Usually I don't get too excited when a name from rock n' roll's past announces the release of a new album. However, as I was driving to work flipping through the FM stations, I stopped when I heard the familiar guitar solo to Alice Cooper's "Eighteen" on one of Phoenix's classic rock stations. After the song finished, KSLX 's morning jock Mike Mayfield came on the air with his studio guest and fellow rock-jock Alice Cooper (Cooper recently moved from broadcasting his syndicated late night radio show to KSLX from another FM station).

Mayfield immediately asked Alice about the next record that he was currently recording. Cooper broke the news that they are putting the finishing touches on Welcome To My Nightmare II which features the original Nightmare guitar duo of Steve Hunter and Dick Wagner, for which Coop passed on a quote from Steven Tyler calling Hunter/Wagner the best American guitar duo ever. The new concept album will be produced by the legendary Bob Ezrin, who worked with Cooper on the first Welcome to My Nightmare as well as other albums from the Alice Cooper Band before Alice had gone solo.

Now, despite my cynicism, usually I am wrong about new albums by artists decades past their prime. Cheap Trick's Rockford from 2006 was a solid effort while both Ray Davies and Elvis Costello both released great records within the last few years.

However this morning there was not a cynical bone in my body. I started getting chills hearing Cooper talk about the first time he had worked with Bob Ezrin on the Love It To Death album in 1971 and how much he meant to the original Welcome To My Nightmare album. Cooper is one of those true personable rock personalities that can recall almost every detail of any given moment from decades ago. He is a great storyteller whose voice and words as compelling and it's a shame that younger musicians aren't able to translate the meanings behind their music in interviews the same way Alice Cooper can. He went on to say that there are several passages in the new album that link back to the 1975 original.

As an Alice Cooper fan, I am truly excited about the second coming of one of my favorite records growing up as a kid.