for a third, Power Station (for whom he replaced Robert Palmer).
These days, Des Barres’ Twitter followers often want to talk about his spate of ’80s TV appearances, from ALF to Macgyver. (He declares early on that “I’ve acted with a goddamn sock and I’ve played Live Aid.”) In some ways, that arc parallels the journeyman careers of so many radio people in a now-passed era of the business. What allows Des Barres to be so cheerful about all his “almost famous” moments is that, like Quatro, he came out the other side more comfortably than some of his contemporaries, and with the realization it had added up to a career after all. Des Barres’ path led him into radio at a time when many Ross on Radio readers are probably wondering how or whether to stay in the business amidst its current convulsions. Who Do You Want Me to Be? is a question on a lot of minds now. Des Barres’ constant reinvention might provide them with some encouragement, as will all of these stories.
