4 February 75th Anniversary of the birth of rock singer Alice Cooper 

75 years ago, on February 4th 1948 in Detroit, Michigan, Alice Cooper (originally Vincent Damion Furnier) was born. He was to become an internationally renowned rock musician who pioneered a theatrical form of heavy metal music performance that allowed the fusion of onstage horror dramatics and raw, dynamic sounds – a unique style that eventually earned him the recognition as the “Godfather of shock rock”.  

He began his musical career simply as a member of ‘Earwigs’, a small high-school band that sang parodies of Beatles songs, originally for a school talent show. Upon graduating, having earned a distinct local popularity, the group moved to LA to find their own unique identity and so began to write their own songs under the name ‘Alice Cooper’. 

Following a period of relatively unsuccessful releases, their third album ‘Love It to Death’ (1971), found an audience and yielded the hit single ‘I’m Eighteen’. This was followed by a number of successes, including the title track of ‘School’s Out’ (1972) becoming a Top Ten hit in the United States and reaching the top of the British charts. The band achieved its pinnacle with the album ‘Billion Dollar Babies’ (1973), however, with their following album ‘Muscle of Love’ (1973) being of considerably less success, it proved to be their last release as a band.  

Furnier, however, was not finished. Instead, he legally changed his name to Alice Cooper (in an attempt to avoid legal implications with ownership of the name) and in 1975 continued to release his first solo album, ‘Welcome to My Nightmare’. This and its follow-up ‘Alice Cooper Goes to Hell’ (1976) were an immediate success and, although his later struggles with addiction took a brief toll on his music, led to what became a long and enduring career in which he continues to write songs for movie soundtracks as well as tour with other heavy metal bands.  

Cooper is also an avid golfer and says that the sport helped him play a major role in overcoming his addiction to alcohol and has even gone so far as to say that, when he took up golf, it was a case of replacing one addiction with another.