Whizz Kid:
The Complete Studio Recordings
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.
“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.
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.
I Got This One From
BUTTERBOY COMPILATIONS BLOG ..
Go Check Them Out !!
https://butterboycompilations.blogspot.com/
I Just Made A New Link
TRACKLIST
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CD 1
(Whizz Kid)
One More Wild Guitar
Whizz Kid
The Lady in Waiting
The Ballad of Trixie Silver
It's a Little Bit Sad
Love Is Tragic
Plan 9
Counting the Ways
The Death of Me Yet
A Sleepless Night
CD 2
(Imagination Quota)
Prose
Cold Shivers
Thoughts of You
In and Around You
Talk
When Starlight's Gone
Aggravation Non-Stop
Body and Soul
CD 3
(David Werner)
What's Right
What Do You Need to Love
Melanie Cries
Eye to Eye
Hold On Tight
Every New Romance
Too Late to Try
High Class Blues
She Sent Me Away
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