Dick Wagner

During much of the 1970s, guitarist Dick Wagner served among the session musicians regularly enlisted by acclaimed producer Bob Ezrin, supplying both his instrumental performances and, at times, his songwriting contributions to several landmark hard rock albums of the period, among them Lou Reed’s Rock N’ Roll Animal, Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmare, and Kiss’ Destroyer. Originating from the Detroit vicinity, Wagner assembled his initial significant ensemble, the Frost, toward the close of the 1960s; the unit cultivated a strong regional audience across Michigan amid a local scene that simultaneously supported acts such as the Stooges, MC5, Bob Seger, Ted Nugent, and Grand Funk Railroad, ultimately releasing three albums while active: Frost Music and Rock and Roll Music in 1969, followed by Through the Eyes of Love in 1970.

Upon shifting to New York and establishing the group Ursa Major, the musicians connected with Ezrin, who produced their 1972 self-titled album. Although Ursa Major disbanded soon afterward, Ezrin and Wagner developed a lasting rapport that led the producer to summon Wagner, alongside fellow guitarist Steve Hunter, for various projects under his supervision. The pair’s styles integrated fluidly, enabling them to devise interlocking guitar parts that enhanced one another. Ezrin deployed them on Lou Reed’s polarizing 1973 studio album Berlin, a somber concept record tracing two troubled figures whose struggles with drug dependency culminate in domestic violence, sex work, child protective services involvement, and death.

To temper the atmosphere during the subsequent tour, Ezrin helped Reed recruit an exceptional live ensemble featuring both Wagner and Hunter; the duo reworked Reed’s material, including Velvet Underground staples, into expansive arena-rock arrangements documented on the live albums Rock N’ Roll Animal in 1974 and Lou Reed Live in 1975. Wagner and Hunter next joined Alice Cooper’s solo backing band after Cooper’s separation from the original Alice Cooper Band, with Wagner additionally collaborating as a songwriter on the successful 1975 album Welcome to My Nightmare. That release yielded the hit power ballad “Only Women Bleed,” a composition Wagner had written in the late 1960s that later received numerous covers, among them versions by Etta James, Tina Turner, and Lita Ford.

The Wagner-Cooper partnership extended across further mid- to late-1970s releases including Goes to Hell, The Alice Cooper Show, Lace & Whiskey, and From the Inside, while Wagner continued contributing to other artists’ recordings: Aerosmith’s Get Your Wings (on which Wagner and Hunter are said to perform the guitar duel in “Train Kept a Rollin’”), Kiss’ Destroyer, Peter Gabriel’s self-titled solo debut, Hall & Oates’ Along the Red Ledge, Mark Farner’s self-titled solo debut, and two albums by Tim Curry, star of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In 1977 Wagner issued his own self-titled solo album on Atlantic Records.

Wagner rejoined Cooper and Ezrin for the early-1980s albums Zipper Catches Skin in 1982 and Dada in 1983; thereafter he concentrated on songwriting for the remainder of the decade, supplying material to Meat Loaf, Air Supply, and Lee Aaron, as well as an unreleased track recorded by Rod Stewart, and composing the theme “Remember the Child” for the Emmy-nominated PBS program Homecoming, which addressed the enduring effects of child abuse. Additionally, Wagner established Downtown Digital Studios, operated the Wagner Music Group label, and performed locally in Michigan with his own Dick Wagner Band, occasionally reuniting with the Frost for select shows. In 2002 he reissued his long-unavailable 1977 solo debut under the revised title The Atlantic Sessions.

In later life Wagner relocated to Arizona, where he endured serious health setbacks including a heart attack and a stroke that required him to relearn guitar technique; nevertheless he resumed live performances into the 2010s. Following respiratory failure after a cardiac procedure, Dick Wagner died in Scottsdale, Arizona, in July 2014 at age 71.