Richard Wagner - Selftitled (1978)

(U.S 1964 - 2014)

Chances are that you’re familiar with guitarist and songwriter Richard 'Dick' Wagner’s talents even if you don’t recognize his name. As frontman for the mid-to-late 1960s Motor City hard rock outfit 'Frost', Wagner was a contemporary of such legends as the MC5, the Stooges, Bob Seger, and Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes. After Frost had run its course, Wagner formed the power trio Ursa Major (with former Amboy Dukes bassist Greg Arama). That band’s lone Bob Ezrin-produced their 1972 magnum opus, a magnificent beast of shimmering, buzzing guitarwork, explosive rhythms, and Wagner’s wordy, Dylan like lyrics; but went absolutely nowhere on the charts.

Although Ursa Major’s self-titled LP flopped and the band broke-up, Wagner developed a friendship with their young producer and Ezrin – fresh off a hit with Alice Cooper’s 'School’s Out' album. Ezrin would eventually use Wagner as his secret weapon in the studio. The guitarist would record and tour with Cooper throughout his initial solo years and well into the 1980s, writing hits like “Only Women Bleed” and “I Never Cry.”

Ezrin then partnered Wagner and fellow Detroit guitarist Steve Hunter with Lou Reed, the pair bringing lightning to Reed's 'Berlin' and thunder to the live 'Rock N’ Roll Animal'albums. Wagner would later play on sessions (and hits) by Etta James, Peter Gabriel, Hall & Oates, and Kiss (playing acoustic guitar on “Beth”). It was the dueling guitars of Wagner and Hunter that set fire to Aerosmith’s “Train Kept A-Rollin’,” from the band’s 'Get Your Wings'.

Solo Debut Album
Given their friendship and strong working relationship, it was therefore only natural that Ezrin would produce Wagner’s 1978 solo debut album. Both men pulled names from their extensive artist connections, lining up a talented studio band for the project that included guitarists Steve Hunter and Domenic Trioano (from the James Gang); bassists Prakash John (Parliament/Funkadelic) and Bob Babbitt; and drummers Whitey Glan and Allan Schwartzberg. Considering Wagner’s hard rock credentials, his solo debut comes across – at first spin – as a relatively lightweight affair; kind of like a boxer dropping pounds to punch down in a lower weight class. That doesn’t make it a bad album, just an unexpected cruiserweight effort, with a greater reliance on melody and songcraft than previous, which would serve Wagner’s songwriting efforts well in the future.

Dick Wagner (Alice Cooper Tour)

The album opens with a cover of Andy Pratt’s elegant “Some Things Go On Forever,” a piano-driven ballad that manages to channel a bit of the old Ursa Major magic nonetheless with intertwined guitars and beefy rhythms. “Don’t Stop The Music” is a similar construct, albeit a Wagner original, and it treads awfully close to Gary Wright's “Dreamweaver” turf with a chiffon arrangement, ethereal instrumentation, floating vocals, and Ernie Watt’s wired jazz-funk sax solo playing off of Wagner’s soulful fretwork. The song itself is an ode to rock ‘n’ roll and the DJs playing it on the radio, lyrically concealing a deceptive romantic undercurrent.

Don't forget ya guitar Richard

“Nightwork” echoes Wagner’s late-career return to the blues, the song a hard-luck tale turned smooth R&B romp with sultry backing vocals and subtle horn flourishes. It’s Wagner’s fluid guitarplay that stands out, though, driving the performance into a more soulful corner, the guitarist mixing scraps of Ernie Isley, George Benson, and Sly Stone in creating his own bluesy, funky contemporary edge. By contrast, “Heartlands” comes across as a country-flavored symphony with acoustic string plucking and a folkish lyrical slant with Wagner’s plaintive vocals up front and high in the mix, wearing his sentiment on his sleeve before the entire band kicks in and swerves the entire affair into the melancholy-tinged “Oceans.”

With a little louder guitars and a tougher arrangement, I could easily see “Oceans” as an Ursa Major jam. It’s more nuanced here, though, with swelling, lush instrumentation; obligatory whale cries in the background (it was the late 1970s, after all…); and some prog-rock styled playing that wouldn’t sound out-of-place on a Pink Floyd album. “Go Down Together” is the album’s foot-stomper, Wagner’s opening solo knocking down anything Ted Nugent tried to do during the decade. An up-tempo six-string rocker with honky-tonk piano, strident rhythms, and sizzling fretwork, it’s one of Wagner’s finest rock ‘n’ roll moments with a great storyline and an overall vibe that could have made it a big hit if FM radio hadn’t gone all wussy and corporate by ’78.

Swerving the listener once again, “Small Town Boy” is nifty slice of pop-rock fluff with island rhythms similar to those of Pablo Cruise and is probably the most radio-friendly tune on the album. Wagner takes his cue from Nashville with the country-rock tune “Hand Me Down Heartaches,” a lovely melody surrounding finely-crafted lyrics and backed by the slightest of twangy instrumentation that works mostly because of Wagner’s earnest, emotionally-charged vocals.

Wagner closes his solo debut with the grandiloquent “Motor City Showdown,” a street-savvy medium-tempo soft-rocker just a step away from Jim Steinman with its swells of orchestration surrounding and coddling Wagner’s oblique ‘Sharks vs. Jets’ story-song lyrics. It’s a strange but effective song to end the album with, veering dangerously close to the prog-rock edge in its ambition but with an undeniable singer/songwriter veneer lying close to the surface. It’s a gorgeous performance, and the musicians imbue it with a sort of majesty and grandeur that’s out-of-sync with contemporary rock sounds (circa 1978). Appropriately, Wagner’s searing guitar solo on his trusty Mockingbird guitar is threaded through the outro, ending the album with a quiet dignity.

CD Reissue cover with name change

Unfortunately, the album sold poorly in spite of the guitarist’s reputation – probably due to Atlantic Records’ enormous blunder of naming the disc Richard Wagner (rather than Dick Wagner, the name by which he performed), which allegedly confused record stores into stocking it in the classical music section with Richard Wagner, the German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor, best known for his operas. With the albums reissue on CD in 2014, Real Gone Music has corrected this mistake and re-titled the album 'Dick Wagner'.

Decidedly less blustery than much of Wagner’s earlier band work, his never less than stellar guitar playing provides the steely muscle rippling beneath the surface of many of the album’s songs. Dick Wagner is definitely an album of its time, and yet also curiously out-of-step with late ‘70s trends in rock music, which just further spotlights Wagner’s unique vision and talents. If you’re not expecting the second coming of Frost or a sequel to Rock N Roll Animal, you’ll find a lot to like among the lofty pop-rock tunes to be found on Dick Wagner. [extract from The Reverend's Rock 'n' Roll Archives]

This post consists of FLACs freshly ripped from my near mint vinyl (purchased from Reading Records in Carlton, Melbourne back in the late 70's) and includes full album artwork for both CD and vinyl, and label scans.  Although I enjoy listening to this album, I have always compared it to Dick's co-guitarist Steve Hunter's solo album 'Swept Away', released the year before (see my post), which I actually enjoy listening to more. Interestingly enough Hunter plays rhythm guitar on Wagner's album however Wagner didn't play on Hunter's album, although Bob Ezrin did, playing keyboards. Go figure.

Track Listing:

A1 Some Things Go On Forever*   3:37

A2 Don't Stop The Music 5:44

A3 Nightwork 4:34

A4 Heartlands 1:38

A5 Oceans 5:30

B1 Go Down Together 4:07

B2 Small Town Boy 4:21

B3 Hand Me Down Heartaches 5:11

B4 Motor City Showdown 6:19

All tracks written by Richard Wagner except *Andy Pratt

Band Credits:

Backing Vocals – Brooks Hunnicutt, Laurel Massé, Lisa Roberts, 

Bass – Bob Babbitt, Prakash John

Drums – Allan Schwartzberg, Whitey Glan

Guitar – Domenic Troiano, Steve Hunter

Keyboards – Bob Ezrin, Dave Tyson*, Fred Mandel, Paul Griffin, Phil Aaberg*

Lead Vocals, Guitar, Soloist [All Guitar Solos], Backing Vocals – Richard Wagner*

Percussion – Jim Maelen*

Modern Folk Quartet*, Tony Kosinec

Saxophone [solo] – Ernie Watts (tracks: A2)

Producer, Engineer, Mixed By [Remix] – Bob Ezrin & Brian Christian

Orchestrations – Allan Macmillan, Bob Ezrin

Richard Wagner Link (214Mb)