Cinquantamila.it La storia raccontata da Giorgio Dell'Arti

• (Vincent Furnier) Detroit (Stati Uniti) 4 febbraio 1948. Cantante. «Between ’50s showman Screamin’ Jay Hawkins emerging from a coffin and Kiss’ Gene Simmons spitting ”blood” in the mid-’70s, no one defined shock rock like Alice Cooper. Cooper used violent (and vile) theatrics - simulated executions, the chopping up of a baby dolls, and draping himself with a live boa constrictor - and explicit lirics to become a controversial yet hugely popular figure in the early and mid-’70s. After a decade of fluttuating record sales Cooper returned to platinum with the #20 1989 LP Trash. Though he is respected by a new generation of hard-rock fans, he never reached this kind of popularity again. Vincent Furnier, son of a preacher, assembled his hard rocking band in Phoenix. They were first known as the Earwigs, then the Spiders and finally the Nazz (non to be confused with Todd Rundgren’s band). They moved en masse in L. A. in 1968. Billing themselves as Alice Cooper (who, according to a Ouja board, was a 17th-century witch reincarnated as Furnier), they established themselves on the Southern California bar circuit with a bizarre stage show and a reputation as the worst band in L.A. Frank Zappa’s Straight Records released their first two albums, which sold poorly and, with tour costs, left them $1000,000 in debt. [...]» (The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock&Roll, Rolling Stone Press 2001).