Name	Lester Bangs
Caption	Lester Bangs during an interview
Birthname	Leslie Conway Bangs
Birthdate	December 13, 1948
Birthplace	Escondido, California, United States
Deathdate	April 30, 1982
Deathplace	New York City, New York, United States
Occupation	Music critic, musician, author
Nationality	American
Period	1969–1982
Subject	Rock music, jazz

Leslie Conway "Lester" Bangs (December 13, 1948 – April 30, 1982) was an American music journalist, author and musician. He wrote for Creem and Rolling Stone magazines, and has been called one of the "most influential" voices in rock criticism.

Early life

Bangs was born in Escondido, California, USA. His mother was a devout Jehovah's Witness. His father died in a fire when Bangs was young. In 1969, Bangs began writing freelance after reading an ad in Rolling Stone soliciting readers' reviews. His first piece was a negative review of the MC5 album Kick Out The Jams, which he sent to Rolling Stone with a note detailing that should the magazine decide not to publish the review, then they would have to contact Lester and tell him why. Instead, they published it.

Career

Bangs wrote about Janis Joplin's death by drug overdose, "It's not just that this kind of early death has become a fact of life that has become disturbing, but that it's been accepted as a given so quickly". In 1973, Jann Wenner fired Bangs from Rolling Stone, a negative review of Canned Heat being the final event. He moved to Detroit to edit and write for Creem. After leaving Creem, he wrote for The Village Voice, Penthouse, Playboy, New Musical Express, and many other publications.

Bangs idolized the noise music of Lou Reed. Bangs wrote the essay/interview "Let Us Now Praise Famous Death Dwarves" about Reed in 1975.

Style

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Music

Bangs was also a musician in his own right. He teamed up with Joey Ramone's brother, Mickey Leigh to put together a New York group named Birdland. In 1980 he traveled to Austin, Texas and met a punk rock group named the Delinquents. During his stay in Austin he recorded an album as Lester Bangs and the Delinquents entitled Jook Savages on the Brazos.

In media

Excerpts from an interview with Lester Bangs appear in the last two episodes of Tony Palmer's .

He was portrayed in the movie Almost Famous by Philip Seymour Hoffman.

Death

Bangs died in New York on April 30, 1982, of an overdose of Darvon, Valium and Nyquil. He is reported to have been listening to The Human League's album Dare at the time of his death. Stranded (1979) on Astral Weeks, album by Van Morrison, released in 1968.

Blondie (Fireside Book, 1980)

, collected writings, Greil Marcus, ed. Anchor Press, 1988. (ISBN 0-679-72045-6)

Main Lines, Blood Feasts, and Bad Taste: A Lester Bangs Reader, collected writings, John Morthland, ed. Anchor Press, 2003. (ISBN 0-375-71367-0)

The first piece for Rolling Stone-A Review of The MC5's debut album Kick Out The Jams.

About Lester Bangs

Let it Blurt: The Life and Times of Lester Bangs, America's Greatest Rock Critic, biography, Jim Derogatis. Broadway Books, 2000. (ISBN 0-7679-0509-1).

Works citing Lester Bangs

Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, biography, Legs McNeil and Gillian McCain. Penguin Books, 1997. (ISBN 0-14-026690-9).

Bangs is mentioned in the R.E.M. Song: It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine), along with Lenny Bruce, Leonid Brezhnev, and Leonard Bernstein, all of whom share the initials 'LB'.

References

External links

MENTOR. EDITOR. LESTER: A Personal Appreciation by Jeffrey Morgan of Creem.

1980 interview with Bangs posted at rockcritics.com

Bangs reviews (1979) Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.

13 May 1980 Interview with Lester Bangs by Sue Mathews of ABC Radio (Australia) Complete transcript plus MP3 stream of the interview.

Richard Hell remembers Lester Bangs in the Village Voice, August 7, 2003

Category:1948 births Category:1982 deaths Category:American music journalists Category:Writers from California Category:Drug-related deaths in New York

Name	Pauline Kael
Caption	An undated photograph of Kael.
Birthdate	June 19, 1919
Birthplace	Petaluma, California
Deathdate	September 03, 2001
Deathplace	Great Barrington, Massachusetts
Occupation	Film critic
Period	1951 - 1991
Influenced	Wes Anderson, David Denby, David Edelstein, Anthony Lane, Greil Marcus, Elvis Mitchell, A. O. Scott, Michael Sragow, Quentin Tarantino, Armond White, Stephen Hunter, Tom Shales

Pauline Kael (June 19, 1919 – September 3, 2001) was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career her works were published by City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic.

Kael was known for her "witty, biting, highly opinionated, and sharply focused" reviews, her opinions often contrary to those of her contemporaries. She is often regarded as the most influential American film critic of her day.

She left a lasting impression on many major critics, including Armond White, whose reviews are similarly non-conformist, and Roger Ebert, who has said that Kael "had a more positive influence on the climate for film in America than any other single person over the last three decades." Owen Gleiberman said she "was more than a great critic. She re-invented the form, and pioneered an entire aesthetic of writing. She was like the Elvis or the Beatles of film criticism."

Early life and career

Kael was born on a chicken farm in Petaluma, California, to Isaac Paul Kael and Judith Friedman Kael, Jewish immigrants from Poland. Her parents lost their farm when Kael was eight, and the family moved to San Francisco, California. and moved to New York City with the poet Robert Horan.

Three years later, Kael returned to San Francisco and "led a bohemian life," marrying and divorcing three times, writing plays, and working in experimental film. Gina had a serious illness through much of her childhood,; and, to support Gina and herself, Kael worked a series of such menial jobs as cook and seamstress, along with stints as an advertising copywriter. In 1953, the editor of City Lights magazine overheard Kael arguing about movies in a coffeeshop with a friend and asked her to review Charlie Chaplin's Limelight. Kael disparaged the supposed critic's ideal of objectivity, referring to it as "saphead objectivity," and incorporated aspects of autobiography into her criticism. Kael described seeing the film

Kael broadcast many of her early reviews on the alternative public radio station KPFA, in Berkeley, and gained further local-celebrity status as Berkeley Cinema Guild manager from 1955 to 1960. As manager of a two-screen theater, Kael programmed the films that were shown "unapologetically repeat[ing] her favorites until they also became audience favorites." She also wrote "pungent" capsule reviews of the movies, which her patrons began collecting.

Going mass market

Kael continued to juggle writing with other work until she received an offer to publish a book of her criticism. Published in 1965 as I Lost It at the Movies, the collection sold 150,000 paperback copies and was a surprise bestseller. Coinciding with a job at the high-circulation women's magazine McCall's, Kael (as Newsweek put it in a 1966 profile) "went mass".

During the same year, she wrote a blistering review of the phenomenally popular The Sound of Music in McCall's. After mentioning that some of the press had dubbed it "The Sound of Money," Kael called the film's message a "sugarcoated lie that people seem to want to eat." Although, according to legend,

Her dismissal from McCall's led to a stint from 1966 to 1967 at The New Republic, whose editors continually altered Kael's writing without permission. In October 1967, Kael wrote a lengthy essay on “Bonnie and Clyde”, which the magazine declined to publish. William Shawn of The New Yorker got hold of the piece and ran it in the New Yorker issue of October 21. Kael's review raved about the then controversial film Bonnie and Clyde. According to critic David Thomson, "she was right about a film that had bewildered many other critics." Kael was asked by Shawn to join The New Yorker staff as one of its two film critics (she alternated every six months with Penelope Gilliatt until 1979, after which she became sole film critic),

Initially, many considered her colloquial, brash writing style an odd fit with the sophisticated and genteel New Yorker. Kael remembered "getting a letter from an eminent New Yorker writer suggesting that I was trampling through the pages of the magazine with cowboy boots covered with dung." During her tenure at the New Yorker, however, she took advantage of a forum that permitted her to write at length and with presumably minimal editorial interference; and Kael achieved her greatest prominence. By 1968, Time magazine was referring to her as "one of the country's top movie critics." Kael noted that, during this period, her reviews were so interesting because the movies were so compelling.

New Yorker tenure

In 1970, Kael received a George Polk Award for her work as a critic at the New Yorker. She continued to publish hardbound collections of her writings, many with (deliberately) suggestive titles such as Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, When the Lights Go Down, and Taking It All In. Her fourth book, Deeper into Movies (1973), was the first non-fiction book about movies to win a National Book Award.

Kael also wrote philosophical essays on moviegoing, the modern Hollywood film industry, and the lack of courage on the part of audiences (as she perceived it) to explore lesser-known, more challenging movies (she rarely used the word "film" to describe movies because she felt the word was too elitist). Among her more popular essays were a damning review of Norman Mailer's semi-fictional Marilyn: a Biography (an account of Marilyn Monroe's life); an incisive look at Cary Grant's career; and an extensively researched examination of Citizen Kane, entitled Raising Kane (later reprinted in The Citizen Kane Book). She argued that Herman J. Mankiewicz, Citizen Kane's co-screenwriter, deserved as much credit for the film as Orson Welles, a thesis that provoked controversy and hurt Welles to the point that he considered suing Kael for libel.

Bogdanovich also quotes Woody Allen's observation about Kael, "She has everything that a great critic needs except judgment. And I don't mean that facetiously. She has great passion, terrific wit, wonderful writing style, huge knowledge of film history, but too often what she chooses to extol or fails to see is very surprising." According to Kael, after reading her negative review of Terrence Malick's 1973 movie Badlands, Shawn said, "I guess you didn't know that Terry is like a son to me." Kael responded, "Tough shit, Bill", and her review was printed unchanged. Other than sporadic confrontations with Shawn, Kael said she spent most of her work time at home, writing.

Upon the release of Kael's 1980 collection When the Lights Go Down, her New Yorker colleague Renata Adler published an 8,000-word review in The New York Review of Books that dismissed the book as "jarringly, piece by piece, line by line, and without interruption, worthless." Adler argued that Kael's post-sixties work contained "nothing certainly of intelligence or sensibility," and faulted her "quirks [and] mannerisms," including Kael's repeated use of the "bullying" imperative and rhetorical question. The piece, which stunned Kael and quickly became infamous in literary circles, Although Kael refused to respond, Adler's review became known as "the most sensational attempt on Kael's reputation"; twenty years later, Salon.com (ironically) referred to Adler's "worthless" denunciation of Kael as her "most famous single sentence."

In 1979, Kael accepted an offer from Warren Beatty to be a consultant to Paramount Pictures but left the position after only a few months to return to writing criticism.

Later years

In the early 1980s, Kael was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease. As her illness worsened, she became increasingly depressed about the state of American movies, along with feeling that "I had nothing new to say." At the time, Kael explained that she would still write essays for The New Yorker, along with "some reflections and other pieces of writing about movies."

Though she published no new writing of her own, Kael was not averse to giving interviews, in which she alternately praised and derided newly released films and television shows. In a 1998 interview with Modern Maturity, she said she sometimes regretted not being able to review: "A few years ago when I saw Vanya on 42nd Street, I wanted to blow trumpets. Your trumpets are gone once you’ve quit." She was described by the Award's judges as "Pauline Kael, whose hysterical encomium loosed Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris on an all-too-trusting world." She was not especially cruel to some films that had been roasted by many critics, such as the 1972 Man of La Mancha, in which she praised Sophia Loren's performance. She also condemned films that elsewhere attracted admiration, such as It's a Wonderful Life, West Side Story, and Shoah. The originality of her opinions, as well as the forceful way in which she expressed them, won her ardent supporters as well as angry critics.

Notable movie reviews by Kael included a venomous criticism of West Side Story that drew harsh replies from the movie's supporters; ecstatic reviews of Z and MASH that resulted in enormous boosts to those films' popularity; and enthusiastic reviews of Brian De Palma's early films. Her 'preview' of Robert Altman's 1975 movie Nashville appeared several months before the film was actually completed, in an attempt to prevent the studio from re-cutting the film and to catapult it to box office glory.

Views on violence

Kael had a taste for anti-hero movies that violated taboos involving sex and violence, and this reportedly alienated some of her readers. She also had a strong dislike for films that she felt were manipulative or appealed in superficial ways to conventional attitudes and feelings.

She was an enthusiastic supporter of the violent action films of Sam Peckinpah and early Walter Hill, as evidenced in her collection 5001 Nights at the Movies, which includes positive reviews of Hill's Hard Times (1975), The Warriors (1979), and Southern Comfort (1981), as well as Peckinpah's entire body of work. Although she initially dismissed John Boorman's Point Blank (1967) for what she felt was its pointless brutality, she later acknowledged it was "intermittently dazzling" with "more energy and invention than Boorman seems to know what to do with...one comes out exhilarated but bewildered."

Kael responded negatively, however, to some action films that she felt pushed what she described as "right-wing" or "fascist" agendas. While praising Don Siegel's Dirty Harry (1971) as "trim, brutal, and exciting; it was directed in the sleekest style by the veteran urban-action director...," she labeled it a "right-wing fantasy [that is] a remarkably single-minded attack on liberal values". In an otherwise extremely positive critique of Peckinpah's Straw Dogs, Kael concluded that the controversial director had made 'the first American film that is a fascist work of art'. In the early 1980s, however, largely in response to her review of the 1981 drama Rich and Famous, Kael faced notable accusations of homophobia. First remarked on by Stuart Byron in The Village Voice, according to gay writer Craig Seligman the accusations eventually "took on a life of their own and did real damage to her reputation."

In her review, Kael called the straight-themed Rich and Famous "more like a homosexual fantasy," saying that one female character's affairs "are creepy, because they don't seem like what a woman would get into." Byron, who "hit the ceiling" after reading the review, was joined by The Celluloid Closet author Vito Russo, who argued that Kael equated promiscuity with homosexuality, "as though straight women have never been promiscuous or been given the permission to be promiscuous." Craig Seligman has defended Kael, saying that these remarks showed "enough ease with the topic to be able to crack jokes—in a dark period when other reviewers....'felt that if homosexuality were not a crime it would spread.'" Kael herself rejected the accusations as "craziness," adding, "I don't see how anybody who took the trouble to check out what I've actually written about movies with homosexual elements in them could believe that stuff."

Nixon "quote"

Kael is frequently quoted as having said, in the wake of Richard Nixon's landslide victory in the 1972 presidential election, that she "couldn't believe Nixon had won", since no one she knew had voted for him. The quote is sometimes cited by conservatives (such as Bernard Goldberg, in his book Bias), as an example of the alleged cluelessness and insularity of the liberal elite. There are variations as to the exact wording, the speaker (it has variously been attributed to other liberal female writers, including Katharine Graham, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion), and the timing (in addition to Nixon's victory, it has been claimed to have been uttered after Ronald Reagan's re-election in 1984.)

There is, in fact, no record of Kael stating or writing this exact sentiment. The story most likely originated in a December 28, 1972 New York Times article on a lecture Kael gave at the Modern Language Association, in which the newspaper quoted her as saying, "I live in a rather special world. I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them."

Influence

Almost as soon as she began writing for The New Yorker, Kael carried a great deal of influence among fellow critics. In the early seventies, Cinerama distributors "initiate[d] a policy of individual screenings for each critic because her remarks [during the film] were affecting her fellow critics." In the seventies and eighties, Kael cultivated friendships with a group of young, mostly male critics, some of whom emulated her distinctive writing style. Referred to derisively as the "Paulettes," they came to dominate national film criticism in the 1990s. Critics who have acknowledged Kael's influence include, among many, A. O. Scott of The New York Times, David Denby and Anthony Lane of The New Yorker, David Edelstein of New York Magazine, Greil Marcus, Michael Sragow, It was repeatedly alleged that, after her retirement, Kael's "most ardent devotees deliberate[d] with each other [to] forge a common School of Pauline position" before their reviews were written. When confronted with the rumor that she ran "a conspiratorial network of young critics," Kael said she believed that critics imitated her style rather than her actual opinions, stating, "A number of critics take phrases and attitudes from me, and those takings stick out—they’re not integral to the writer’s temperament or approach."

When asked in 1998 if she thought her criticism had affected the way films were made, Kael deflected the question, stating, "If I say yes, I’m an egotist, and if I say no, I’ve wasted my life." (He was most likely referring to the break between Ryan's Daughter in 1970 and A Passage to India in 1984; it does add up to fourteen years)

Though he began directing movies after she retired, Quentin Tarantino was also influenced by Kael. He read her criticism voraciously growing up and said that Kael was "as influential as any director was in helping me develop my aesthetic." He later wrote Kael that "your thoughts and writing about the movies [have] been a very important source of inspiration for me and my movies, and I hope you don't regret that."

In his 1988 film Willow, George Lucas named one of the villains "General Kael," after the critic. Kael had often reviewed Lucas' work without enthusiasm; in her own (negative) review of Willow, she described the character as an "hommage à moi."

Bibliography (partial)

Books

I Lost It at the Movies (1965)

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (1968) ISBN 0-31648-163-7

Going Steady (1969) ISBN 0-55305-880-0

Deeper into Movies (1973) ISBN 0-7145-0941-8

Reeling (1976)

When the Lights Go Down (1980) ISBN 0-03042-511-5

5001 Nights at the Movies (1982, revised in 1984 and 1991) ISBN 0-8050-1367-9

Taking It All In (1984) ISBN 0-03069-362-4

State of the Art (1987) ISBN 0-71452-869-2

Hooked (1989)

Movie Love (1991)

For Keeps (1994)

Raising Kane, and other essays (1996)

Selected reviews and essays

"Trash, Art, and the Movies", essay published in the Feb. 1969 issue of Harper's.

"Raising Kane", book-length essay on the making of Citizen Kane published in the Feb. 20, 1971 and Feb. 27, 1971 issues of The New Yorker.

"Stanley Strangelove", review of A Clockwork Orange from a January 1972 issue of The New Yorker.

"The Man From Dream City", profile of Cary Grant from the August 14, 1975 issue of The New Yorker.

"Why Are Movies So Bad? Or, The Numbers", essay published in the June 23, 1980 issue of The New Yorker.

Reviews Mrs. Soffel, directed by Gillian Armstrong and The Cotton Club, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Reviews A Passage to India, directed by David Lean. Reviews Micki and Maude, directed by Blake Edwards; Starman, directed by John Carpenter; The Flamingo Kid, directed by Garry Marshall.

Footnotes

References

Brantley, Will, ed. (1996). Conversations with Pauline Kael. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 0-87805-899-0.

External links

Pauline Kael in Conversation, a video interview from 1982

Pauline Kael and Jonathan Demme

Pauline Kael Archives, a collection of articles and commentary about Kael

The Pearls of Pauline from Brights Lights Film Journal

CityLights interview Pauline Kael interviewed on CityLights by Brian Linehan

Interview magazine q&a; Pauline Kael interviewed by Polly Frost and Ray Sawhill

Category:1919 births Category:2001 deaths Category:American film critics Category:American women writers Category:Writers from California Category:Deaths from Parkinson's disease Category:Jewish American writers Category:American Jews Category:People from Sonoma County, California Category:People from California Category:People with Parkinson's disease Category:The New Yorker people Category:The New Yorker critics

Tony Palmer is a British film director and author. His work includes over 100 films, ranging from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa (200 Motels), to his classical portraits which include profiles of Maria Callas, Margot Fonteyn, John Osborne, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Wagner, Yehudi Menuhin, Carl Orff, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams. He is also a stage director of theatre and opera.

Among over 40 international prizes for his work are 12 Gold Medals from the New York Film Festival as well as numerous BAFTAs and Emmy Awards. Palmer has won the Prix Italia twice, for A Time There Was in 1980 and At the Haunted End of the Day in 1981. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and an honorary citizen of both New Orleans and Athens.

Background

From Cambridge University (where he was also President of the Marlowe Society), he joined the BBC. Following an apprenticeship with Ken Russell and Jonathan Miller, Palmer's first major film, Benjamin Britten & his Festival, became the first BBC film to be networked in the United States. With his second film, All My Loving, an examination of rock and roll and politics in the late 1960s, he achieved considerable notoriety.

In 1989, he was awarded a retrospective of his work at the National Film Theatre in London, the first maker of arts films to be so honoured.

Opera and theatre

In addition to films, Tony Palmer has also directed in the theatre and in the opera house. After a debut at the Zurich Opera House with Peter Grimes ("the high point of the season", Neue Zürcher Zeitung), he had a double triumph in Karlsruhe, War and Peace, and again in Zurich with Berlioz's masterpiece, The Trojans ("marvellous" - London Daily Express). In Saint Petersburg, he directed the Russian premiere of Parsifal ("world class" - The Times), conducted by Valery Gergiev, with Plácido Domingo. He has also directed in Hamburg, Munich, Augsburg, Savonlinna, Berlin and Helsinki and recently became the first Western director ever to work at the Bolshoi in Moscow.

Parsifal won Best Theatre Production ('Casta Diva') in Moscow, 1997, as well as a 'Golden Mask'. On the West End stage he has directed the world premiere of John Osborne's Look Back in Anger Part Two, Déjà Vu. Mr Palmer also presented the BBC Radio 3 Arts magazine 'Night Waves', for which he won a Sony Award for best arts programme.

Writing

Tony Palmer has published several books, and has written for The New York Times, The Times, Punch, Life magazine etc. From 1967-74 he was a regular music critic for The Observer. From 1969-74 he had a weekly column in The Spectator entitled 'Notes from the Underground'.

Filmography

Isadora [as Producer - Director Ken Russell] (1966)

Alice in Wonderland [as Producer - Director Jonathan Miller] (1966)

The Art of Conducting - with Georg Solti (1966)

Up the Theatre - with Judi Dench (1966)

Conceit (1967)

Benjamin Britten & his Festival (1967)

Burning Fiery Furnace (1967)

Corbusier (1967)

Twice a Fortnight - with Terry Jones & Michael Palin (1967)

All My Loving (1968)

Cream 'Farewell Concert' (1968)

The World of Peter Sellers (1969)

How It Is (1969)

Rope Ladder to the Moon - Jack Bruce (1969)

Fairport Convention & Colosseum (1970)

Glad All Over (1970)

National Youth Theatre - Michael Croft (1970)

200 Motels - Frank Zappa (1971)

Brighton Breezy (1971)

Mahler 9 - with Leonard Bernstein (1971)

Ginger Baker in Africa (1971)

Birmingham (1971)

The Pursuit of Happiness (1972)

Bird on a Wire - with Leonard Cohen (1972)

The World of Liberace (1972)

The World of Hugh Hefner (1973)

International Youth Orchestra (1973)

Rory Gallagher - Irish Tour (1974)

The World of Miss World (1974)

Harriet at the Circus / Harriet at Sea / Harriet in a Balloon / Harriet at War / Harriet at the Opera / Harriet at Butlins (1974)

Tangerine Dream - live in Coventry Cathedral (1975)

All You Need is Love (1976–1980)

The Wigan Casino (1977)

Biddu (1977)

The Edinburgh Festival (1977)

The Mighty Wurlitzer (1978)

The Edinburgh Festival Revisited (1978)

The Space Movie - NASA's official 10th anniversary film, music by Mike Oldfield (1979)

Pride of Place [6 parts] (1979)

A Time There Was - profile of Benjamin Britten (1979)

First Edition (1980)

At the Haunted End of the Day - profile of William Walton (1980)

Death in Venice - opera by Benjamin Britten (1981)

Once, at a Border... - profile of Stravinsky (1982)

Wagner - by Charles Wood (1983)

Primal Scream - Art Janov (1984)

Puccini - with Virginia McKenna & Robert Stephens (1984)

God Rot Tunbridge Wells - by John Osborne (1984/5)

Mozart in Japan - with Mitsuko Uchida (1986)

Testimony - starring Ben Kingsley (1987)

Maria Callas (1987)

In From The Cold? - Richard Burton (1988)

Dvořák in Love? - Julian Lloyd Webber (1988)

Hindemith - a Pilgrim's Progress - with John Gielgud (1989)

The Children - starring Kim Novak, Ben Kingsley, Geraldine Chaplin (1989)

Menuhin, a Family Story (1990)

I, Berlioz - with Corin Redgrave (1992)

Symphony of Sorrowful Songs - Górecki (1993)

A Short Film About Loving - with Peter Sellars (1994)

O Fortuna - Carl Orff (1995)

England, my England - Henry Purcell (1995)

Brahms & The Little Singing Girls (1996)

Michael Crawford, a true story (1996)

Hail Bop - a profile of John Adams (1997)

Parsifal - with Domingo & Gergiev (1997)

The Harvest of Sorrow - Rachmaninoff, with the Kirov Opera (1998)

The Kindness of Strangers - André Previn (1998)

Valentina Igoshina plays Chopin (1999)

The Strange Case of Delfina Potocka - Chopin, with Penelope Wilton (1999)

Foreign Aids - Pieter-Dirk Uys on tour (2001)

Ladies & Gentlemen, Miss Renée Fleming (2002)

Hero - The Story of Bobby Moore - produced by David Frost (2002)

Toward the Unknown Region - Malcolm Arnold. A Story of Survival (2003)

John Osborne & The Gift of Friendship (2003)

Ivry Gitlis & The Great Tradition (2004)

The Adventures of Benjamin Schmid (2005)

Margot - Margot Fonteyn (2005)

The Salzburg Festival - A Brief History (2006)

"O Thou Transcendent..." - The Life of Vaughan Williams (2007)

List of opera and theatre works

Turandot - Puccini - Scottish Opera (1984)

I Cavalieri di Ekebu - Zandonai - Krefeld (1985)

Peter Grimes - Britten - Zurich (1989)

West German premiere of Prokofiev's War and Peace - Karlsruhe (1990)

The Trojans - Berlioz - Zurich (1990)

Peter Grimes - Britten - Geneva (1991)

Simone Boccanegra - Verdi - Hamburg (1991)

La Forza del Destino - Verdi - Zurich (1991)

Dimitrij - Dvořák - Munich (1992)

Dialogues of the Carmelites - Poulenc - Augsburg (1994)

Russian premiere of Parsifal - Wagner - Mariinsky/Kirov, St. Petersburg (1997) (Winner of The Golden Mask)

Parsifal - Bolshoi, Moscow (1998)

(Winner of the Casta Diva prize)

Parsifal - Savonlinna (1998)

Tristan und Isolde - Wagner - Ravello (1998)

Die Walküre - Wagner - Ravello (1999)

The Death of Klinghoffer - John Adams - Helsinki (2001)

The Fair at Sorochyntsi - Mussorgsky - Bonn (2007)

Books

Born Under a Bad Sign (1970)

The Trials of Oz (1971)

Electric Revolution (1971)

The Things I Love - Liberace (1976)

All You Need Is Love (1976)

Charles II: Portrait of an Age (1979)

Julian Bream: A Life on the Road. London: Macdonald, 1982. ISBN 0356078809. Text by Palmer, photographs by Daniel Meadows.

Menuhin: A Family Story (1991)

References

Category:Alumni of the University of Cambridge Category:British film directors Category:Year of birth missing (living people) Category:Living people

Name	Bryan Ferry
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Bryan Ferry
Born	September 26, 1945
Origin	Washington, England
Instrument	vocals, keyboards, harmonica, guitar
Genre	Pop-rock, Glam rock, Art rock, New Wave, New Romanticism
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, musician
Years active	1971–present
Label	UK: Island, E.G., Polydor,, Virgin, EMI (US), Reprise, Warner Bros. Records, Atco, Atlantic
Associated acts	Roxy MusicChester Kamen
Url	BryanFerry.com

Bryan Ferry (born 26 September 1945, Washington, County Durham, UK) is an English singer, musician, and songwriter. Ferry came to public prominence in the early 1970s as lead vocalist and principal songwriter with the band Roxy Music, who enjoyed a highly successful career with three number one albums and ten singles entering the top ten charts in the United Kingdom. Ferry began his solo career in 1973, whilst still a member of Roxy Music, and which continues to the present day.

Biography

Before Roxy Music (before 1971)

Born into a working-class family (his father, Fred Ferry, was a farmer who also looked after pit ponies), Ferry attended Washington Grammar-Technical School (now called Washington School) on Spout Lane from 1957 where he studied alongside former Everton manager Howard Kendall and achieved nine O levels, then studied fine art at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne under Richard Hamilton. His contemporaries included Tim Head and Nick de Ville. He became a pottery teacher at Holland Park school in London. Ferry formed the band The Banshees, and later, together with Graham Simpson, the band The Gas Board.

Roxy Music and solo years (1971–1983)

Ferry formed Roxy Music with a group of friends and acquaintances, beginning with Graham Simpson, in November 1970. The line-up expanded to include saxophonist/oboist Andy Mackay and his acquaintance Brian Eno, who owned tape recorders and played Mackay's synthesiser. Other early members included timpanist Dexter Lloyd and ex-Nice guitarist David O'List, who were replaced respectively by Paul Thompson and Phil Manzanera before the band recorded its first album. (Early Peel sessions for UK radio station Radio 1 feature O'List's playing.)

Roxy Music's first hit, "Virginia Plain", just missed topping the charts, and was followed up with several hit singles and albums, with Ferry as vocalist and occasional instrumentalist (he taught himself piano in his mid-twenties) and Eno contributing synthesiser backing.

For many years, Ferry has collaborated with fashion designer Antony Price for clothing and image consultations. Price is famous for his shop on London's Kings Road. He created suits recognised worldwide for their elegance, and gained fame when celebrities and rock stars dressed in his designs. Indeed, one comment by Nicky Haslam about Ferry was that he was more likely to redecorate a hotel room than to trash it.

After their second album, Eno left Roxy Music, leaving Ferry its undisputed leader. Ferry had already started a parallel solo career in 1973, initially performing cover versions of old standards on albums such as These Foolish Things (1973) and Another Time, Another Place (1974), both of which reached the UK Top 5. After the concert tours in support of Siren, Roxy Music temporarily disbanded in 1976 though band-members Paul Thompson, Phil Manzanera and Eddie Jobson took part in recording Ferry's subsequent solo material. In 1976, Ferry covered a Beatles song, “She's Leaving Home” for the transitory musical documentary All This and World War II. He went on to release three solo albums during this period, Let's Stick Together (1976), In Your Mind (1977) and The Bride Stripped Bare (1978), but by this time his career had begun to wane.

Roxy Music reconvened in 1979, with Ferry, Manzanera, Thompson and Mackay (Jobson was no longer a member). The band recorded the successful albums Manifesto (1979), Flesh + Blood (1980) and Avalon (1982), the latter two albums reaching number one in the UK album charts. The band also achieved their first and only UK number one single, "Jealous Guy", released in 1981 as a posthumous tribute to its author John Lennon who had been murdered some months earlier. It was the only one of their singles not written by Ferry.

After lengthy tours to promote the Avalon album in 1982, Ferry decided to put Roxy Music on hold and continue as a solo artist.

After Roxy Music (1985–2001)

Ferry continued to record, and released his sixth solo album, Boys and Girls, in 1985. The album reached number one in the UK, his first and only solo recording to do so, and also became his biggest selling album in the US.

In July 1985, Ferry performed at the London Live Aid show, again accompanied by David Gilmour. He was hit with technical difficulties on sound, the drummer's drumstick broke at the start of the first song "Sensation" and Gilmour's Fender Stratocaster went dead, so he had to switch to his candy-apple red Stratocaster for the rest of the performance. The difficulties in sound were overcome for "Slave to Love" (featured on the soundtrack to 9½ Weeks) and "Jealous Guy". As with other successful Live Aid acts, his current album, Boys and Girls, remained in the chart for almost a year.

After the Avalon promotional tours, Ferry was rather reluctant to return to life on the road; however, a change of management persuaded him to try touring again in 1988 to promote the previous year's Bête Noire release. Following the tour, Ferry teamed up again with Brian Eno for Mamouna (collaborating with Robin Trower on guitar and as producer). The album took more than five years to produce, and was created under the working title Horoscope. During production, Ferry simultaneously recorded and released another covers album, Taxi in 1993, which proved to be a greater commercial and critical success than Mamouna would be when it was finally released in 1994. In 1996, Ferry performed the song "Dance With Life" for the Phenomenon soundtrack, which was written by Bernie Taupin and Martin Page. In 1999 Ferry appeared with Alan Partridge (played by Steve Coogan) on BBC's Comic Relief.

After taking some time off from music, Ferry returned in 1999. He began to perform a mix of 1930s songs and songs of his own, including several from the Roxy collection, and recorded them on the album As Time Goes By, which was nominated for a Grammy award.

Roxy Music reunion and continuing solo career (2001–present)

Ferry, Manzanera, Mackay and Thompson re-reformed Roxy Music in 2001 and toured extensively for a couple of years though the band did not record any new material. In 2002, with the help of Manzanera and Thompson, Ferry returned with his next studio album, Frantic, which also featured a collaboration with Brian Eno. The album was a mix of new original material and covers - something that Ferry had not attempted on a solo album since The Bride Stripped Bare in 1978.

In 2003, Ferry provided the entertainment for the Miss World election, a show with an expected 2 billion viewers worldwide. In 2004, Ferry starred in the short film The Porter. In 2005, it was confirmed that Roxy Music (Ferry, Eno, Mackay, Manzanera and Thompson) would be performing further shows at that year's Isle Of Wight festival and that they would also be recording a further album of new and original songs, with no indication of when such a project would reach completion. Brian Eno confirmed that he has worked in the studio with Roxy Music once more and has co-written songs for the new album. However, Ferry later debunked the idea of a new Roxy Music album and stated that the material from these sessions will most likely be released as part of his next solo album, and that "I don't think we'll record as Roxy again."

In October 2006, Bryan Ferry modelled clothing range Autograph with British retailer, Marks and Spencer. In 2007, Ferry released the album Dylanesque, a tribute album to Bob Dylan. The album charted in the UK Top 10, and Ferry undertook a UK tour.

On October 7, 2008, Ferry was honored as a BMI Icon at the annual BMI London Awards. He joined past Icons including Peter Gabriel, Ray Davies, Steve Winwood, Van Morrison, amongst others.

In 2009, Ferry provided vocals on DJ Hell's record, U Can Dance. A new version of the track was recorded for Ferry's new studio album, Olympia, released in October 2010. The album contained the material he had been recorded with his former Roxy Music bandmembers, and also featured an impressive cast of other musicians such as Nile Rodgers, David A. Stewart, Scissor Sisters, Groove Armada, Michael "Flea" Balzary, Johnny Greenwood and Dave Gilmour, and also featured model Kate Moss on the front cover. Despite this, the album was not a commercial success, barely making the UK Top 20 and dropping out of the chart altogether after only three weeks.

Personal life

Several of the women Ferry has gone out with have appeared as cover models on the Roxy Music albums. Ferry dated singer and model Amanda Lear, who was photographed with a black jaguar for the cover of the For Your Pleasure album. She later went on to date David Bowie.

Ferry then began a relationship with model Jerry Hall. Hall appeared in several of Ferry's music videos, including "Let's Stick Together" and "The Price of Love." Ferry first met Hall when she posed for the Roxy Music album cover for Siren in Wales during the Summer of 1975. Hall's autobiography Tall Tales describes the photo session, and she elaborates on how the blue body paint she wore to look like a mythical siren would not wash off; Hall says that Ferry took her back to his house, claiming he would help her to remove the paint. Her stay at Ferry's Holland Park (London) home, following the album cover photo shoot, marked the start of their affair. Jerry Hall and Bryan Ferry moved in together, sharing homes in London and in the ritzy Bel Air section of Los Angeles.

During his solo career in the late 1970s, Ferry went through a rough period in his private life. His relation with Hall ended when Hall left him for Mick Jagger in late 1977. To this day, Ferry rarely speaks about Hall, but fans often speculate that his song "Kiss and Tell" from the Bête Noire album was Ferry's response to Hall's tell-all book about their relationship. Ferry often refuses to discuss his feelings about Hall or talk about their romantic history during interviews. Bryan Ferry's solo album The Bride Stripped Bare is widely believed to contain references to his break-up with Hall—particularly the song "When She Walks in the Room". Ferry's original songs on the album were in fact written some time before the relationship ended, although it was recorded afterwards.

Ferry eventually settled down to married life with Lucy Helmore, and they had four sons, including huntsman and political activist Otis Ferry, Isaac Ferry, Tara and Merlin. Tara was performing in a rock band called "Rubber Kiss Goodbye" and simultaneously studying at Chelsea College of Art and Design, according to the Sunday Times (28 Sept. 2008). Merlin studied at Marlborough College for his "A" Levels.

Following his split from Lucy, British newspapers photographed Ferry with Katie Turner, 35 years younger than Ferry, naming her as his new 'girlfriend'. Ferry and Turner met while she worked as one of the dancers on Roxy Music's concert tour in 2001 (and is featured on the DVD of the 2001 Hammersmith Odeon Show). She went on to appear with Ferry on several TV shows to promote the Frantic album, and also performed on the Frantic tour in 2002. After their break-up, Ferry had a relationship with Lady Emily Compton, a socialite. In 2006, he resumed his relationship with Katie Turner for some time. Ferry is now in a relationship with Amanda Sheppard, who previously worked in public relations, until she quit her job in 2009 after Ferry offered to financially support her.

Political views

In 2008, Ferry alluded to support for the Conservative Party, referring to himself as "conservative by nature," but essentially apolitical. Without elaborating, he stated he was "proud" of his son Otis and declared the ban on fox hunting "futile." He also alluded to an opposition to "left-wing bitterness" and the spectre of "political correctness," but the model of free speech he cited was the anarchic 1970s and not the Thatcher era or a more distant past. In a 2009 interview, Ferry stated: “I would support a Cameron government. I have met him, and he’s a bright guy. I hope they do well. I don’t like the way the present Government has done things, most of all putting my son in prison for four and a half months, totally unlawfully ... and that’s not just my opinion: judges, all sorts, have said it was a stitch-up. It was politically motivated. The poor lad just wants to live the traditional country life.”

Ferry is a supporter of the Countryside Alliance and has played concerts to raise funds for the organisation.

In other media

In 1985, Ferry contributed the song "Is Your Love Strong Enough" to the Ridley Scott-Tom Cruise film Legend. The song (featuring guitar work by David Gilmour) plays during the end credits of the U.S. theatrical release, and was released with the Tangerine Dream version of the soundtrack on CD (although this is out of print and rare). A promotional music video was created, integrating Ferry and Gilmour into scenes from the film; this is included as a bonus in the 2002 "Ultimate Edition" DVD release.

In 2005, Ferry appeared in Neil Jordan's movie, Breakfast on Pluto, starring Cillian Murphy as a young Irish transvestite who goes to London in the glam 1970s to find his mother. Ferry, appearing in a bit part as Mr. Silky String, played a suave but creepy john who picks up the sexually ambiguous young man and, after a short conversation, attempts to strangle him in the front seat of his car.

Ferry is referenced in the comedy show The Mighty Boosh in the episode "Hitcher", as Vince Noir's adopted father and King of the Forest. At the end of the episode, it is revealed that 'Brian Ferry' actually resembles Terry Wogan.

The song "Which Way to Turn" from the album Mamouna, is the feature song in the 2007 Woody Harrelson movie The Walker. Ferry's song "Slave to Love", from the album Boys and Girls, was featured in Bitter Moon, a 1992 film directed by Roman Polanski; the entire song is also played in a scene in the 1986 movie Nine 1/2 Weeks by Adrian Lyne.

Discography

Studio albums

These Foolish Things (October 1973, UK #5)

Another Time, Another Place (July 1974, UK #4)

Let's Stick Together (September 1976, UK #19, US #160)

In Your Mind (February 1977, UK #5, US #126, Aust.#1)

The Bride Stripped Bare (April 1978, UK #13, US #159)

Boys and Girls (May 1985, UK #1, US #63)

Bête Noire (October 1987, UK #9, US #63)

Taxi (13 April 1993, UK #2, US #79)

Mamouna (5 September 1994, UK #11, US #94)

As Time Goes By (15 October 1999, UK #16, US #199)

Frantic (18 May 2002, UK #6, US #189)

Dylanesque (5 March 2007, UK #5, US #117)

Olympia (26 October 2010, UK #19, US #71)

Sources

Bracewell, Michael Roxy Music: Bryan Ferry, Brian Eno, Art, Ideas, and Fashion (Da Capo Press, 2005) ISBN 0-306-81400-5

Buckley, David The Thrill of It All: The Story of Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music (Chicago Review Press, 2005) ISBN 1-55652-574-5

Rigby, Jonathan Roxy Music: Both Ends Burning (Reynolds & Hearn, 2005; revised edition 2008) ISBN 1-903111-80-3

Stump, Paul Unknown Pleasures: A Cultural Biography of Roxy Music (Quartet Books, 1998) ISBN 0-7043-8074-9

See also

Julian Barratt

References

External links

Roxyrama: Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music Tribute Band

Category:1945 births Category:Living people Category:Alumni of Newcastle University Category:English actors Category:English-language singers Category:English male singers Category:English songwriters Category:Roxy Music members Category:People from Washington, Tyne and Wear Category:Music from Newcastle upon Tyne Category:Protopunk musicians

Name	Alice Cooper
Background	solo_singer
Birth name	Vincent Damon Furnier
Born	February 04, 1948Allen Park, Michigan, U.S.
Instrument	Vocals, harmonica, guitar
Genre	Rock, hard rock, heavy metal, shock rock
Occupation	Singer-songwriter, actor, DJ
Years active	1964–present
Label	Straight, Warner Bros., Atlantic, MCA, Epic, Spitfire, Eagle, New West
Url	www.alicecooper.com}}

Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that includes guillotines, the gallows, the electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper had drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of hard rock that was designed to shock.

Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and drummer Neal Smith. Taking on the name in 1968 the Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen", which was followed in 1972 by the even bigger single "School's Out", which reached #1 in the UK during that summer. The band reached their commercial peak with the transatlantic #1 album Billion Dollar Babies in 1973.

Furnier's solo career as Alice Cooper, legally adopting the band's name as his own, began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare and reached his commercial peak with the 1989 hit "Poison". His most recent studio release was Along Came a Spider, his 18th solo album, in 2008. Expanding from his original Detroit-based garage rock roots, over the years Cooper has experimented with many different musical styles, including art rock, conceptual rock, rock and roll, pop ballad, jazz, new wave, gothic rock, heavy metal, and industrial metal.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage. The Rolling Stone Album Guide goes so far as to call him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer". He helped to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and is seen as the person who "first introduced horror imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

In December 2010, it was announced that in 2011 the original Alice Cooper band would be inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He has French Huguenot, Sioux Native American, English, Scottish and Irish ancestry, and was named after one of his uncles (Vincent Collier Furnier) and the writer Damon Runyon. His paternal grandfather, Thurman Sylvester Furnier, was an apostle in The Church of Jesus Christ (Bickertonite). Vincent Furnier was very active in his church at the ages of 11 and 12.

While in Detroit, Furnier attended Washington Elementary School, and then a middle school that is now Lutheran High School Westland. Following a series of childhood illnesses, Furnier moved with his family to Phoenix, Arizona. Furnier attended Cortez High School in northern Phoenix. He was also a member of the Order of DeMolay.

Recording career

1960s

In 1964, at the age of 16, Furnier was eager to take part in the local annual letterman's talent show and gathered fellow cross-country teammates to form a group for the show. They named themselves The Earwigs, and since they did not know how to play any instruments at the time, they dressed up like The Beatles and mimed their performance to Beatles songs. As a result of winning the talent show and loving the experience of being onstage, the group immediately proceeded to learn how to play instruments they acquired from a local pawn shop. They soon renamed themselves The Spiders, featuring Furnier on vocals, Glen Buxton on lead guitar, John Tatum on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar, and John Speer on drums. Musically, the group were inspired by artists such as The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who, The Kinks, and The Yardbirds. For the next year the band performed regularly around the Phoenix area with a huge black spider's web as their backdrop, the group's first stage prop. In 1965, they recorded their first single, "Why Don't You Love Me" (originally performed by The Blackwells), with Furnier learning the harmonica for that song.

In 1966, the members of The Spiders graduated from high school. After North High School footballer Michael Bruce replaced John Tatum on rhythm guitar, the band scored a local #1 radio hit with "Don't Blow Your Mind," an original composition from their second single release. By 1967, the band had begun to make regular road trips to Los Angeles, California to play shows. They soon renamed themselves The Nazz and released the single "Wonder Who's Lovin' Her Now," backed with future Alice Cooper track "Lay Down And Die, Goodbye." At around this time drummer John Speer was replaced by Neal Smith. By the end of the year the band had relocated to Los Angeles permanently.

In 1968, upon learning that Todd Rundgren also had a band called Nazz, the band were again in need of another stage name. Believing that the group needed a gimmick to succeed and that other bands were not exploiting the showmanship potential of the stage, Furnier chose Alice Cooper as the band's name and adopted this stage name as his own. Cooper admitted in 2007 that the name change was one of his most important and successful career moves.

Early press releases claimed that the name was agreed upon after a session with a Ouija board, during which it was revealed that Furnier was the reincarnation of a 17th century witch named Alice Cooper.

Nonetheless, at the time Cooper and the band realized that the concept of a male playing the role of an androgynous witch, in tattered women's clothing and wearing make-up, would have the potential to cause considerable social controversy and grab headlines. Cooper stated in a 2008 interview that his look was inspired in part by the film Barbarella. "When I saw Anita Pallenberg playing the Great Tyrant in that movie in 1968, wearing long black leather gloves with switchblades coming out of them, I thought, 'That's what Alice should look like'. That, and a little bit of Emma Peel from The Avengers".

The conception for the character that Cooper plays on stage came when he took careful observation of the rock world around him. He noticed that rock stars were always made out to be heroes, and that rock villains were scarce. In a 2010 interview he stated, "Why do we always have rock heroes? Why not a rock villain? I was more than happy to be rock's Darth Vader. I was more than happy to be Captain Hook."

The classic Alice Cooper group line-up consisted of singer Alice Cooper (Vincent Furnier), lead guitarist Glen Buxton, rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith. With the exception of Smith, who graduated from Camelback High School (which is referred to in the song "Alma Mater" on the School's Out album), all of the band members were on the Cortez High School cross-country team, and many of Cooper's stage effects were inspired by their cross-country coach, Emmett Smith (one of Smith's class projects was to build a working guillotine for slicing watermelons). Cooper, Buxton and Dunaway were also art students, and their admiration for the works of surrealist artists such as Salvador Dalí would further inspire their future stage antics.

One night, after an unsuccessful gig at a club in Venice, California, called The Cheetah, where the band emptied the entire room of patrons after playing just ten minutes, they were approached and enlisted by music manager Shep Gordon, who ironically saw the band's negative impact that night as a force that could be turned in a more productive direction. Shep then arranged an audition for the band with composer and renowned record producer Frank Zappa, who was looking to sign bizarre music acts to his new record label, Straight Records. For the audition, Zappa told them to come to his house "at 7 o'clock." The band mistakenly assumed he meant 7 o'clock in the morning. Being woken up by a band willing to play that particular brand of psychedelic rock at seven in the morning impressed Zappa enough to sign them to a three-album deal. Another Zappa-signed act, the all-female GTOs, who liked to "dress the Cooper boys up like full size barbie dolls," played a major role in developing the band's early onstage look.

Cooper's first album Pretties for You, released in 1969, had a slight psychedelic feel. Although it touched the US charts for one week at #193, it was ultimately a critical and commercial failure.

Alice Cooper's "shock rock" reputation apparently developed almost by accident at first. An unrehearsed stage routine involving Cooper and a live chicken garnered attention from the press, and the band decided to capitalize on the tabloid sensationalism, creating in the process a new subgenre, shock rock. Cooper claims that the infamous "Chicken Incident" at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival concert in September 1969, was an accident. A chicken somehow made its way on stage during Cooper's performance; not having any experience around farm animals, Cooper presumed that, because the chicken had wings, it would be able to fly. He picked it up and threw it out over the crowd, expecting it to fly away. The chicken instead plummeted into the first few rows occupied by disabled people in wheelchairs, who reportedly proceeded to tear the bird to pieces.

The next day, the incident made the front page of national newspapers, and Zappa phoned Cooper to ask if the story, which reported that he had bitten the head off the chicken and drunk its blood on stage, was true. Cooper denied the rumor, whereupon Zappa told him, "Well, whatever you do, don't tell anyone you didn't do it", obviously recognising that such publicity would be priceless for the band.

Despite the publicity from the Chicken Incident, the band's stronger second album, Easy Action, released in June 1970, met with the same fate as its predecessor. At around this time the band, fed up with Californians' indifference to their act, relocated to Cooper's birthplace, Detroit, where their bizarre stage act was much better received by the crowds of the Midwest states who were accustomed to the similar hard rock styles of local bands such as The Stooges and The MC5. Despite this, Cooper still managed to receive a cream pie in the face when performing at the Cincinnati Pop Festival. Detroit would remain their steady home base until 1972. "LA just didn’t get it," Cooper stated. "They were all on the wrong drug for us. They were on acid and we were basically drinking beer. We fit much more in Detroit than we did anywhere else."

1970s

Alice Cooper appeared at the Woodstock-esque, Strawberry Fields Festival near Toronto, Ontario in August 1970. The band's mix of glam and increasingly violent stage theatrics stood out in stark contrast to the bearded, denim-clad hippie bands of the time. As Cooper himself stated: "We were into fun, sex, death and money when everybody was into peace and love. We wanted to see what was next. It turned out we were next, and we drove a stake through the heart of the Love Generation".

In autumn 1970 the Alice Cooper group teamed with producer Bob Ezrin for the recording of their third album Love it to Death. This was the final album in their Straight Records contract and the band's last chance to create a hit. That first success came with the single "I'm Eighteen", released in November 1970, which reached number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1971. Not long after the album's release in January 1971 Warner Bros. Records purchased Alice Cooper's contract from Straight and re-issued the album, giving the group a higher level of promotion.

Love it to Death proved to be their breakthrough album, reaching number 35 on the U.S. Billboard 200 album charts. It would be the first of eleven Alice Cooper group and solo albums produced by Ezrin, who is widely seen as being instrumental in helping to create and develop the band's definitive sound.

The group's 1971 tour featured a stage show involving mock fights and gothic torture modes being imposed on Cooper climaxing with a staged execution by electric chair, with the band sporting tight, sequined, and color-contrasting glam rock-style costumes made by prominent rock fashion designer Cindy Dunaway (sister of band member Neal Smith, and wife of band member Dennis Dunaway). Cooper's androgynous stage role had developed to present a villainous side, portraying a potential threat to modern society. The success of the band's single, the album, and their tour of 1971, which included their first tour of Europe (audience members reportedly included Elton John and a pre-Ziggy David Bowie), provided enough encouragement for Warner Bros. to offer the band a new multi-album contract.

Their follow-up album Killer, released in late 1971, continued the commercial success of Love It To Death and included further single success with "Under My Wheels", "Be My Lover" in early 1972, and "Halo Of Flies" which became a Top 10 hit in the Netherlands in 1972. Thematically, Killer expanded on the villainous side of Cooper's androgynous stage role, with its music becoming the soundtrack to the group's morality-based stage show, which by then featured a boa constrictor hugging Cooper onstage, the murderous axe chopping of bloodied baby dolls, and execution by hanging at the gallows.

The summer of 1972 saw the release of the single "School's Out". It went Top 10 in the US, was a #1 single in the UK, and remains a staple on classic rock radio to this day. School's Out the album reached #2 on the US charts and sold over a million copies. The band now relocated to their new mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut. With Cooper's on-stage androgynous persona completely replaced with brattiness and machismo, the band solidified their success with subsequent tours in the US and Europe, and won over devoted fans in droves while at the same time horrifying parents and outraging the social establishment. Controversy seemed to have little negative effect on the band's popularity, as they were selected to be the first band to appear on then-new US television series ABC In Concert in September 1972. In England, Mary Whitehouse, a well known campaigner for values of morality and decency, succeeded in having the BBC ban the video for "School's Out" and Member of Parliament Leo Abse petitioned Home Secretary Reginald Maudling to have the group banned altogether from performing in the country.

In February 1973 Billion Dollar Babies was released worldwide and became the band's most commercially successful album, reaching #1 in both the US and UK. "Elected", a late-1972 Top 10 UK hit from the album, which inspired one of the first MTV-style story-line promo videos ever made for a song (three years before Queen's promotional video for "Bohemian Rhapsody"), was followed by two more UK Top 10 singles, "Hello Hooray" and "No More Mr. Nice Guy", the latter of which was the last UK single from the album; it reached #25 in the US. The title track, featuring guest vocals by Donovan, was also a US hit single. Due to Glen Buxton's waning health around this time Mick Mashbir was secretly added to the band (who also played, without credit, on Muscle of Love) to supplement Glen's playing.

With a string of successful concept albums and several hit singles, the band continued their gruelling schedule and toured the US once again. Continued attempts by politicians and pressure groups to ban their shocking act only served to fuel the myth of Alice Cooper further and generate even greater public interest. Their 1973 US tour broke box office records previously set by The Rolling Stones and raised rock theatrics to new heights; the multi-level stage show by then featured numerous special effects, including Billion Dollar Bills, decapitated baby dolls and mannequins, a dental psychosis scene complete with dancing teeth, and the ultimate execution prop and highlight of the show: the guillotine. The guillotine and other stage effects were designed for the band by magician James Randi, who appeared on stage during some of the shows as executioner. The Alice Cooper group had now reached its peak and it was among the most visible and successful acts in the industry. (Cooper's stage antics would influence a host of later bands, including, among others, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Kiss, Blue Öyster Cult, GWAR, W.A.S.P. and, later, Marilyn Manson and Rob Zombie.) Beneath the surface, however, the repetitive schedule of recording and touring had begun to take its toll on the band, and Cooper, who was under the constant pressure of getting into character for that night's show, was consistently sighted nursing a can of beer.

Muscle of Love, released at the end of 1973, was to be the last studio album from the classic line-up, and marked Alice Cooper's last UK Top 20 single of the 1970s with "Teenage Lament '74". A theme song was recorded for the James Bond movie The Man with the Golden Gun, but a different song of the same name by Lulu was chosen instead. By 1974, the Muscle of Love album had not matched the top-charting success of its predecessor, and the band began to have constant disagreements. Cooper wanted to retain the theatrics in the show that had brought them so much attention, while the rest of the group thought they should be toned down so that they could concentrate more on the music which had given them credibility. Largely as a result of this difference of opinion, the band decided to take a much-needed hiatus.

During this time, Cooper relocated back to Los Angeles and started appearing regularly on TV shows such as Hollywood Squares, and Warner Bros. released the Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits compilation album. It featured classic style artwork and reached the US Top 10, performing better than Muscle of Love. However, the band's 1974 feature film Good To See You Again, Alice Cooper (consisting mainly of 1973 concert footage with 'comedic' sketches woven throughout to a faint storyline), released on a minor theatrical run mostly to drive-in theaters, saw little box office success.

As some of the Alice Cooper band's members had begun recording solo albums Cooper decided to do the same himself, and 1975 saw the release of his first solo album Welcome To My Nightmare. Its success marked the final break with the original members of the band, with Cooper collaborating with their producer Bob Ezrin who recruited Lou Reed's backing band, including guitarist Dick Wagner to play on the album. Spearheaded by the US Top 20 hit "Only Women Bleed", a ballad, the album was released by Atlantic Records in March of that year and became a Top 10 hit for Cooper. It was a concept album, based on the nightmare of a child named Steven, featuring narration by classic horror movie film star Vincent Price (several years after Welcome To My Nightmare, he guested on Michael Jackson's "Thriller"), and serving as the soundtrack to Cooper's new stage show, which now included more theatrics than ever (including an furry Cyclops which Cooper decapitates and kills).

However, by this time alcohol was clearly affecting Cooper's performances. During the Welcome to My Nightmare tour in Vancouver, and only a few songs into the routine, Cooper tripped over a footlight, staggered a few paces, lost his bearings and plunged head first off the stage and onto the concrete floor of the Pacific Coliseum. Some fans, thinking it was all part of the act, reached through the barriers to pull at his blood-matted hair before bouncers could pull him away for help. He was taken to a local hospital, where medical staff stitched his head wound and provided him with a skullcap. Cooper returned to the venue a couple of hours later and tried to perform a couple of more songs, but within minutes he had to call it a night. The opening act, Suzi Quatro, had already left the building and the remainder of the concert was cancelled.

Accompanying the album and stage show was the TV special The Nightmare, starring Cooper and Vincent Price in person, which aired on US prime-time TV in April 1975. The Nightmare, the first rock music video album ever made (it was later released on home video in 1983 and gained a Grammy Awards nomination for Best Long Form Music Video), was regarded as another groundbreaking moment in rock history. Adding to all that, a concert film, also called Welcome to My Nightmare and filmed live at London's Wembley Arena in September 1975, was released to theaters in 1976. Though it failed at the box office, it later became a midnight movie favorite and a cult classic.

Such was the immense success of Cooper's solo project that he decided to continue alone as a solo artist, and the original band became officially defunct. It was also during this time that Cooper co-founded the legendary drinking club The Hollywood Vampires, which gave him yet another reason to indulge his continued ample appetite for alcohol.

Following the 1976 US #12 hit "I Never Cry", another ballad, two albums, Alice Cooper Goes to Hell and Lace and Whiskey, and another ballad hit, the US #9 "You and Me", it became clear from his performances during his 1977 US tour that he was in dire need of help with his alcoholism (at his alcoholic peak it was rumored that Cooper was consuming up to two cases of Budweiser and a bottle of whiskey a day). Following the tour, Cooper had himself hospitalized in a New York sanitarium for treatment, during which time the live album The Alice Cooper Show was released. His experience in the sanitarium was the inspiration for his 1978 semi-autobiographical album From The Inside, which Cooper co-wrote with Bernie Taupin. The release spawned another US Top 20 hit "How You Gonna See Me Now", which peaked at #12, and was yet another ballad, based on his fear of how his wife would react to him after his spell in hospital.

The subsequent tour's stage show was based inside an asylum, and was filmed for Cooper's first home video release, The Strange Case of Alice Cooper, in 1979. Around this time, Cooper performed "Welcome To My Nightmare", "You and Me", and "School's Out" on The Muppet Show (episode # 307) on March 28, 1978 (he played one of the devil's henchmen trying to dupe Kermit the Frog and Gonzo into selling their souls). He also appeared in an against-type casting in the campy role of a piano playing, disco bellboy in Mae West's final film, Sextette. Cooper also led celebrities in raising money to remodel the famous Hollywood Sign in California. Cooper himself contributed over $27,000 to the project, buying an O in the sign in memory of friend and comedian Groucho Marx.

1980s

Cooper's albums from the beginning of the 80s, Flush the Fashion, Special Forces, Zipper Catches Skin, and DaDa, were not as commercially successful as his past releases, and Cooper has claimed that, suffering from acute alcoholic amnesia, he has no recollection of recording the latter two of these albums. Flush the Fashion, produced by Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, had a thick, edgy New Wave musical sound that baffled even long-time fans, though it still yielded the US Top 40 hit "(We're All) Clones". The album Special Forces featured a more aggressive but consistent form of New Wave style, and included a new version of "Generation Landslide". The following album, Zipper Catches Skin was a more power pop-oriented recording, with lots of quirky high-energy guitar-driven songs. While those three albums engaged the experimental New Wave sound with energetic results, 1983 marked the return collaboration of producer Bob Ezrin and guitarist Dick Wagner with the haunting epic DaDa, the final album in his Warner Bros. contract.

In 1983, after the recording of DaDa, Cooper was re-hospitalized for alcoholism. In a deathly state of health, he relocated back to Phoenix, Arizona, in order to try and save his marriage from collapse and so that he could receive the support of family and friends. Cooper was finally clean and sober by the time DaDa and The Nightmare home video (of his 1975 TV Special) were released in the fall of that year; however, both releases performed below expectations. Even with The Nightmare scoring a nomination for 1984's Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video (he lost to Duran Duran), it was not enough for Warner Bros. to keep Cooper on their books, and, in 1984, Cooper became, for the first time in his career, a free agent.

After over a year on hiatus, which time he spent being a full-time father, perfecting his golf swing every day on the golf course, and finding time to star in the Spanish B-grade horror movie production Monster Dog, Cooper sought to pick up the pieces of his musical career. In 1985 he met and began writing songs with guitarist Kane Roberts. Cooper was subsequently signed to MCA Records, and appeared as guest vocalist on Twisted Sister's song "Be Chrool To Your Scuel". A video was made for the song, featuring Cooper donning his black snake-eyes make-up for the first time since 1979. But any publicity it may have generated toward Cooper's return to the music scene was cut short as the video was promptly banned because of its graphically gory make-up (by Tom Savini), and because of the innumerable zombies in the video and their insatiable appetite for gorging on human flesh.

In 1986, Alice Cooper officially returned to the music industry with the album Constrictor. The album spawned the hits "He's Back (The Man Behind the Mask)" (the theme song for the movie ; in the video of the song Cooper was given a cameo role as a deranged psychiatrist) and the fan favorite "Teenage Frankenstein". The Constrictor album was a catalyst for Cooper to make (for the first time since the 1982 Special Forces tour) a triumphant return to the road, on a tour appropriately entitled The Nightmare Returns. The Detroit leg of this tour, which took place at the end of October 1986 during Halloween, was captured on film as The Nightmare Returns, and is viewed by some as being the definitive Alice Cooper concert film. The concert, which received rave reviews in the rock music press, was also described as bringing "Cooper’s violent, twisted onstage fantasies to a new generation". The Constrictor album was followed by Raise Your Fist and Yell in 1987, which had an even rougher sound than its predecessor, as well as the Cooper classic "Freedom". The subsequent tour of Raise Your Fist and Yell, which was heavily inspired by the slasher horror movies of the time such as the Friday the 13th series and Nightmare on Elm Street, served up a shocking spectacle similar to its predecessor, and courted the kind of controversy, especially in Europe, that recalled the public outrage caused by Cooper's public performances in America in the early 1970s.

In Britain, Labour M.P. David Blunkett called for the show to be banned, saying "I'm horrified by his behaviour — it goes beyond the bounds of entertainment". The controversy spilled over into the German segment of the tour, with the German government actually succeeding in having some of the gorier segments of the performance removed. It was also during the London leg of the tour that Cooper met with a near fatal accident during the hanging execution sequence at the end of the show. Needless to say the attendant publicity served only to increase public interest and ensure that the tour was completely sold out.

Constrictor and Raise Your Fist and Yell were recorded with lead guitarist Kane Roberts and bassist Kip Winger, both of whom would leave the band by the end of 1988 (although Kane Roberts played guitar on "Bed Of Nails" on 1989's album Trash). Roberts would continue as a solo artist while Kip Winger would go on to form Winger.

In 1987, Cooper made a brief appearance as a vagrant in the horror movie Prince of Darkness, directed by John Carpenter. His role had no lines and consisted of generally menacing the protagonists before eventually impaling one of them with a bicycle frame. Cooper also appeared at WrestleMania III, escorting wrestler Jake 'The Snake' Roberts to the ring. After the match was over, Cooper got involved and threw Jake's snake Damien at The Honky Tonk Man's manager Jimmy Hart. Jake considered the involvement of Cooper to be an honor, as he had idolized Cooper in his youth and was still a huge fan.

In 1988 Cooper's contract with MCA Records expired and he signed with Epic Records. Then, in 1989, his career finally experienced a real revival with the Desmond Child produced album Trash, which spawned a hit single "Poison", which reached #2 in the UK and #7 in the US, and a worldwide arena tour.

1990s

1991 saw the release of Cooper's 19th studio album Hey Stoopid, again featuring several of rock music’s glitterati guesting on the record. Released as glam metal's popularity was on the wane, and just before the explosion of grunge, it failed to have the same commercial impact as its predecessor. The same year also saw the release of the video Alice Cooper: Prime Cuts which chronicled his entire career using in depth interviews with Cooper himself, Bob Ezrin, and Shep Gordon. One critic has noted that Prime Cuts demonstrates how Cooper had used (in contrast to similar artists who succeeded him) themes of satire and moralisation to such good effect throughout his career. It was in the Prime Cuts video that Bob Ezrin delivered his own summation of the Alice Cooper persona: "He is the psycho killer in all of us. He's the axe murderer, he's the spoiled child, he's the abuser, he's the abused; he's the perpetrator, he's the victim, he's the gun slinger, and he's the guy lying dead in the middle of the street".

By the early 1990s Cooper had become a genuine cultural icon, guesting on records by the most successful bands of the time, such as the Guns N' Roses album Use Your Illusion I, (on which he shared vocal duties with Axl Rose on the track "The Garden"); making a brief appearance as the abusive stepfather of Freddy Krueger in the Nightmare On Elm Street film (1991); and making a famous cameo appearance in the 1992 comedy film Wayne's World, in which he and his band intellectually discuss (after a performance of the song "Feed My Frankenstein" from Hey Stoopid) the history of Milwaukee in surprising depth. In a now famous scene, the movie's main characters Wayne and Garth, upon seeing Cooper, kneel and bow reverently before him while chanting "We're not worthy! We're not worthy!" He later made an appearance on an episode of That 70s Show, at the end of which he and two other (minor) guest characters parody Dungeons & Dragons.

In 1994 Cooper released The Last Temptation, his first concept album since DaDa. The album deals with issues of faith, temptation, alienation, and the frustrations of modern life, and has been described as "a young man's struggle to see the truth through the distractions of the 'Sideshow' of the modern world". Concurrent with the release of The Last Temptation was a three-part comic book series written by Neil Gaiman, fleshing out the album's story. This was to be Cooper’s last album with Epic Records, and his last studio release for six years, though during this period the live album A Fistful of Alice was released, and in 1997 he lent his voice to the first track of Insane Clown Posse's The Great Milenko. In 1999, the four-disc box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper appeared, which contained an authorized biography of Cooper, Alcohol and Razor Blades, Poison and Needles: The Glorious Wretched Excess of Alice Cooper, All-American, written by Creem magazine editor Jeffrey Morgan.

During his absence from the recording studio, Cooper toured extensively every year throughout the latter part of the 1990s, including, in 1996, South America, which he had not visited since 1974. Also in 1996, Cooper sang the role of Herod on the London cast recording of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar.

2000s

The first decade of the 21st century saw a sustained period of activity from Alice Cooper. In the decade that he turned sixty, he toured extensively and released (after a significant break) a steady stream of studio albums to favorable critical acclaim. During this period Cooper was also recognized and awarded in various ways: he received a Rock Immortal award at the 2007 Scream Awards; was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003; he received (in May 2004) an honorary doctoral degree from Grand Canyon University; was given (in May 2006) the key to the city of Alice, North Dakota; he scooped the living legend award at the 2006 Classic Rock Roll of Honour event; he won the 2007 Mojo music magazine Hero Award; and fans twice tried to induct him into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

The lengthy break between studio albums ended in 2000 with Brutal Planet, which was a return to horror-lined heavy metal, with a vicious injection of industrial rock, and with subject matter thematically inspired by the brutality of the modern world, set in a dystopian post-apocalyptic future, and also inspired by a number of news stories that had recently appeared on the CNN news channel. The album was produced by Bob Marlett, with longtime Cooper production collaborator Bob Ezrin returning as Executive Producer. The accompanying world tour, which included Cooper's first concert in Russia, was a resounding success, introducing Alice Cooper to a new audience and producing the live home video, Brutally Live, in 2001. During one memorable episode in Brutally Live, Britney Spears (being played by Alice Cooper's real life daughter, Calico), and representing "everything that my audience hates — the softening of rock and roll...the sweetness of it" is executed by Cooper.

Brutal Planet was succeeded by the sonically similar and widely acclaimed sequel Dragontown, which saw Bob Ezrin back at the helm as producer. The album has been described as leading the listener down "a nightmarish path into the mind of rock's original conceptual storyteller" and by Cooper himself as being "the worst town on Brutal Planet". Like The Last Temptation, both Brutal Planet and Dragontown are albums which explore Cooper's personal faith perspective (born again Christianity). It is often cited in the music media that Dragontown forms the third chapter in a trilogy begun with The Last Temptation; however, Cooper has himself indicated that this in fact is not the case.

Cooper again adopted a leaner, cleaner sound for his critically acclaimed 2003 release The Eyes Of Alice Cooper. Recognizing that many contemporary bands were having great success with his former sounds and styles, Cooper worked with a somewhat younger group of road and studio musicians who were very familiar with his oeuvre of old. However, instead of rehashing the old sounds, they updated them, often with surprisingly effective results. The resulting Bare Bones tour adopted a less-orchestrated performance style that had fewer theatrical flourishes and a greater emphasis on musicality. The success of this tour helped support the growing recognition that the classic Cooper songs were exceptionally clever, tuneful and unique.

Cooper's radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper, began airing on January 26, 2004 in several US cities. The program showcases classic rock, Cooper's personal stories about his life as a rock icon, and interviews with prominent rock artists. The show appears on nearly 100 stations in the US and Canada, and has also been sold all over the world. In 2005, Alice Cooper was inducted into the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame.

A continuation of the songwriting approach adopted on The Eyes of Alice Cooper was again adopted by Cooper for his 24th studio album, Dirty Diamonds, released in 2005. Dirty Diamonds became Cooper's highest charting album since 1994's The Last Temptation. The Dirty Diamonds tour launched in America in August 2005 after several European concerts, including a performance at the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland on July 12. Cooper and his band, including Kiss drummer Eric Singer, were filmed for a DVD released as Alice Cooper: Live at Montreux 2005. One critic, in a review of the Montreux release, commented that Cooper was to be applauded for "still mining pretty much the same territory of teenage angst and rebellion" as he had done more than thirty years previously.

In December 2006 the original Alice Cooper band reunited to perform six classic Alice Cooper songs at Cooper's annual charity event in Phoenix, entitled "Christmas Pudding".

On July 1, 2007 Cooper performed a duet with Marilyn Manson at the B'Estival event in Bucharest, Romania. The performance represented a reconciliation between the two artists; Cooper had previously taken issue with Manson over his overtly anti-Christian onstage antics, which included tearing up Bibles, and he had sarcastically made reference to the originality of Manson's choosing a female name and dressing in women's clothing. Cooper and Manson have been the subject of an academic paper on the significance of adolescent antiheroes.

In January 2008 he was one of the guest singers on the new Avantasia album The Scarecrow, singing the 7th track, The Toy Master. In July 2008, after lengthy delays, Cooper released Along Came a Spider, his 25th studio album. It was Cooper's highest charting album since 1991's Hey Stoopid, reaching #53 in the US and #31 in the UK. The album, visiting similar territory explored in 1987's Raise Your Fist and Yell, deals with the nefarious antics of a deranged serial killer named "Spider" who is on a quest to use the limbs of his victims to create a human spider. The album generally received positive reviews from music critics, though Rolling Stone magazine opined that the music on the record sorely missed Bob Ezrin's production values. The resulting Theatre of Death tour of the album (during which Cooper is executed on four separate occasions) was described in a long November 2009 article about Cooper in The Times as "epic" and featuring "enough fake blood to remake Saving Private Ryan".

2010s

On January 22, 2010, it was announced that Alice would be touring with Rob Zombie on the "Gruesome Twosome" tour.

On March 29, 2010, Cooper revealed during his weekly radio show on Planet Rock that his next record is to be titled The Night Shift. Cooper stated he has 10 demos ready.

On May 26, 2010, Cooper made an appearance during the beginning of the season finale of the reality-show, American Idol, in which he sang "School's Out".

in 2010]] On June 15, 2010 to coincide with the release of the "Alice Cooper Track Pack" for Guitar Hero, a free download of the newly-recorded "Elected" was made available on Alice Cooper's official website. He scored alongside his daughter and band member Dick Wagner the score for the Indie horror flick Silas Gore.

On July 1, 2010 when talking about the newly retitled album, Welcome to My Nightmare II, Alice said in a Radio Metal interview: "We'll put some of the original people on it and add some new people, I'm very happy with working with Bob (Ezrin) again."

During a press conference in France, Cooper said about Welcome to My Nightmare II that "this album is more bloody and more accomplished than the first. It sounds like the early years." According to Gail Worley, Alice and Bob Ezrin have come up with 13 songs, including the ballads "I Am Made of You" and "Something to Remember Me By." In addition, Cooper cut three new songs with original band mates Dennis Dunaway (bass), Neal Smith (drums) and Michael Bruce (guitar).

On December 15 2010, it was announced Cooper and his former band would be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Cooper told Rolling Stone magazine that he was "elated" by the news and that the nomination had been made for the original band, as "We all did go to the same high school together, and we were all on the track team, and it was pretty cool that guys that knew each other before the band ended up going that far".

On "Wrecker in the Morning" Cooper said that Steve Hunter would fill in for Glen Buxton duing the Christmas Pudding show. No mention whether Hunter or Slash would fill in for the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame show. Alice did say that 'Slash is the Premier Guitarist for This Generation'[Joe] Satriani and [Steve] Vai would be the three -- comparable to [Jeff] Beck, [Eric] Clapton and [Jimmy] Page for their generation."

Influences and fans

During an interview for the program Entertainment USA in 1986 Cooper stunned interviewer Jonathan King by stating that The Yardbirds were his favorite band of all time. Perhaps King should not have been so taken aback, as Cooper had as far back as 1969 gone on record as saying that it was music from the mid-sixties, and particularly from British bands The Beatles, The Who, and The Rolling Stones, as well as The Yardbirds, that had had the greatest influence on him. Cooper would later pay homage to The Who by appearing in in 1994 at Carnegie Hall in New York, and performing a cover of "My Generation" on the Brutal Planet tour of 2000.

During an interview Cooper himself conducted with Ozzy Osbourne on his radio show, Nights with Alice Cooper in 2007, Cooper again affirmed his debt of gratitude to these bands, and to The Beatles in particular. During their discussion, Cooper and Osbourne bemoaned the often inferior quality of songwriting coming from contemporary rock artists. Cooper stated that in his opinion the cause of the problem was that certain modern bands "had forgotten to listen to The Beatles".

On the 25th Anniversary DVD of Cabaret, Liza Minnelli stated that her good friend, Alice Cooper, had told her that his whole career was based on the movie Cabaret.

Evidence of Cooper's eclectic tastes in both classic and contemporary rock music, from the 1960s to the present, can be seen in the track listings of his radio show; in addition, when he appeared on the BBC Radio 2 program Tracks of My Years in September 2007, he listed his favourite tracks of all time as being: "19th Nervous Breakdown" (1966) by The Rolling Stones; "Turning Japanese" (1980) by The Vapors; "My Sharona" (1979) by The Knack; "Beds Are Burning" (1987) by Midnight Oil; "My Generation" (1965) by The Who; "Welcome To The Jungle" (1987) by Guns N' Roses; "Rebel Rebel" (1974) by David Bowie; "Over Under Sideways Down" (1966) by The Yardbirds; "Are You Gonna Be My Girl" (2003) by Jet; and "A Hard Day's Night" (1964) by The Beatles, and when he appeared on Desert Island Discs in 2010 he chose the songs "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" by The Yardbirds; "I Get Around" by The Beach Boys; "I'm a Boy" by The Who; Timer by Laura Nyro; "21st Century Schizoid Man" by King Crimson; "Been Caught Stealing" by Jane's Addiction; "Work Song" by The Paul Butterfield Blues Band and "Ballad of a Thin Man" by Bob Dylan.

Rob Zombie, former frontman of White Zombie, claims his first "metal moment" was seeing Alice Cooper on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.

In a 1978 interview with Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan stated, "I think Alice Cooper is an overlooked songwriter".

In the foreword to Alice Cooper's CD retrospective box set The Life and Crimes of Alice Cooper, John Lydon of The Sex Pistols pronounced Killer as the greatest rock album of all time, and in 2002 Lydon presented his own tribute program to Cooper on BBC radio.

The Flaming Lips are longtime Alice Cooper fans and used the bass line from "Levity Ball" (an early song from the 1969 release Pretties for You) for their song "The Ceiling Is Bending". They also covered "Sun Arise" for an Alice Cooper tribute album. (Cooper's version, which closes the album Love It To Death, was itself a cover of a Rolf Harris song.)

In 1999 Cleopatra Records released Humanary Stew: A Tribute to Alice Cooper featuring a number of contributions from rock and metal all-star collaborations, including Dave Mustaine, Roger Daltrey, Ronnie James Dio, Slash, Bruce Dickinson, and Steve Jones. The album was notable for the fact that it was possible to assemble a different supergroup for each cover version on the record, which gave an indication of the depth of esteem in which Cooper is held by other eminent musicians within the music industry.

A song by alternative rock group They Might Be Giants from their 1994 album John Henry entitled "Why Must I Be Sad?" mentions 13 Cooper songs, and has been described as being "from the perspective of a kid who hears all of his unspoken sadness given voice in the music of Alice Cooper; Alice says everything the kid has been wishing he could say about his alienated, frustrated, teenage world".

Such unlikely non-musician fans of Cooper included Groucho Marx and Mae West, who both reportedly saw the early shows as a form of vaudeville revue, and artist Salvador Dalí, who on attending a show in 1973 described it as being surreal, and made a hologram, First Cylindric Chromo-Hologram Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain.

If it can be worked into the 2011 schedule, Alice Cooper will appear on Saturday Night live. No word on whether he will be involved in any of the skits or just perform as the musica guest, or if any of the origial band will be there with him.

Personal life

In the period when the Alice Cooper group was signed to Frank Zappa's Straight label, Miss Christine of the GTOs became Cooper's girlfriend. Miss Christine (real name: Christine Frka), who had actually recommended Zappa to the group, died on November 5, 1972 of an overdose. Another long-time girlfriend of Cooper's was Cindy Lang, with whom he lived for several years. They separated in 1975. Lang sued Cooper for palimony, and they eventually settled out of court in the early 1980s. After his separation from Lang, Cooper was briefly linked with actress Raquel Welch. Cooper then reportedly left Welch, however, to marry, on March 20, 1976, ballerina instructor/choreographer Sheryl Goddard, who performed in the Alice Cooper show from 1975 to 1982. In November 1983, at the height of Cooper's alcoholism, Sheryl filed for divorce, but by mid-1984, she and Cooper had reconciled. The couple has remained together since. In a 2002 television interview, Cooper claimed that he had "never cheated" on his wife in all the time they had been together. In the same interview, he also claimed that the secret to a lasting and successful relationship is to continue going out on dates with your partner. The couple have three children: elder daughter Calico Cooper (born 1981), an actress and singer who has been performing in the Alice Cooper show since 2000; son Dash (b. 1985), a student at Arizona State University, and also plays in a band called Runaway Phoenix; and younger daughter Sonora Rose (b. 1993).

Cooper, a huge fan of The Simpsons, was asked to contribute a storyline for the September 2004 edition of Bongo Comics's Bart Simpson's Treehouse of Horror, a special Monsters of Rock issue that also included stories plotted by Gene Simmons, Rob Zombie and Pat Boone. Cooper's story featured Homer Simpson being a Jason Voorhees, Friday the 13th style killer and Alice and the citizens of Springfield are being stalked by Homer.

On June 20, 2005, ahead of his June–July 2005 tour, Cooper had a wide-ranging interview with interviewer of celebrities Andrew Denton for the Australian ABC Television's Enough Rope. Cooper discussed various issues during a revealing and frank talk, including the horrors of acute alcoholism and his subsequent cure, being a Christian, and his social and work relationship with his family. During the interview, Cooper remarked "I look at Mick Jagger and he's on an 18-month tour and he's six [sic] years older than me, so I figure, when he retires, I have six more years. I will not let him beat me when it comes to longevity."

In 1986, Megadeth was asked to open for Cooper for dates on his US tour. After noticing the hardcore drug and alcohol abuse in the band, Cooper personally approached the band members to try to help them control their abuse, and he has stayed close to front man Dave Mustaine ever since; Mustaine in fact considers him his godfather. Since conquering his own addiction to alcohol in the mid 1980s, Cooper has continued to help and counsel other rock musicians battling addiction problems who turn to him for help. "I've made myself very available to friends of mine - they're people who would call me late at night and say, 'Between you and me, I've got a problem.'" In recognition of the work he has done in helping other addicts in the recovery process, Cooper received in 2008 the Stevie Ray Vaughan Award at the fourth annual MusiCares MAP Fund benefit concert in Los Angeles.

The actual ownership of the Alice Cooper name is often cited by intellectual property lawyers and law professors as an example of the value of a single copyright or trademark. Since "Alice Cooper" was originally the name of the band, and not the lead singer (e.g. Uriah Heep, Jethro Tull, etc.), and it was actually owned by the band as whole, Cooper paid, and continues to pay, a yearly royalty to his original bandmates for the right to use the name commercially. Although the exact amount is not known, insiders agree that it is large enough for the other band members to live comfortably.

Religion and politics

Although he originally tended to shy away from speaking publicly about his religious beliefs, Cooper has in recent years been quite vocal about his faith as a born-again Christian. He has avoided so called "celebrity Christianity" because, as Cooper states himself: "It's really easy to focus on Alice Cooper and not on Christ. I'm a rock singer. I'm nothing more than that. I'm not a philosopher. I consider myself low on the totem pole of knowledgeable Christians. So, don't look for answers from me".

When asked by the British Sunday Times newspaper in 2001 how a shock-rocker could be a Christian, Cooper responded "Drinking beer is easy. Trashing your hotel room is easy. But being a Christian, that's a tough call. That's real rebellion!"

Throughout his career, Cooper's philosophy regarding politics is that politics should not be mixed with rock music. He has consistently kept his political views to himself, and in 2010 said "I am extremely non-political. I go out of my way to be non-political. I'm probably the biggest moderate you know. When John Lennon and Harry Nilsson used to argue politics, I was sitting right in the middle of them, and I was the guy who was going 'I don't care.' When my parents would start talking politics, I would go in my room and put on The Rolling Stones or The Who on as long as I could to avoid politics. And I still feel that way". the incident also drew attention from The Washington Post Cooper's outburst caused a certain amount of controversy, and led to Cooper releasing an official statement that clarifies and reiterated that the treason concerned was not against the state but against the ethos of rock itself.

Love of golf

Cooper has on several occasions credited golf as having played a major role in helping him to overcome his addiction to alcohol, and has even gone as far to say that when he took up golf, it was a case of replacing one addiction with another. The importance that the game has had in his life is also reflected in the title to his 2007 autobiography, Alice Cooper, Golf Monster. Cooper, who has participated in a number of Pro-Am competitions, plays the game six days a week, off a handicap of two. Since 1997, he has hosted an annual golf competition, the Alice Cooper Celebrity AM Golf Tournament, all proceeds from which go to his charity, the Solid Rock Foundation. Cooper has also appeared in commercials for Callaway Golf equipment, was a guest of veteran British player and broadcaster Peter Alliss on A Golfer's Travels. He wrote the foreword to the Gary McCord book Golf for Dummies. In August 2006, Cooper took part in an annual celebrity golf version of the Ryder Cup called the All*Star Cup in South Wales. He won his match on the first day, but lost his match on day two. The competition was shown live on UK television, and commentators made numerous references to Cooper being the best player, and to the fact that he played the game six days a week back home in Arizona. In an interview with VH1, friend and fellow golfer Pat Boone said that Cooper was "'this close' to being a pro".

Discography

:See: Alice Cooper discography

Filmography

:See: Alice Cooper filmography

List of Alice Cooper band personnel

;Current

Alice Cooper – vocals, guitar, harmonica (1963–current)

Jimmy DeGrasso – drums, percussion (1994–2002, 2008, 2009–current)

Chuck Garric – bass guitar, vocals (2002–current)

Damon Johnson – guitar, vocals (2004–2007, 2009–current)

Keri Kelli – guitar, vocals (2006–current)

:See: List of Alice Cooper personnel

Bibliography

References

External links

Official Nights with Alice Cooper website

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