Been away for a weeks holiday and I planned on posting a link on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday to keep up the pace but apparently I was a little too tired on Tuesday. I’ll have to make it up from now on then so you listeners will get one every two days now until next week Saturday. Let’s get started.
Vincent Damien Furnier (speak it out the French way) was born in 1948 and would become one of the trendsetters in the rock scène since he started his first band back in the sixties. His 1969 band Nazz carried the same name as another already existing band and Furnier changed Nazz into Alice Cooper. Vincent became lead singer, Dennis Dunaway on bass, Neal Smith on drums and Michael Bruce and Glen Buxton on guitars. Two albums were released in their founding year later (1973) to be compiled into one album called ‘Schooldays’. Those albums were released when they were signed by the great Fank Zappa.
Alice Cooper released multiple albums the first few years: ‘Love It To Death’ and the classic ‘Killer’ album in 1971 with the very well known ‘School’s out’ album and song (see link number 18) in 1972. Recording songs would become a regular job and by the time they released a Greatest Hits in 1974 they could already choose songs out of 7 different studio recorded albums.
Furniers love for theatre and music would make him set the boarders for the later known glamrock and shockrock. There’s even a myth going round of Alice Cooper biting of a living chicken’s head during a concert. This story was never confirmed but Frank Zappa saw it as an ideal publicity stunt and the band got even more famous than ever before.
The band went through a critical year in 1974 and Vincent Furnier decided to make it solo under his alter ego Alice Cooper. He instantly scored a hit ‘When women bleed’. As a solo artist he’d specialise in conceptual albums and one of the best examples is his latest ‘Along came a spider’. This albums represents Alice to be the most dangerous serial killer on earth, trapping his victims like a spider and wrapping them in silk waiting to be eaten. Is Alice crazy? Yes he is, but in a good way. He likes evil but at the same time prevails good to win at the end of the battle.
Shock-rocker Alice Cooper influenced a huge amount of artists throughout their careers. I’ll just name a few: Kiss, David Bowie, Marilyn Manson, Slipknot and many more. He also put in a huge amount of musicians over the years he’s been touring the whole world. A little sum gets me to 63 different musicians over 42 years. I might have missed a few though.
Alice Cooper also holds a restaurant annex sports bar in Phoenix Arizone and it’s called Cooper’stown and he also has a regular nightly radio show called Nights With Alice Cooper.
Enjoy the listening,
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