Alice Cooper as a rock act first emerged in Phoenix and then L.A, but he was actually born in the Motor City, which is why his latest album is a love letter to the city that is the spiritual home to to his kind of rock.
DETROIT STORIES is a mix of covers and originals, opening with a driving version of the Velvet Undergrounds’ Rock ‘ N ‘ Roll featuring the guitar magic of Joe Bonamassa. Other guests on the album include MC5’s Wayne Kramer and the original members of the Alice Cooper Band, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway and Neal Smith.
Asked about the inspiration for the album Cooper told American Songwriter :
“Well, I was born in Detroit. That’s why this album is dedicated to Detroit. I think this is my thirtieth album, I’m not sure! But I was born in Detroit and Detroit was always the rock ‘n’ roll city. I mean, it was always the hard rock city. Los Angeles was The Doors and Love and bands like that. San Francisco had the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane and New York had the Rascals—all totally different sounds.
And then Detroit was Alice Cooper, Iggy and the Stooges, the MC5—all really show bands but really hard rock bands. But the whole idea was to tip our hat to that city, because it’s always been the home of hard rock. So, I said, ‘Let’s not just do a thing about Detroit. Let’s do it in Detroit. Let’s do it with all Detroit players. Let’s keep everything purely Detroit on this.’ That’s why the band was all—one guy’s from MC5 [Wayne Kramer], one guy’s Mark Farner [from Grand Funk Railroad], and Johnny Bee was from Mitch Ryder [& the Detroit Wheels]. You put all these guys together and, man, they are a great rock ‘n’ roll band. Then I brought in Steve Hunter, too, and [Joe] Bonamassa— he’s such a good guitar player.”
The critics are giving the album a universal thumbs up as a return to his hard rock roots, see what you think by checking out
EXCLUSIVELY ALICE COOPER where we are playing two tracks from the album every hour.
( By the way Alice we counted- We make it 27 studio albums, 11 live albums and 21 compilation albums )
