Before They Were Famous — Who Am I?

Okay ... here we go. The guy in the picture became a rock star and had 11 Top  40 Hits.  Our "Before They Were Famous" guy even played a concert at the Lake Charles Civic Center back when.

Who is he?

When I first saw the picture I thought he looked a lot like Gary Lewis ("This Diamond Ring," "Everybody Loves a Clown" and 10 other hits) -- at left is a picture of Gary wearing the same style coat as our Mystery guy...

But it's not Gary Lewis ...

It's THIS guy:

Yep ... It's the one and only Alice Cooper!

The band did play a concert in Lake Charles around 1975 or so. I didn't get to go because I was working the 6 to midnight shift at KLOU. I know Ron Riley and Michael G. Adams went. I asked them how the show was and they said, "Loud".

Here's a bit of background from Wikipedia:

Alice Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier; February 4, 1948) is an American rock singer, songwriter and musician whose career spans more than four decades. With a stage show that features guillotines, electric chairs, fake blood, boa constrictors and baby dolls, Cooper has drawn equally from horror movies, vaudeville and garage rock to pioneer a grandly theatrical and violent brand of heavy metal designed to shock.

Alice Cooper was originally a band consisting of Furnier on vocals and harmonica, lead guitarist Glen Buxton, Michael Bruce on rhythm guitar, Dennis Dunaway on bass guitar and drummer Neal Smith. The original Alice Cooper band broke into the international music mainstream with the 1971 hit "I'm Eighteen" from the album Love It to Death, which was followed by the even bigger single "School's Out" in 1972. The band reached their commercial peak with the 1973 album Billion Dollar Babies.

Alice Cooper is known for his social and witty persona offstage; The Rolling Stone Album Guide has called him the world's most "beloved heavy metal entertainer". Cooper is credited with helping to shape the sound and look of heavy metal, and he is regarded as being the artist who "first introduced horror imagery to rock'n'roll, and whose stagecraft and showmanship have permanently transformed the genre". Away from music, Cooper is a film actor, a golfing celebrity, a restaurateur and, since 2004, a popular radio DJ with his classic rock show Nights with Alice Cooper.

In 2011 the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.