With a career spanning more than four decades, American rock singer, songwriter and musician Alice Cooper (A.K.A Vincent Furnier) was born on this day 4th February in 1948. He was originally in a band which featured him on vocals and harmonica, Glen Buxton on lead guitar , Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar and Neal Smith onDrums. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit “I’m Eighteen” from the album Love It to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single “School’s Out” in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.
In the mid seventies Furnier went solo, adopting the band’s name Alice Cooper as his own name, and began with the 1975 concept album Welcome to My Nightmare, Expanding from his original Detroit rock roots, over the years Cooper has also experimented with many various musical styles, including conceptual rock, art rock, hard rock, New Wave, pop rock, experimental rock and industrial rock and is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal. Cooper is also famous for his stage shows which often feature guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville and garage rock and he is regarded as being the artist who “first introduced horror imagery to rock’n’roll, and pioneered a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal designed to shock, and his stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre”.
Between I’m Eighteen and his 2011 release Welcome 2 My Nightmare, he has done many great songs including Schools Out, No More Mr Nice Guy, Trash,Poison and Hey Stoopid. in 2011 the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Welcome 2 My Nightmare is Alice’s 19th album as a solo artist, and his 26th album in total.
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