(Credits: Far Out / Album Cover / 20th Century Fox)
Mon 23 March 2026 23:00, UK
Suzi Quatro once declared she was an “Elvis freak” and that very few legends had as much of an impact on her music and stage presence as ‘The King’ himself – why, then, did she once turn down an invitation from the man himself to meet at Graceland?
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, Quatro didn’t have much to contend with as far as female idols were concerned, and in fact, many female musicians of her generation said as much in their reflections later on, alluding to the strange realisation that being a woman in the game wasn’t something they really thought of as a challenge until they found themselves in spaces traditionally dominated by men.
Quatro was no different – she grew up with the same influences as many of her future female peers and found herself drawn to the rock ‘n’ roll heroes of the era, such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and The Beatles, discovering Elvis Presley the same way many did – via his legendary performance on The Ed Sullivan Show, after which she was besotted.
While her tapas of influences would go on to flourish beyond those spaces, particularly as she became a name in her own right, Presley remained her North Star, not just in terms of sound and style but also regarding her quintessential devil-may-care defiance. And it all started with watching him light up the stage, igniting a flame that yearned to follow in his footsteps, her own gender never even crossing her mind as a potential issue.
As she once reflected to Tidal, when she first saw Presley on The Ed Sullivan Show, her first thought was, “I’m gonna do that.” She was so endeared that all she knew was that she was going to one day venture out to do the same, simple as that. “I never considered the fact that I was a girl,” she said. “It just didn’t come into my head.”
Presley made his way into many of her biggest moments and milestones, not just in terms of sound and image (her famous leather jumpsuit was inspired in part by Presley’s iconic 1968 Comeback Special), but also with how much resilience she adopted early on, much of which would prove worthwhile in the face of some of the most sexist audiences she’d ever come across.
However, once, when Quatro was faced with the prospect of actually meeting her idol, she didn’t go ahead with it. Presley had actually spoken to her on the phone himself, sometime around 1974, and praised her cover of ‘All Shook Up’, telling her that it was “the best since my own”. He then invited her to come to meet him at Graceland, but she, like many who look up to someone so great, felt that she needed more time to prepare and told him that she was too busy.
In fact, Quatro maintains that it wasn’t nerves, not really, but her desire to put it off a little longer meant that she never got another chance, as Presley passed away a few years later, leaving her with the haunt of what could have been. After all, how would you ever move past the fact that you had only one chance to meet not only one of your heroes, but ‘The King’ himself?
Funnily enough, Quatro doesn’t see it that way, and she even said that she doesn’t regret her decision, mainly because she didn’t know that he was going to die a few years later, which, all things considered, is probably for the best, considering that well-known mantra about never meeting your heroes. Who knows? Perhaps those we place on a pedestal are also best left where they are – suspended somewhere above us, completely unreachable for the rest of time.
