This past year, Alice Cooper was inducted to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. As the singer wanted, Alice Cooper was inducted as a five-piece band, not just as Alice Cooper the singer. Four of the five members of that band were there to receive the honor. Guitarist Glen Buxton was the absent fifth member. Although Buxton’s name was not well known, and was mostly out of the music business since 1974, he did exert somewhat of an influence. Randy Rhoads and Steve Vai are two legendary virtuoso guitarists I can think of who have acknowledged Buxton’s influence.
I first heard Glen Buxton’s name when I was in high school. His name came up along with Cooper’s when I was reading about Jim Morrison’s drinking, and the friends he drank with. At that time, the Alice Cooper Group was toiling in obscurity in Los Angeles, and had yet to break through commercially. A few years later in college, I found a book about Alice Cooper in the library, in which a journalist chronicled his experience while touring with the band. I still remembered Buxton’s name, so out of curiosity I began looking for references to him as I thumbed through the book. About 10 years later, in another college library, I found a copy of Me, Alice which was the singer’s autobiography, and since Buxton was obviously a close associate of Cooper for a long time, there would be plenty of ink dedicated to him. A few years later, in 1997, I found his obituary in an issue of Rolling Stone. By that time, the internet revolution was well underway, and there was plenty of information about almost every subject imaginable, that could not have been made public any other way. This medium allowed me to piece together more information provided by those close to Glen, including his sister Janice.
The Early Days
From at least his days at Cortez High School in Glendale, Arizona, Glen Buxton embodied the rock and roll spirit. He got into trouble several times for typical juvenile infractions such as smoking in the bathroom and fighting. The drinking problem which plagued him his whole adult life also originated during that time. But something else happened at Cortez, as well, when he decided to enroll in a journalism class. He probably had no idea how the course of his life was about to change when he first walked into that class. It was comprised of all girls, with one exception, a skinny kid named Vincent Furnier. Vince was originally from Detroit, but his family had moved several times between Detroit, Los Angeles, and Phoenix, partly because of young Vince’s health problems. His illnesses caused him to be absent from school for long periods of time, which in turn caused him to be held back a few grades. Despite his illness, he was still athletic and ran with the cross-country team.
Glen soon befriended Vince and several of his teammates. Their time at Cortez coincided with the first wave of Beatlemania, and Glen and Vince, along with a few of Vince’s track team buddies had caught the bug. They put a group together for a talent show, but not to actually perform live. They wore Beatle wigs and mimed to one of their records. They even had some female friends scream for them, trying as much as they could to recreate the hysteria of a Beatles show. After that, the boys liked the experience so much that they decided to form a real band. The first incarnation of the singer and band that would eventually become known as Alice Cooper was now underway. They all learned to play their instruments except for Glen, who had taken guitar lessons back in Ohio before his family moved to Arizona. At the time, he was the only band member who at least had an idea how to play his instrument.
Going for the Big Time
After spending some time in community college, they decided to get serious, and played around the Phoenix area before making the big move to Los Angeles. It was there that both Vince Furnier and the band became known as Alice Cooper, although there are conflicting accounts of how they came up with the name. According to Cooper’s recollections, their time in Los Angeles was not pleasant, and they were despised by the audiences who didn’t understand who they were or where they were coming from. A bizarre trend was created when it became fashionable among the L.A. club patrons to walk out during their sets. This would actually work in their favor when their act caught the attention of a pair of young businessmen named Shep Gordon and Joe Greenburg, who thought they could turn that negative energy around. Soon, Alice Cooper took them on as managers. They had another connection that would soon work in their favor. Alice was dating a woman who went by the name of Miss Christine, who happened to belong to a band of singing groupies known as the GTO’s, who were put together by none other than future music and counterculture icon Frank Zappa. If anyone could understand a band like Alice Cooper that stood out like a sore thumb among L.A. bands, it was Zappa. After an impromptu audition in Zappa’s living room, the band was signed to his Straight Records label. Their first album Pretties For You was produced by Zappa and went unnoticed upon its release in 1969. Eventually the band decided that, despite being in the music industry capital, they would have a better chance somewhere else. After recording one more album, the band packed up and headed for Detroit, the hometown of Cooper and guitarist Mike Bruce. As the hub of a harder-rocking and more blue-collar music scene, Detroit would logically offer them a better chance. They fit in much better with the MC5 and the Stooges than with the flower and beads California crowd.
The Breakthrough and the Price of Stardom
The big break came when a young Canadian producer named Bob Ezrin took Alice Cooper under his wing and recorded the landmark album Love it to Death which proved to be their commercial breakthrough. The single I’m Eighteen soon became an anthem, and a string of gold and platinum records followed. Their reputation was helped by the same psychology of rebellion that propelled the Rolling Stones six years earlier: The more parents hate it, the more kids will love it. The gory theatrics and the reputation Cooper built up as a pre-Ozzy rock and roll madman broke the bank and their albums sold by the millions while they filled arenas and football stadiums across the country. Urban legends soon circulated, involving Cooper decapitating chickens and drinking buckets of spit, which further perpetuated the band’s perverse mystique and won them even more fans. But in true VH1 Behind the Music fashion, trouble was just around the corner. While all the years of hard work were finally starting to pay off, something was happening with Glen. First, his drinking problem had gotten to the point where an emergency procedure had to be undertaken on his pancreas to save his life. Then his problems with other substances, as well as his deteriorating work ethic, were starting to cause serious problems within the band.
Buxton’s Downfall
In 1973, PBS aired The Louds, the real-life story of a California family which was probably TV’s first reality show. Cameras and film crews were set up around the house, and the family just got used to the fact that they were being filmed all the time, and that their worst moments were the ones that would be presented to the national audience. As a trend, reality shows would not really catch on for another 20 years, but around the same time as The Louds was being broadcast around the country, the Alice Cooper Group became the subject of a reality show in book form. Syndicated journalist Bob Greene was at that time a young columnist for the Chicago Sun Times who intended to make his next project a book about touring with a major rock band. Alice Cooper became that band at the invitation of Shep Gordon. Greene toured with the band as a skit performer, all the time writing about his experience. The result was Billion Dollar Baby. For the first time, fans of Alice Cooper were informed about the good, the bad, and the ugly that existed among the band members. One of the main internal problems was how to deal with Glen. Greene’s memoirs about him were not flattering. His drug and alcohol problems, as well as his disposition in general had taken its toll on both himself and the band. It had gotten to the point where he was constantly late to all band functions, and his playing had deteriorated to the point where he was no longer present at recording sessions, and his amps had to be turned down or completely off at concerts. To keep up appearances, he was still credited as a full band member, but was essentially replaced by studio musicians for recordings, and by touring guitarist Mick Mashbir during concerts. There was talk of replacing Buxton, although for the time being he was kept on. It didn’t matter anyway, because in April of 1974 the original Cooper decided to disband the group, and an agreement was reached that allowed him to go solo and keep his stage name.
Post-Cooper
While Alice Cooper’s success as a solo artist continued unabated, at least for the next few years, the other band members struggled. Bruce, bassist Dennis Dunaway, and drummer Neal Smith formed their own band, minus Glen. They recorded one unsuccessful album. As for Buxton, he went through several jobs, working in factories and on farms while occasionally playing in bands. He ended up living in rural Clarion, Iowa, far away from the rock and roll life he once lived. He liked his adopted hometown, and was apparently in a position where he could live off of his royalties. He did reunite with two of his Smith and Bruce for a one-off show in Houston in 1977, which turned out to be his last public appearance. A little over a week later, his health problems finally got the best of him, and he passed away at age 49 back in Iowa, from complications of Pneumonia. His family and former band mates made every effort to keep his memory alive. For the first few years after his death, they held memorial weekends for him, one of them featuring a reunion of the surviving band members in Phoenix.
In 1972, The Alice Cooper Group appeared on The Beat Club. I don’t know a lot about that show, but their archives have become a popular source for providing footage of classic rock bands from the 60’s and 70’s as they appeared in their prime. Beat Club clips also showed up frequently in the early days of MTV, in a segment known as Closet Classics. Today, thanks to outlets like YouTube, the clips can now be seen by almost anyone at any time. This particular clip shows the band performing I’m Eighteen. As was typical for their live performances of this song, it was stretched out, with the organ intro played by Mike Bruce, and some extended jamming. It appears to me that Buxton was still playing and functioning well when this video was shot, but I’m not good at noticing things like that.
