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Michael Bruce | |
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Michael Owen Bruce |
| Born | March 16, 1948 |
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| Years active | 1965–present |
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Michael Owen Bruce (born March 16, 1948) is an American rock musician who was a founding member of the original Alice Cooper band.
Michael Bruce started playing guitar and piano in early adolescence and was heavily influenced by the Beatles. In 1966, Bruce replaced John Tatum in popular Phoenix-based group The Spiders alongside Vincent Furnier, Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, and John Speer. The group quickly established themselves as a top regional act, sharing the stage with such notable groups as The Yardbirds, The Animals, and The Hollies. After relocating to Los Angeles, the group rebranded themselves as the Nazz.
In 1968, after discovering that Todd Rundgren had formed a group called Nazz, Bruce and company changed the name of their project to Alice Cooper, reflecting the sardonic humor that characterized the group and their style. With Bruce's contributions as a songwriter, the band released a string of hit albums in the 1970s, including Love It to Death , School's Out , and Billion Dollar Babies .
Bruce's distinctive guitar riffs and keyboard parts became an essential component of the group’s sound, and his songwriting skills were crucial to the band's success.[ citation needed ] He wrote or co-wrote many of the band's most famous hits, including "I'm Eighteen", "Under My Wheels", "School's Out", and "No More Mr. Nice Guy".
In 1973, Bruce began working on his own recordings with a group of musicians that included Mick Mashbir (guitars and vocals), Bob Dolin (keyboards and vocals), Frank Crandall (bass and vocals), and Don Lindley (percussion and vocals). Mashbir and Dolin had performed as members of the touring band with the Alice Cooper Billion Dollar Babies tour. This line-up recorded and produced four songs ("King of America", "As Rock Rolls On", "Oh, My Love" and "Nothing on Earth") that producer Jack Douglas mixed.
When Bruce decided to leave Connecticut in 1974 and move to Lake Tahoe, Crandall and Lindley did not follow. Bruce, Dolin and Mashbir were then faced with finding a new rhythm section. Drummers such as William "Curly" Smith (Jo Jo Gunne) and John Barbata (The Turtles; Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young) came to play and record at Bruce's Nevada home.
Bruce's album In My Own Way was recorded over the course of three months in 1975 with producers Gene Cornish and Dino Danelli of The Rascals. Many different musicians came to the Record Plant and participated in the sessions for the album, including Keith Moon (The Who), Gerry Beckley (America), Jackie Lomax (Badger), Ricky Fataar (The Beach Boys), David Foster (Airplay), Hunt Sales (Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop), Tony Sales (Todd Rundgren, Iggy Pop), Mylon LeFevre, Lynn Carey, and many more. American fashion photographer Francesco Scavullo did a shoot for Bruce that yielded the cover of In My Own Way.[ citation needed ]
Billion Dollar Babies was the name of the band founded in 1976 by Michael Bruce, Mike Marconi, Dennis Dunaway, Bob Dolin and Neal Smith after they split from Alice Cooper. Originally, Billion Dollar Babies started out in the hope that Alice would return and Battle Axe would be the new record from the Alice Cooper group. Time Magazine featured the group in a brief but hopeful write-up in 1977. There had been a theatrical stage show planned in which Bruce and Marconi would battle each other in the fashion of gladiators. Despite the positive start, the band was embroiled in a legal suit over the use of the name. The stage show was far too costly and the tour was quite brief. Their only release was 1977's Battle Axe. The Battle Axe record lost any momentum it had when it was recalled for mastering problems which caused the turntable needle to skip.[ citation needed ] Jack Douglas, who had worked on Muscle of Love with Jack Richardson, was hired to fix the mastering problem. With so many problems weighing them down, the group disbanded.
During 2010, Bruce was called on for participation in a new Alice Cooper record Welcome 2 My Nightmare (the sequel to the original Welcome to My Nightmare ). Bruce co-wrote the song "When Hell Comes Home" on the album. Welcome 2 My Nightmare also featured performances by Neal Smith, Dennis Dunaway, Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter. Additionally, Alice invited Bruce, Hunter, Dunaway and Smith to perform with him that December at his annual Christmas Pudding fundraiser at The Dodge Theatre in Phoenix, Arizona.
In spring 2011, Bruce (as a member of the original Alice Cooper group) was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the "Performer" category. [1]
In early 2016, Bruce's new band, Michael Bruce Force, played a show at Asylum Records celebrating Record Store Day on April 6, 2016, in Mesa, Arizona. [2]
Bruce was featured on three songs on Alice Cooper's next release, the 2017 album Paranormal : the song "Rats", as well as two bonus tracks featuring original Alice Cooper band members: "Genuine American Girl" and "You and All of Your Friends". He was subsequently featured on several tracks on Cooper's 2021 album Detroit Stories.
Alice Cooper is an American rock singer and songwriter whose career spans sixty years. With a raspy voice and a stage show that features numerous props and stage illusions, including pyrotechnics, guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, reptiles, baby dolls, and dueling swords, Cooper is considered by many music journalists and peers to be "The Godfather of Shock Rock". He has drawn equally from horror films, vaudeville, and garage rock to pioneer a macabre and theatrical brand of rock designed to shock audiences.
Billion Dollar Babies is the sixth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in March 1973 by Warner Bros. Records. The album became the best selling Alice Cooper record at the time of its release, hitting number one on the album charts in the United States and the United Kingdom, and was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America.
Neal Smith is an American musician, best known as the drummer for the rock group Alice Cooper from 1967 to 1974. He performed on the group's early albums Pretties for You and Easy Action, their breakout album Love It to Death and the subsequent successful albums Killer, School's Out, and Billion Dollar Babies. The last new studio album with the five original Alice Cooper group members participating in new music was Muscle of Love in 1973. The original group's Greatest Hits studio album was released in 1974. In 2018, a live performance album Live from the Astroturf recorded in 2015 was released, featuring four of the original group members performing eight of their hit songs, with long-time Alice Cooper solo band guitarist and friend Ryan Roxie interplaying lead guitar parts with original group rhythm guitarist Michael Bruce, on behalf of original group lead guitarist Glen Buxton, who died in 1997 of pneumonia three weeks before his 50th birthday.
Glen Edward Buxton was an American guitarist who played lead guitar for the rock band Alice Cooper. In 2003, Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 90 on its list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time". In 2011, Buxton was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of the original Alice Cooper band.
Dennis Dunaway is an American musician, best known as the original bass guitarist for the rock band Alice Cooper . He co-wrote some of the band's most notable songs, including "I'm Eighteen" and "School's Out".
Alice Cooper's Greatest Hits is the only greatest hits album by American rock band Alice Cooper, and their last release as a band. Released in 1974, it features hit songs from five of the band's seven studio albums. It does not include any material from their first two albums, Pretties for You and Easy Action.
Muscle of Love is the seventh and final studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper. It was released in late 1973, the band played its last concert a few months later.
Lace and Whiskey is the third solo and tenth overall studio album by American rock singer Alice Cooper, released on April 29, 1977 by Warner Bros. Records.
School's Out is the fifth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in June 1972. Following on from the success of Killer, School's Out reached No. 2 on the US Billboard 200 chart and No. 1 on the Canadian RPM 100 Top Albums chart, holding the top position for four weeks. The single "School's Out" reached No. 7 on the Billboard Hot 100, No. 3 on the Canadian RPM Top Singles Chart and went to No. 1 in the UK Singles Chart.
Pretties for You is the debut studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released on June 25, 1969, by Straight Records. "Alice Cooper" referred to the band and not its lead singer Vincent Furnier. The album has a psychedelic style to it and the group had yet to develop the more concise hard rock sound that they would become famous for.
Killer is the fourth studio album by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in November 1971 by Warner Bros. Records. The album peaked at No. 21 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and the two singles "Under My Wheels" and "Be My Lover" made the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
Good to See You Again, Alice Cooper is a 1974 feature film starring Alice Cooper. The movie primarily features live concert footage of the Alice Cooper band on their record-breaking Billion Dollar Babies tour, filmed in Texas in April 1973, with some footage from other tour stops, including the Memorial Coliseum, Portland, Oregon, intercut with 'comedy' scenes of a German film director chasing the "Cooper gang" for revenge after they abandoned his would-be masterpiece movie.
The Strange Case of Alice Cooper is a live concert video released in September 1979, of Alice Cooper performing with his backing band The Ultra Latex Band. The concert was filmed on April 9, 1979 during Cooper's 'Madhouse Rock' Tour in San Diego, California, at the San Diego Sports Arena, in support of the album From The Inside.
"Billion Dollar Babies" is a popular 1973 single by the rock group Alice Cooper, the title track taken from the album Billion Dollar Babies. It was released in July 1973, months after the album had been released. The track is a duet between Alice Cooper and Scottish musician Donovan, who provides the falsetto and high harmony vocals. BMI lists the composers of "Billion Dollar Babies" as Alice Cooper, Michael Bruce and Reggie Vinson. Some sources list the composers as Cooper, Bruce, drummer Neal Smith, and "R. Reggie", the latter being an allusion to Vinson's nickname "Rockin' Reggie Vinson".
"Halo of Flies" is a 1973 single by rock band Alice Cooper taken from their 1971 album Killer. The single was only released in the Netherlands, two years after the song appeared on the album. The song was, according to Cooper's liner notes in the compilation The Definitive Alice Cooper, an attempt by the band to prove that they could perform King Crimson-like progressive rock suites, and was supposedly about a spy organization.
"Reflected" is a song by American rock band Alice Cooper, released in 1969 as the first single from their debut album Pretties for You.
Welcome 2 My Nightmare is the nineteenth solo album by American rock musician Alice Cooper, released in September 2011. Peaking at No. 22 in the Billboard 200 it is Cooper's highest-charting album in the US since 1989's Trash. The album is a sequel to his 1975 album Welcome to My Nightmare.
Alice Cooper, also known as the Alice Cooper Group or the Alice Cooper Band, was an American rock band formed in Phoenix, Arizona, in 1964. The band consisted of lead singer Vincent Furnier, Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce, Dennis Dunaway, and Neal Smith (drums). The band was notorious for their elaborate, theatrical shock rock stage shows.
Super Duper Alice Cooper is a 2014 Canadian biographical documentary film about shock rock musician Alice Cooper, written and directed by Sam Dunn, Scot McFadyen and Reginald Harkema.
Live from the Astroturf is the 12th live album by rock group Alice Cooper, originally released through Good Records on November 23, 2018, before receiving a worldwide release from Earmusic on September 30, 2022. It features eight songs performed by the original line-up of the Alice Cooper band recorded on October 6, 2015, at Good Records in Dallas, Texas.
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