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The Seven Most Outrageous Rock Stars of 1972

Hordes of mascaraed male rockers and battling multi-million dollar managers made 1972 The Year Of The Unbelievable

1972 was the year of unadulterated outrage in rock. It was the year of men in hot pants and lipstick mincing around the stage, baby dolls hacked to bits amid showers of blood, and lawsuits so large they rivaled the Pentagon budget. It was the year of a Cocker comeback that competed with the Howard Hughes affair for intrigue and suspense, a T.Rex tour that rivalled the downfall of Oedipus for tragic disappointment, and a Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young breakup so murky that not even the group itself seemed to know if it was still together. But despite the billowing clouds of stage smoke, the heaps of silver sparkles, and the countless storms of controversy, there were seven rockers so utterly outrageous that they stood out like King Kong marching through a crowd of extras for Planet of the Apes.

Alice's Panties: When it came to being outrageous in 1972, there was no one... but no one... who could compete with Alice Cooper. Oceans of rosy-cheeked, innocent children flocked to American, English and European theaters to see a grown man dressed in torn women's tights and mascara hack off a baby dolls' leg with an axe, lasciviously bite the severed thigh, then toss the bloody memento into the crowd. But while the converted were swarming toward the stage to catch the coldly mangled pieces, their parents were screaming in red hot rage. Life Magazine's middle-aged rock critic, Albert Goldman, bellowed that "the advance publicity for Alice Cooper almost turned my stomach." A disturbed Pittsburgh preacher delivered an impassioned sermon entitled "Can the Church Compete With Alice Cooper — or Boredom as an Enemy of Life." And Mrs. Mary Whitehouse, head of England's "National Viewers' and Listeners' Association," sent a spate of letters to government leaders and the BBC stridently demanding that "School's Out" be expunged from the airwaves before it could trigger "increasing violence in the schools." But as the cries of protest grew shriller, Alice's spectacles grew ever more astonishing. At stadiums in New Jersey and California, helicopters dropped a torrent of paper panties on the crowd while onstage Alice was dragged to the gallows. In England Alice captured headlines for staging "a strip show riot." And in Munich Alice rode into town on... a blandly unsexual elephant!

David Bowie's Super-Sex: If Alice Cooper was the biggest outrage of the year, David Bowie was the harshest, weirdest, and most tantalizing shock. A year ago when the British press gave a series of Bowie interviews full­page coverage, it looked as if David was getting the star treatment not for his music or performing skills, but because he sometimes wore a dress and openly admitted to being gay. But when Bowie stepped onstage in Cleveland, Ohio, ten months later with his gold and black jumpsuit and his blazing carrot-orange hair, then gave an electrifying performance of songs from Ziggy Stardust, it became obvious that he was more than just a man with a gimmick. Newspapers and TV stations began to cover David as if he were 1972's answer to the Beatles. Flamboyant drag queens in plumed hats and multi-colored afros began to storm the stage wherever David played. And David's Ziggy Stardust LP rose to a higher place on the Circus Top Twenty than the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street. By the time Bowie's wife — the girl with the purple-and-red-streaked hair — deserted his tour for England amid rumors that she had nipped rock writer Lillian Roxanne's breast and fondled a fellow female during her husband's Carnegie Hall concert, one thing had become a foregone conclusion. In 1973 David Bowie was going to be the strangest rock monster America had ever seen.

Jagger's Nude Birthday Cake: When Mick Jagger dashed onto the sparkling white stage erected specially for the occasion in New York's enormous Madison Square Garden and began to prance like a high-speed, spastic chorus girl — punching the air, dangling one leg like a broken tree limb, and stretching his arms like glider wings — he brought to a close a 30-city $4,000,000 tour that had probably created more furor than any other musical event in history. Dick Cavett put Jagger on television, Life Magazine gave him a cover, Time worshipped him with a major article and an unprecedented two-page essay complete with color photos, and Boston's mayor interceded personally to bail Jagger and Richard out of a Rhode Island jail after they'd been arrested for brawling with a photographer. But the grand finale came after the last custard pie had been thrown and the last overwhelming encore had been given on the Madison Square Garden stage. At two A.M. that morning, Mick and his wife Bianca strolled through the lushly decorated entrance to New York's exclusive St. Regis Roof and joined a crowd of 500 for Mick's 29th birthday party — a party some said ushered in a new era of social decadence. Zsa Zsa Gabor, Huntington Hartford, Woody Allen, Tennessee Williams, Andy Warhol, and Mrs. Jacob Javits all jostled past table's where expensively dressed unknowns smoked joints, sipped champagne, and snorted cocaine. Count Basie played his piano and Muddy Waters looked on with astonishment as Warhol protege Gerry Miller popped out of a five-foot birthday cake totally nude save for two black pasties and a garter, then spread her legs and wiggled her breasts in Mick's direction. Said an amused Bob Dylan on his way to the bar for another drink, "It's the beginning of cosmic consciousness."

Black Sabbath Kicks Back: The cries of outrage mingled strangely with the roars of adoration as Black Sabbath plowed stalwartly onward with their demon-rousing rock in a new LP (Black Sabbath, Vol. 4), but capped a year of unbelievably frequent last-second concert cancellations with the unkindest cut of all — the announcement that they would utterly abandon playing the United States. When Sabbath returned from the colonies late in the fall with Tony Iommi ill and Ozzy Osbourne looking like a corpse, their manager told a stunned reporter that the group had had it — there would be no more tours of America. A week later, Ozzy Osbourne admitted that the band would be touring the States again after all, perhaps as early as this April. But still it seemed as if the mere threat to stop appearing here was like a kick to the groin of the country that had made them great. On closer inspection, however, it appeared that perhaps Black Sabbath were the ones being kicked around. In 1971, Ozzy Osbourne had returned from a grueling string of four American tours with shattered nerves, a 106 degree temperature, and a throat infection. In the fal1 of 1972, the managers of the Soda Pop Festival in Chandler, Indiana, had failed to provide enough helicopters to carry the group's equipment to the festival site. The band couldn't perform, and the frustrated fans had eventually burned down the stage. And the list of Stateside mishaps goes on and on. Small wonder, then, that a disgusted Ozzy Osbourne finally concluded, "America is the most satanic country in the world."

Grand Funk's Atomic Squabble: One short month into 1972, Grand Funk's super-manager, Terry Knight, called Circus to leak the dramatic suggestion that the three funky ones from Flint, Michigan, might be hanging up their dancing shoes and leaving the concert scene forever. Two weeks later, Knight made another sudden and dramatic phone call to the Circus offices. "Cancel that story," he said in carefully measured tones, "I'm afraid something is happening that is going to make it totally obsolete." What followed was the hottest, most highly publicized, and most expensive series of courtroom battles in the recent history of rock. In a tense press conference attended by all the major wire services and TV networks, Terry announced that the boys had attempted to dismiss him as their personal manager and producer. His voice charged with emotion, Grand Funk's mentor explained his theory that Mark, Don and Mel were mere innocent pawns who had been led down the path to their own destruction by the fast-talking tongue of Paul McCartney's lawyer brother-in-law, John Eastman. But, said Knight, if they fought their way out of Eastman's power, he would welcome Grand Funk back to his fold with warmly opened arms. Yet Mark, Don and Mel never returned to the fold. And less than a week later, Terry started filing over half a dozen lawsuits whose bank-book shaking concussions mounted day by day until they finally totaled over fifty-five million dollars.

Leon Becomes A Saint: When the curtain went up in Philadelphia's Coliseum for one of Leon Russell's first concerts after a year's absence from the American stage, it revealed a lusty, satyr-like Leon leading a troupe of eight musicians and three slinky black songstresses through a sensual, rousing rock orgy Leon had titled "The Leon Russell Rock Carnival." It was obvious that unabashed sexuality was the theme of the new Russell image. Halfway through "Jumping Jack Flash" the lights went up at the back of the stage, casting the silhouettes of two topless dancers onto a huge, translucent screen. As the music pumped furiously to a climax, the dancers slowly unzipped their jeans and lowered them to the floor. But 50 shows and 400,000 fans later, when Leon reached Charlotte, North Carolina, a strange transformation was beginning to take place. Leon had temporarily renamed the show "The Leon Russell Revival" and before the show's end brought former child evangelist Marjoe onstage to say a few words about God. And by the time Leon Russell waddled onstage at New York's Nassau Coliseum bent over as if he was glued to a toilet seat and tapped a cymbal for silence, the whole Russell circus had radically changed. "There was one point in my life when I thought I wanted to stop playing music and become a Pentecostal minister," admitted the silver haired singer, swaying rhythmically on his piano bench, "but I thought it over, so I get up on this stage every night and I come to all the people that I love. I just want you to know that you're not alone in the world. I want you to know about the power of love." In the most outrageous transformation of the year, the shaggy, demonic master of space and time had become a humble messenger of the Lord.

Elton Tricks The Critics: After the slamming he took from the critics in 1971, it was a miracle that mild mannered piano pounder Elton John ever dared to show his head in public again. But show his head he did! First by sending Mad Man Across The Water sizzling to the top of the charts. Then by casting aside his heavy mantle of string accompaniment and revealing the naked music underneath on the number one smash album Honky Chateau. And finally by coming to America for a grueling forty-five date tour that saw Elton ambling onstage in his silver suit with blue and red stripes, playing old and new hits to thunderous ovations, cavorting around in slapstick skits with ex-Bonzo Dog Band member "Legs" Larry Smith, then bringing the house down with his encore of "Hercules." It was an outrageous resurrection for a man the critics said had been killed by "over-hype." But as if that wasn't enough, Elton took time off in mid­tour to fly back home for a small, semi-private performance requested by a lady who had never asked to see a rock performer before in her life. That lady? The Queen of England.

Sleep With Alice In The Nude

Alice Cooper was turned down by the Milk Advisory Board. He/She had wanted to go on national television telling the youth that "Everybody Needs Milk, Even Alice Cooper." The Board decided Alice wasn't right for their image.

Undaunted Alice turned to the Red Cross, who welcomed the rock and roll performer with open arms. One publicity person quickly wrote the slogan: "Everybody Needs Blood, Even Alice Cooper."

But that isn't the end of Alice's exploits. Now in production are Alice Cooper sheets, displaying a full size nude picture of Alice, allowing all Cooper fans to sleep with the star. Also look for Alice on "All In The Family."