The one musician Alice Cooper says everybody likes
Original US shock rocker Alice Cooper is full of surprises. Emerging during the psychedelic era with an already fearsome reputation for Detroit garage edge and horror vaudeville, the discoloured hippie offerings on 1969’s Pretties for You debut soon found a greater calling with the advent of glam. Toughening their sound and going the extra mile on their gripping live shows, featuring real boa constrictor snakes and a prop guillotine boasting a 40-pound blade, Cooper would give any of the glittered-up stars across the Atlantic a run for their money during their School’s Out heyday.
Yet, Cooper was very much a character, despite his legal name change from Vincent Damon Furnier in 1975. While telling his bandmembers “You’re going to see the world. You’re going to get paid. You’re going to get stitches” across his over 50-year career, Cooper was no dabbler in the occult or earnest devourer of all things dark.
He was a showman, in it for the spectacle like a hard rock PT Barnum. When he’s not hanging himself from his on-stage gallows or frying in the infamous electric chair, Cooper’s living the teetotal, born-again Christian life and playing a mean golf game, regularly signing up to pro-am competitions and playing as much as six days a week off a handicap of four.
It was on the golf course that Cooper forged a close and lasting friendship with Glen Campbell. While from different musical worlds, a shared love for the putting game, a joint faith, and a relatability in the music industry would endear the two together until Campbell’s sad passing from Alzheimer’s in 2017.
Acclaimed for his successful country career including the ‘Rhinestone Cowboy’ and ‘Dreams of the Everyday Housewife’ hits, Campbell was a seriously respected guitarist, boasting countless session credits with Phil Spector’s Wrecking Crew ensemble and featured on recordings by Elvis Presley, Bing Crosby, Frank Sinatra, and The Beach Boys.
“He was just probably born with that guitar in his hand,” Cooper once said. “Find me somebody that doesn’t like Glen Campbell. Find me anybody.” He added: “We were miles apart on the music world, but, yeah, we were very good friends.” Cooper’s on record for listing Campbell as one of the top five guitarists in popular music in his estimation, and revealed just how much of a towering influence the late country star was to even some of rock’s most famous shredders.
“All the great songs, they’re as good as it gets, but the guitar-playing was something that we all looked at each other and went, ‘This guy’s a player’,” Cooper confessed. “Eddie Van Halen one time asked me to get him a guitar lesson with Glen Campbell”.
While the illness had its effect on his faculties, Campbell’s guitar skills and expert golf game remained unaffected for years according to Cooper. Eager to offer the fans one last show while he was able, Campbell embarked on the Goodbye Tour in 2011 and headed to Nashville’s Station West studio the following year to cut his last album Adiós, eventually released two months before his death.
