Alice Cooper was an American rock band formed in Phoenix, Arizona in 1964. The band consisted of lead singer Vince Furnier, Glen Buxton (lead guitar), Michael Bruce (rhythm guitar, keyboards), Dennis Dunaway (bass guitar), and Neal Smith (drums). Furnier legally changed his name to Alice Cooper and has had a solo career under that name since the band became inactive in 1975. The band was notorious for their elaborate, theatrical shock rock stage shows. In 2011, the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (More from Wikipedia)
Likewise, Alice Cooper was the under-stated name of the lead singer from the beginning, but Alice Cooper started out mainly as the name of the band. The bulky, dirty-yellow Schwann Catalogue – which showed all the records in print in the United States, and which used to sit in one corner of larger record stores back in my youth – identified them as “the Alice Cooper”, and they were listed with the A’s. Once the lead singer of this theatrical band became larger than life, it was more Alice the man than Alice the band. In later years, Alice Cooper frequently appeared on talk shows and game shows as just a regular guy – and that was as startling in its own way as the gaudy make-up that he used in his live performances.
(August 2013)
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