Alice Cooper In The 1970s

The 1970s was the decade that saw the arrival of Alice Cooper as a major force across the media. Chris Sutton, explores the story of Alice Cooper the band and Alice the solo performer from their early years through to the end of the decade. A roller-coaster ride of classic albums and singles, the songs recorded in the 1970s still dominate his live sets to this day. The book features all new interview material from key figures including Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith from the original band, Prakash John from the solo years, and Ernie Cefalu, whose company Pacific Eye and Ear designed the sleeve packaging. Several other musicians, concert promoters and even the band's first roadie have also contributed their thoughts. All of the albums and singles from Don't Blow Your Mind, until From The Inside are examined in detail, along with related archive releases and songs that didn't make the cut. In the course of putting the book together much new information came to light that will be of huge interest to hardened collectors and new fans alike. The book is an essential guide to Alice Cooper in the decade the band helped to define.

From journalist Peter Ames Carlin, Sonic Boom captures the rollicking story of the most successful record label in the history of popular music, Warner Bros. Records, and the remarkable secret to its meteoric rise. The roster of Warner Brothers Records and its subsidiary labels reads like the roster of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Prince, Van Halen, Madonna, Tom Petty, R.E.M., Red Hot Chili Peppers, and dozens of others. But the most compelling figures in the Warner Bros. story are the sagacious Mo Ostin and the unlikely crew of hippies, eccentrics, and enlightened execs. Ostin and his staff transformed an out-of-touch company, revolutionized the industry, and, within just a few years, created the most successful record label in the history of the American music industry. How did they do it? One day in 1967, the newly tapped label president Mo Ostin called his team together to share his grand strategy: he told them to stop trying to make hit records/ "Let’s just make good records and turn those into hits.” With that, Ostin ushered in a counterintuitive model that matched the counterculture. His offbeat crew recruited outsider artists and gave them free rein, while rejecting out-of-date methods of advertising, promotion, and distribution. And even as they set new standards for in-house weirdness, the upstarts’ experiments and innovations paid off, to the tune of hundreds of legendary hit albums. Warner Bros Records conquered the music business by focusing on the music rather than the business. Their story is as raucous as it is inspiring—pure entertainment that also maps a route to that holy grail: love and money. Includes black-and-white photographs

When Alice Cooper became the stuff of legend in the early '70s, their shows were monuments of fun and invention. Riding on a string of hits like "I'm 18" and "School's Out," they became America's highest-grossing act, producing four platinum albums and hitting number one on the U.S. and U.K. charts with Billion Dollar Babies in 1973. As teenagers in Phoenix, Dennis Dunaway and lead singer Vince Furnier, who would later change his name to Alice Cooper, formed a hard-knuckles band that played prisons, cowboy bars and teen clubs. Their journey took them from Hollywood to the ferocious Detroit music scene. From struggling for recognition to topping the charts, the Alice Cooper group was entertaining, outrageous, and one-of-a-kind. Dennis Dunaway, the bassist and co-songwriter for the band, tells a story just as over-the-top crazy as their (in)famous shows. Snakes! Guillotines! Electric Chairs! is the riveting account of the band's creation in the '60s, strange glory in the '70s, and the legendary characters they met along the way.

An epic joyride through three history-making tours in 1973 that defined rock and roll superstardom—the money, the access, the excess—forevermore. The Who’s Quadrophenia. Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy. Alice Cooper’s Billion Dollar Babies. These three unprecedented tours—and the albums that inspired them—were the most ambitious of these artists’ careers, and they forever changed the landscape of rock and roll: the economics, the privileges, and the very essence of the concert experience. On these juggernauts, rock gods—and their entourages—were born, along with unimaginable overindulgence and the legendary flameouts. Tour buses were traded for private jets, arenas replaced theaters, and performances transmogrified into over-the-top, operatic spectacles. As the sixties ended and the seventies began, an altogether more cynical era took hold: peace, love, and understanding gave way to sex, drugs, and rock and roll. But the decade didn’t become the seventies, acclaimed journalist Michael Walker writes, until 1973, a historic and mind-bogglingly prolific year for rock and roll that saw the release of countless classic albums, from The Dark Side of the Moon to Goat’s Head Soup; Goodbye Yellow Brick Road; Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J.; and The Wild, the Innocent & the E Street Shuffle. Aerosmith, Queen, and Lynyrd Skynyrd released their debut albums. The Roxy and CBGB opened their doors. Every major act of the era—from Fleetwood Mac to Black Sabbath—was on the road that summer, but of them all, Walker writes, it was The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Alice Cooper who emerged as the game changers. Walker revisits each of these three tours in memorable, all-access detail: he goes backstage, onto the jets, and into the limos, where every conceivable wish could be granted. He wedges himself into the sweaty throng of teenage fans (Walker himself was one of them) who suddenly were an economic force to be reckoned with, and he vividly describes how a decade’s worth of decadence was squeezed into twelve heart-pounding, backbreaking, and rule-defying months that redefined, for our modern times, the business of superstardom. Praise for What You Want Is in the Limo “Required reading . . . 1973 is a turning point in popular music — the border between hippie-ethos ’60s rock ’n’ roll and conspicuous-consumption excess ’70s rock.”—New York Post “Loud and boisterous . . . Like a good vinyl-era single, it’s over before it wears out its welcome. You may even want to flip it over and start again when you’re finished.”—Fort Worth Star-Telegram “You don’t have to love the music or personas of the three bands highlighted here . . . to appreciate the vital roles that all three played in creating the modern rock star. . . . [Walker] is convincing and entertaining in explaining why 1973 was a seminal year in rock.”—The Daily Beast “[There’s] so much rock n' roll history packed inside.”—GQ “Very well written . . . It gives an intellectual immersion into these bands’ lives.”—Led-Zeppelin.org “[Walker] argues for [1973] as a tipping point, when big tours—and bigger money—became a defining ethos in rock music.”—NPR

Wretched excess, rock stardom, and golf—from the man who invented shock rock In this tell-all memoir, Alice Cooper speaks candidly about his life and career, including all the years of rock ’n’ roll history he’s been a part of, the addictions he faced, and the surprising ways he found redemption. From a childhood spent as a minister’s son worshiping baseball and rock ’n’ roll; to days on the road with his band, working to make a name for themselves; to stardom and the insanity that came with it, including a quart-of-whiskey-a-day habit; to drying out at a sanitarium back in the late ’70s, Alice Cooper paints a rich and rockin’ portrait of his life and his battle against addiction—fought by getting up daily at 7 a.m. to play 36 holes of golf. Alice tells hilarious, touching, and sometimes astounding stories about Led Zeppelin and the Doors, George Burns and Groucho Marx, John Daly and Tiger Woods . . . everyone is here from Dalí to Elvis to Arnold Palmer. Alice Cooper, Golf Monster is the incredible story of someone who rose through the rock ’n’ roll ranks releasing platinum albums and selling out arenas with his legendary act—all while becoming one of the best celebrity golfers around.

In celebration of the 45th anniversary of The Dark Side of the Moon, Bill Kopp explores the ingenuity with which Pink Floyd rebranded itself following the 1968 departure of Syd Barrett. Not only did the band survive Barrett’s departure, but it went on to release landmark albums that continue to influence generations of musicians and fans. Reinventing Pink Floyd follows the path taken by the remaining band members to establish a musical identity, develop a songwriting style, and create a new template for the manner in which albums are made and even enjoyed by listeners. As veteran music journalist Bill Kopp illustrates, that path was filled with failed experiments, creative blind alleys, one-off musical excursions, abortive collaborations, general restlessness, and—most importantly—a dedicated search for a distinctive musical personality. This exciting guide to the works of 1968 through 1973 highlights key innovations and musical breakthroughs of lasting influence. Kopp places Pink Floyd in its historical, cultural, and musical contexts while celebrating the test of fire that took the band from the brink of demise to enduring superstardom.

In the course of his storied career as a manager, agent, and producer, Shep Gordon has worked with—and befriended—some of the biggest names in the entertainment industry, from Alice Cooper to Bette Davis, Raquel Welch to Groucho Marx, Blondie to Jimi Hendrix, Sylvester Stallone to Salvador Dalí, Luther Vandross to Teddy Pendergrass. He is also credited with inventing the “celebrity chef,” and has worked with Nobu Matsuhisa, Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Roger Vergé, and many others. In this wonderfully engaging memoir, the captivating entertainment legend recalls his life, from his humble beginnings as a shy, unambitious kid growing up on Long Island to his unexpected rise as one of the most influential and respected personalities in show business, revered for his kindness, charisma—and fondness for a good time. Gordon shares riotous anecdotes and outrageous accounts of his freewheeling, globe-trotting experiences with some of the biggest celebrities of the past five decades, including his first meeting with Janis Joplin in 1968, when the raspy singer punched him in the face. Told with incomparable humor and heart, They Call Me Supermensch is a sincere, hilarious, behind-the-scenes look at the worlds of music and entertainment from a consummate Hollywood insider.