The iconic singer Alice Cooper said was everything rock should be: “The pinnacle”
An elder statesman of rock and roll, there isn’t much that Alice Cooper hasn’t seen.
The ‘Godfather of Shock Rock’ has been peddling his ever-expanding sound since all the way back in 1964, and the intervening years have seen him rub shoulders with everybody from Keith Moon to Salvador Dalí.
Although Cooper has always moved with the times, he continues to draw significant influence from the early 1960s, maintaining a particular adoration for the British invasion rock that first inspired him all those years ago. Despite hailing from Detroit, Michigan, it was the sounds of swinging sixties-era London that caught Cooper’s attention as a budding young artist.
After all, the mid-1960s were a particularly productive period for British rock, with a plethora of blues-rock heroes rising from the nightclubs of England’s capital, including the likes of The Who, The Rolling Stones, and The Yardbirds, all of which played a colossal role in inspiring Cooper. What’s more, the period produced pioneering and fairly outlandish acts like The Crazy World of Arthur Brown, which laid the foundations for the songwriter’s shock rock sensibilities.
Even as the musical landscape shifted, and the blues-rock leanings of the 1960s gave way to things like prog, hard rock, and soft rock during the following decade, Cooper never lost his appetite for those trailblazing sounds. Throughout his extensive career as a rock god, there has been a consistent guiding light in the form of The Rolling Stones’ iconic frontman, Mick Jagger – the gold standard of rock and roll performers.
Jagger set the standard when it came to rock vocalists during the British invasion period. Taking his cues from a deep-rooted appreciation of American blues, R&B, and gospel, the Rolling Stone represented the voice of Britain’s defiant younger generation in the 1960s, becoming the ire of parents everywhere.
Unlike many of his contemporaries in the early days, though, Jagger has kept going. For upwards of six decades, the frontman has been touring the biggest stages in the world, still beaming with energy night after night, fueled solely by the spirit of rock and roll.
This longevity has made Jagger a continued source of inspiration for Cooper, who is six years younger than the Rolling Stones frontman. “He’s an inspiration, yeah,” the songwriter affirmed during an interview with the BBC. “To any lead singer, Mick Jagger is the prototype. He is the pinnacle of being a lead singer because he’s Mick Jagger.”
Expanding upon the unique appeal of the singer, Cooper continued, “He’s a performer, he doesn’t just do the song, he sells it, he makes you believe it.”
He added, “I learned a lot from watching him. I went in a different direction, but I learned a lot watching him.” In truth, there isn’t a rock and roll singer in the world who does not owe some degree of their success to the groundbreaking performances of Mick Jagger.
Although there is a definite disparity between the music of The Rolling Stones and that of Alice Cooper, the performers do have a lot in common in terms of their performance style and sensibility. What’s more, given the age gap between the two rockstars has spurred Cooper on to continue throughout the years, with the shock rocker declaring to ABC TV, “When he retires, I have six more years. I will not let him beat me when it comes to longevity.”
