David Werner - Whizz Kid: The Complete Studio Recordings [2023] (3 x CDs)

 

DAVID WERNER

David Werner - Whizz Kid: The Complete Studio Recordings [2023] (3 x CDs)

David Werner is an American rock singer, songwriter, and guitarist from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Werner released two albums on RCA Victor in the mid-1970s before signing with Epic Records later in the decade. His full-length, self-titled album, released in 1979, reached #65 on the Billboard 200 on the strength of the single "What's Right", which reached #104 on the Billboard pop chart in October of that year.

His best known composition is the song "Cradle of Love" which was recorded by Billy Idol on his 1990 album Charmed Life and released on the soundtrack to the 1990 film The Adventures of Ford Fairlane.

None of his albums have ever been officially released on CD. His complete studio recordings featured here are spread across three albums: Whizz Kid (1974), Imagination Quota (1975) and David Werner (1979) and have been meticulously transferred from vinyl and digitally edited in Audacity with precise separation of tracks in superior sound quality. Billy Idol's "Cradle of Love" has been added as a bonus track to David Werner's last and final album released in 1979.

“Whizz Kid” was certainly an apt name for the debut album of Pittsburgh’s David Werner, then a lad of 17, when he had signed to RCA Records in the early 70s. His first album of 1974 was an accomplished, yet tentative affair of a young man besotted with Rock enough to write songs about that very topic with nary a trace of irony. Pivotal to Werner’s musical career was finding the right creative foil on lead guitar with a head for arrangements. Mark Doyle was that man. By the time his RCA-signed band, Jukin Bone were a spent force, Werner’s A+R man, suggested he partner with Doyle; leading to a fruitful teaming that lasted through all three of Werner’s studio albums.

As one could tell from the platform shoes on the cover, this album slotted into the nascent Glam Rock of the day. One suspected that RCA was gambling that Werner might turn out to be an American counterpart of David Bowie, who was paying handsome dividends for their investment already by that time.

Certainly in Doyle he had a sideman who was comparable to the key role that Mick Ronson had played in Bowie’s rise. In a move that might surprise no one, Werner found a music niche of sorts, in the American city that was the first to clasp the likes of David Bowie and Roxy Music to their collective bosom. Thanks to famed WMMS-FM DJ Kid Leo, it was Cleveland where teenagers grooved to David Werner’s rococo sound as if he were actually British.

The rest of America was probably too busy in 1974 following the hi-jinx of Alice Cooper to worry too much about the ornate song stylings of a precocious teen with a hot guitarist in tow, so “Whizz Kid” was ultimately destined for the cutout bins and had slipped through the digital era almost completely unnoticed. You can buy the title track on a glam rock compilation on iTunes right now, but that’s the extent of it. Until now.

The album kicked off with a bit of Bowie-esque meta-Rock in “One More Wild Guitar,” with a guitar tone that would be familiar to any fans of the first Metro album, which actually came two years down the line. Mark Doyle’s playing and effects were very close to the target that Duncan Browne hit on that 1976 album. This was definitely 70s Rock just at the peak flowering of Glam. The teenaged Werner (allegedly 17 at the time) took on the same (self) creation myth theme that Bowie had used for “Ziggy Stardust” and Doyle revealed that he was very possibly an equal match for Mick Ronson’s guitar playing and arrangements. Werner being not yet drinking age, he sounded pretty fey on the vocals as he was still a lad.

The rambunctious title track (which was a single) was actually every inch a missing cut from “Ziggy Stardust!” Seriously, you could slot this into the flow between “Star” and “Hang on to Yourself” and no one would bat an eyelash. In fact, cut “Star” and substitute “Whizz Kid,” and do yourself a favor. Doyle nailed the Ronson tone to the wall, here. I can certainly understand how this album turned heads on Cleveland radio on its release.

“The Lady in Waiting” is a big change of pace with some Olde English Folk music in the program of rock because it was 1974. Things like that were just done. Doyle’s string arrangements were the only other accompaniment here and he’s got as much talent as Ronson had in that regard.

“The Ballad of Trixie Silver” was a textbook slice of Glam Rock storytelling that stretched out to the six minute park, as one did back in those days. The last two minutes of the song were Doyle taking plenty of time for hot solos. Side one ended with a brief, delicate acoustic ballad of some sensitivity.

“Love Is Tragic” was another Glam Rocker with an urgent undercurrent taking it from the baroque to the street level. This was moving into a similar space as early Be Bop Deluxe and other bands like Metro. Lots of groups, and David Werner himself, were trying to design the craft to carry them out of the Glam Rock marina they’d launched from into uncharted waters of their own design. Every band starts in a place defined by their influences. If we were to travel a bit further out of this Post-Glam bubble, we might be finding a band like Tiger Lily, soon to emerge as Ultravox! after exposure to the Krautrock mutation. Of course, none of that German exotica is lurking around here on this album.

This was simply well played, well arranged Rock music of the period with an earnest quality and the promise of better things to come from David Werner, who wrote these songs as a teen. They’re competent, and even fun, but it’s a debut album. The work is derivative. Without David Bowie, it may have not even existed, though ballads like “The Lady In Waiting” showed that The Thin White One was far from lurking behind each of these tunes. Even so, the leap forward in the maturity of writing that “Imagination Quota” showed the next year told any fans who had bought into David Werner that they were at least going to get a good ride for their money.

David Werner had been signed as a teen to RCA who were trolling around for maybe another Bowie, since the first one was doing well for the company. But the “Whizz Kid” album landed with a thump; apart from niche success in the singer’s native Pittsburgh and other, idiosyncratic markets like the Cleveland one, where many acts that couldn’t quite make a splash (Roxy, Bowie - at least initially, Cockney Rebel, etc.) manage to do quite well thanks to the power of local taste makers.

David Werner was a young whelp of 17 signed to RCA Records in 1974 with a debut album that was destined for the cutout bins in spite of its accomplishments for one so young. The numerous copies were at least still out in the world for curious ears to discover. Unfortunately, copies of his sophomore album didn’t have such “good luck.” After “Whizz Kid” became a legendary cutout, RCA had gotten cold feet by the time of album #2 and copies of “Imagination Quota” were mighty thin on the ground at any price.

More’s the pity since the quantum leap in songwriting sophistication on “Imagination Quota” showed that the lad really had grown in the subsequent year. “Whizz Kid” had no shortage of great playing and arrangements, but the songs were the work of a still developing writer just emerging from his chrysalis. This time out, Werner ’s writing met the talent of his sideman Mark Doyle on equal footing.

The arrangements used a wider, more sophisticated palette incorporating synthesizers and more sax as well as string arrangements by vet Jimmie Haskell. The title track got things off to a lush start with a song that was richly produced and filled with admirable hooks. The ARP synth that Doyle played really moved the needle on from the late model Glam Rock of the debut album. The middle eight revealed a band who could have been the US peers of Be Bop Deluxe. Yes, they were that good.

In “Cold Shivers” Werner managed to craft the sort of meta-song about rock music that played out as callow in the guise of “Another Wild Guitar” on “Whizz Kid.” This time, however, he managed to write evocatively about the continuum that existed between rock music, its stars, and the fans like himself. It revealed a thematic maturity that had blossomed considerably since the debut. This was the track wisely picked for single status. But hit status was not to be, in spite of the song’s considerable (and mainstream, for what it was worth) charms.

The music this time was staking out a claim in that no-man’s land of Post-Glam/Pre-Punk music that was occupying a space similar to the one that Metro occupied on their debut the next year. The earlier allusion to Be Bop Deluxe showed that this was vital mid-70s rock music that was aiming for the future just outside of its complete grasp, but doing so with aplomb.

The witty “In and Around You” revealed a touch of Reggae far in advance of most Rockers in the 1975 environment, and the use of a rhythm box along with

the marimba and steel drums on that song was another far- sighted outlier showing that the duo of Werner and Doyle were carving their own niche in the Rock scene of the time without regard to any prevailing trends.

Most albums probably have a song that exists as an outlier to the next album, and here it was “Aggravation Non-Stop,” a fast paced rocker that pointed to the more aggressive sound of the third album to come in 1979, though here the music had a decidedly retro 50s Rock & Roll bent that was more subdued four years hence.

The closer of “Body and Soul” showed that more than Bowie was in the air. This one played like an early period Steely Dan deep cut with the session players like Peter Escovedo on congas giving it that level of sophistication. This album didn’t seem like the work of a kid under 20. The lyrics and arrangements by Werner and Doyle upped the ante on their second time out.

“Imagination Quota” managed to lose most of the Bowie/Ronson influence that was both the lure and limitation of “Whizz Kid,” while replacing that foundation with a less derivative program of more accomplished songs that weren’t interested in taking a back seat to anyone.

In 1979 following his two RCA records by a four year gap, David Werner began writing new material that was really clicking at a higher level than ever before. He called up his guitarist Mark Doyle and the two began recording demos that caught the ear of Epic Records, leading to his third album and this time there was a song on it that radio immediately took a shining to.

That’s because “What’s Right” was a streetwise, late model Glam Rock classic. Every lick of the tune was surgically perfected to deliver the essence of urban street cool while delivered in a breathtaking T-Rex-gone-dub chassis. Sure enough, the tune was effectively built on the sturdy “Get It On (Bang a Gong)” guitar riff, as played with aplomb by fellow Pittsburgh denizen Mark Doyle (who doubled on bass), but the solid boogie of Bolan was swapped here for touches of dubspace, with the mix dropping out after the chorus for the spotlight on those taut, muscular, echoey guitar riffs that feel so right in their Glam Rock swagger.

It should be mentioned that the album was co-produced (along with Werner and Doyle), recorded and mixed by Power Station Wunderkind Bob Clearmountain at the height of his early powers, and also features personal icon Ian Hunter leaving his touches (mix and vocals) on two tracks, so definitely this pushes all of the late 70s Rock buttons. It sounds perfect. All of Rock wishes it had half the chops of this music casually dropped.

The “David Werner” album was altogether a visceral and direct album of high energy rock filled with hooks and a much more direct kind of music than he had previously recorded. “What Do You Need to Love” was practically a blueprint for the “Jack and Diane” vibe that would break John “Cougar” Mellencamp three years later; albeit with better songs and playing!

“Every New Romance” opened with the kind of space disco synth riffage (albeit in a rock context) that perhaps was a callback to Sweet’s “Fox on the Run” that played out for over a minute before coalescing into a mid-tempo rocker. It was the one track on the album mixed by guest star Ian Hunter instead of Clearmountain.

The one odd song out here was “High Class Blues” as a duet with Ian Hunter and very much a sloppy blues number that had no real place in this tight, taut, program of Power Pop and Rock. But when a Bowie casualty like Werner gets a chance to jam with Ian Hunter, he takes it, so that’s understandable.

Alas, this was it for David Werner. He finally had the right album at the right time for the radio market. “What’s Right” was a top add at the stations that mattered, but to hear Werner talk of it, Epic Records had just embarked on a “no-return” policy to distributors for their releases at just the time that his album was released and turning heads in radio. The distributors balked at buying unproven product and were effectively in a war with the label at exactly the time that “David Werner” shipped, and the right album, with the right tunes and production happened at precisely the wrong time. Due solely to the behind the scenes posturing that was going down in 1979.

Following this album, David Werner found that he was able to eke out a successful career as a staff songwriter and producer instead of as a performer. He struck Platinum in 1990 by co-writing “Cradle of Love,” with Billy Idol.

"Cradle of Love" became Idol's last top-10 hit in the United States, where it reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also Idol's first and only No. 1 hit on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Tracks chart.

I hope you enjoy these rare and hard to find recordings, and for the very first time compiled in one complete collection.

K

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Track lists

CD1 Whizz Kid (1974)

01 David Werner - One More Wild Guitar 3:32

02 David Werner - Whizz Kid 3:34

03 David Werner - The Lady in Waiting 3:54

04 David Werner - The Ballad of Trixie Silver 6:00

05 David Werner - It's a Little Bit Sad 2:48

06 David Werner - Love Is Tragic 4:36

07 David Werner - Plan 9 1:08

08 David Werner - Counting the Ways 4:45

09 David Werner - The Death of Me Yet 3:38

10 David Werner - A Sleepless Night 4:38

CD2 Imagination Quota (1975)

01 David Werner - Imagination Quota 4:09

02 David Werner - Prose 2:24

03 David Werner - Cold Shivers 4:17

04 David Werner - Thoughts of You 3:44

05 David Werner - In and Around You 3:56

06 David Werner - Talk 5:14

07 David Werner - When Starlight's Gone 3:18

08 David Werner - Aggravation Non-Stop 3:18

09 David Werner - Body and Soul 6:07

CD3 David Werner (1979)

01 David Werner - Can't Imagine 3:39

02 David Werner - What's Right 3:44

03 David Werner - What Do You Need to Love 4:07

04 David Werner - Melanie Cries 4:51

05 David Werner - Eye to Eye 4:57

06 David Werner - Hold On Tight 4:17

07 David Werner - Every New Romance 5:38

08 David Werner - Too Late to Try 2:42

09 David Werner - High Class Blues 4:09

10 David Werner - She Sent Me Away 4:31

11 Billy Idol - Cradle of Love (Bonus Track) 4:41

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