Medium Rare Interviews

When it came exploding out of the dashboard radio in May 1972, "School's Out" by Alice Cooper was louder, brasher, with more swagger than anything we'd ever heard on the Top 40. But with the Woodstock Generation inheriting a world of endless Viet Nam War escalation, Richard Nixon landslide re-election, while astronauts golfed on the moon, "School's Out" ominously was a sobering reality check for millions as well. Alice Cooper is my guest In the Studio on the golden anniversary.

The all-important transitional second ZZ Top album, "Rio Grande Mud", will focus on the all-around improvements in recording quality and songwriting reflected in such perennials as "Francene", "Just Got Paid", "Sure Got Cold After the Rain Fell", and the introduction of "the squank" to guitar vernacular on "KoKo Blue". Squankmaster Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard, and the dearly missed Dusty Hill tell the colorful tales of the earliest days of ZZ Top here In the Studio for "Rio Grande Mud" and the breakthrough third album, "Tres Hombres".

"So Happy It Hurts" is the Canadian rocker's fifteenth (!) studio album, and he's not even old enough to get the Early Bird Special down at Denny's. Adams became a star way back in late 1984 with "Reckless", one of the Eighties' biggest sellers, then in 1991 absolutely crushed it with "Waking Up the Neighbours", an all-time biggest selling album in history. Bryan Adams' seventh studio album, "18 'Til I Die" , was a #1 seller in the UK and Top Five sales internationally. But when  "18 'Til I Die" came out in June 1996, US rock radio programmers decided, in spite of the music actually on the album to the contrary, to brand Bryan Adams a love song balladeer, not rock enough, not alternative enough, not cool enough. Adams finally addresses the issue with tongue firmly in cheek on the song "Kick Ass" from "So Happy It Hurts" with the help of the brilliant British pillar of Python humor, John Cleese, who has been skewering pompous pundits for half a century. Also listen to the infectious "Never Gonna Rain Again" which could be Bryan Adams' next big hit.

Not since "Aqualung" fully half a century ago had Ian Anderson addressed the historic  characters and iconography of the Old and New Testament Bible this head on, mixed with twentieth century and even current events, as on "The Zealot Gene" by Jethro Tull. Ian Anderson is my guest here In the Studio.

In January 1967 when John Densmore's snare drum cracked like a rifle shot before Ray Manzarek's nimble fingers made their intricate run of baroque-sounding notes on that reedy Farfisa organ, all on the introduction to jazz/flamenco guitarist Robbie Krieger's composition "Light My Fire", it clearly and boldly announced a unique approach to rock and roll that really has no peer. And all of that before Jim Morrison stepped up to the microphone to introduce one of the greatest voices and hedonistic personalities in rock history. Not unlike Creedence Clearwater Revival from the same period, no other American bands put out more albums in less time which were more influential in the last 50+ years. And like CCR, no one ever sounded like The Doors ever since. Here is Doors co-founder the late Ray Manzarek with me In the Studio to mark The Doors anniversary. -Redbeard