How Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special’ Changed Suzi Quatro’s Life

Due to his tremendous popularity, Elvis Presley changed lives across the globe. Elvis’ ’68 Comeback Special changed Suzi Quatro’s life in particular. She went on to pay tribute to him numerous times. The ’68 Comeback Special also influenced pop culture in a number of surprising ways.

Suzi Quatro’s look was inspired by Elvis Presley’s ’68 Comeback Special’

During a 2022 interview with Tidal, Quatro said she was a fan of Elvis since she saw him sing on The Ed Sullivan Show. That performance made her want to follow Elvis’ career path. She didn’t think being a girl would stop her from doing that.

“Then you fast-forward to the Comeback Special,” she said. “I was on the road since the age of 14. I was in the band for four years by that point because I started in ’64, and then in ’68, we switched on the TV, and he was in leather. So I went out and got my first leather jacket.” To this day, leather jackets are part of Quatro’s signature look.

1 Elvis Presley song later changed Suzi Quatro’s career

Quatro explained how one of Elvis’ biggest hits impacted her career. “Then we get to 1971, I’m in Cradle, which is the second wave of [my early band] The Pleasure Seekers,” she recalled. “I was shoved to the back, just playing bass, which was fine. I didn’t mind. I got really good on my bass at that point.

“And [the British producer] Mickie Most came to Detroit to record at Motown, but at the same time he came and saw the band that I was in, and I got up and I did two songs,” Quatro added. “One was a song I wrote called ‘Brain Confusion.’ The other one was ‘Jailhouse Rock.’ And Mickie called me to the back of the hall and said, ‘I want only you.'” Since then, many of Quatro’s albums have included Elvis covers.

‘The Simpsons’ and Green Day drew influence from the same TV event

Elvis’ ’68 Comeback Special influenced more than just Quatro. Krusty the Klown staged a comeback in an episode of The Simpsons called “Krusty Gets Kancelled.” Some of the settings in “Krusty Gets Kancelled” were clearly inspired by Elvis’ TV film. Green Day also paid homage to the special with the music video for their single “Father of All…” The video has a set similar to the ’68 Comeback Special, while the members of Green Day wear gold suits reminiscent of the outfit Elvis wore when he sang “Little Egypt” in the aforementioned film. Despite the video’s homages, it didn’t catapult Green Day back into the spotlight.

The ’68 Comeback Special is also a big part of Baz Luhrmann’s film Elvis. Scenes of the movie depict Elvis getting out from under Colonel Tom Parker’s thumb to pursue his own vision. The special also inspired a sequence from Sofia Coppola’s Priscilla that shows Elvis’ triumphant return from the perspective of his wife, Priscilla Presley.

Quatro was changed by the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll and so was the world.