On April 17, 2013 Dick Wagner performed his phenomenal electric guitar along with acoustic accompaniment at South Shore Music Company in Weymouth. He performs at Barnes and Noble in Burlington on the 18th, Thursday night, at 7 PM (directly across from the Burlington Mall, off of Route 128/95)
To see the “Maestro of Rock” up close is an amazing experience. Wagner is promoting his book, Not Only Women Bleed, a tour that has taken on a life of its own hitting the Yahoo “trends” at #1 with the revelation of Racquel Welch’s admiration of Alice Cooper. Do a Google or Bing search for more information on that.
Rather than your typical “guitar clinic”, Wagner performs his variety of hits made famous during his work with Alice Cooper – “I Never Cry”, “You And Me”, :Welcome To My Nightmare” and – of course – “Only Women Bleed”, with the Air Supply hit “Just As I Am” as well. Wagner, half of the phenomenal guitar duo of Dick Wagner/Steve Hunter that propelled Lou Reed’s Berlin tour as well as many Alice Cooper tours, put his dexterity on display, Jay LaFond of Haverhill Community Television noting “It’s like being in the room with someone in Jimi Hendrix’s league.” Indeed it was…Wagner speaking frankly about his stroke, heart attack and brain surgery …and the fact that he survived and got his guitar playing back is a true story of musical resurrection.
Dick spoke of his first solo album, Richard Wagner, and how he was being courted by Clive Davis and Arista (which is how Air Supply cut the hit version of the demo Dick sent Clive), but signed with Atlantic as producer Bob Ezrin and Brian Christian were involved (Ezrin setting up the deal with Atlantic.)
Susan Michaelson set up the tour, she’s a friend of Alice Cooper’s who met Dick when she was asked to sing on the From the Inside album by Alice Cooper. Now she’s Wagner’s long-time manager and business partner, and the two have done an amazing job getting the word out about the Wagner biography, Not Only Women Bleed. If this truly compelling lecture/performance comes to your neck of the woods (it’s somewhat like the Ray Davies’ Storyteller or Dictators’ Andy Shernoff similar program) make sure you attend. It’s a once in a lifetime chance to meet a rock legend and hear him perform and sing the music he wrote and played guitar on.
Joe Viglione is the Chief Film Critic at TMRZoo.com. He has written thousands of reviews and biographies for AllMovie.com, Allmusic.com, Gatehouse Media, Al Aronowitz’s The Blacklisted Journal, and a variety of other media outlets. Joe also produces and hosts Visual Radio, a seventeen year old variety show on cable TV which has interviewed Jodie Foster, director/screenwriter David Koepp, Michael Moore, John Cena, comics/actors Margaret Cho, Gilbert Gottfried, Gallagher, musicians Mark Farner and Don Brewer of Grand Funk Railroad, Ian Hunter of Mott The Hoople, Ray Manzarek, John Densmore, Felix Cavaliere of The Rascals, political commentator Bill Press and hundreds of other personalities.
