From 'The Independant" - www.independent.co.uk
Writer - Rober Webb
"HELLO, HURRAY" JUDY COLLINS / ALICE COOPER Alice Cooper's third Top Ten, a hit in 1973, is as strong as a python and as camp as smudged mascara. "Hello, Hurray" was written on a borrowed guitar beside a swimming pool in a house in Laurel Canyon, LA, in 1968. Its composer, Ontario folk singer Rolf Kempf, recalls: "I was there for the lack of anywhere else to go, since my band had broken up and gone back to Canada, and all my belongings had been stolen, including my guitar." Fellow folkie Judy Collins came around, seeking material for her next album. "She really liked 'Hello, Hurray', although it seemed out of character at the time. But she recorded it and did a great job".
It's the life-affirming introduction to her celebrated folk-rock set Who Knows Where The Time Goes?, produced by David Anderle and featuring guest artists James Burton, Stephen Stills and Van Dyke Parks. Collins warbles like a whitethroat through lines later dropped by Cooper: "Hello, hurray, let the lights grow dim, I've been ready/Ready as the rain to fall, just to fall again/Ready as a man to be born, only to be born again".
The song has a spiritual purpose, as Kempf explains: "My inspiration was the concept of self-renewal and re-invention to help me through a frustrating period of my life. And it has helped in more ways than one." Detroit's ophiophilic shock-rocker first heard "Hello, Hurray" through his producer, Bob Ezrin, who met Kempf at a Toronto party. Released as a single, it reached Number Six in the UK and became the opener to Cooper's extravagant stage show. It's the least depraved track on Cooper's glam-dram classic, Billion Dollar Babies. "Roll out, roll out with your American dream and its recruits, I've been ready" taunts a goulish Cooper. "The whole idea behind the album," said Alice at the time, "is to exploit the idea that everyone has sick perversions. But they've got to be American perversions; we're very nationalistic, you know."
Kempf was delighted with Cooper's definitive rendition. "He got the emotional essence of the tune right, and added a tag to bring it home." Kempf included a puissant version of his most famous song, with string arrangement, on his 2002 album Daydreamer.
Robert Webb
"Rolf's tunes wrapped me in a warm reverie and had me swaying on the dance floor..." - RC, 2004
More reviews are on the way
Robert Webb - The Independant..UK (May 15, 2002)