Alice Cooper ( b28 )

On Easter Sunday, 2018, Cooper performed as King Herod in NBC's live performance of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Jesus Christ Superstar. Reviews were positive, with The New York Times' critic Noel Murray praising "Alice Cooper's magnificently scenery-chewing performance" as a "startling moment of clarity," and Lorraine Ali of The Los Angeles Times describing his performance as, "Weird? Yes, but also perfect in a campy, dramatic and evil "Billion Dollar Babies" kind of way. Cooper's part was small but indelible."Cooper had previously recorded the song (though not performed it live) in 2000, with the 1996 London revival cast.

Style and influences

During an interview for the program Entertainment USA in 1986, Cooper told interviewer Jonathan King that the Yardbirds were his favorite band of all time. Cooper had as far back as 1969 said that it was music from the mid-sixties, and particularly from British bands the Beatles, the Who, and the Rolling Stones, as well as the Yardbirds, that had the greatest influence on him. Cooper would later pay homage to the Who by singing "I'm A Boy" for A Celebration: The Music of Pete Townshend and The Who in 1994 at Carnegie Hall in New York, and performing a cover of "My Generation" on the Brutal Planet tour of 2000. During an interview with Ozzy Osbourne from radio program Nights with Alice Cooper on May 22, 2007, Cooper again affirmed his debt of gratitude to these bands, and to the Beatles in particular. During their discussion, Cooper and Osbourne bemoaned the often inferior quality of songwriting coming from contemporary rock artists. Cooper stated that in his opinion the cause of the problem was that certain modern bands "had forgotten to listen to the Beatles".

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