David Werner, the Whizz Kid of Pittsburgh

The four-album career of David Warner across two albums
for RCA Records and two albums for Epic Records.

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania’s David Werner and New Haven, Connecticut’s future soul-revisionist crooner Michael Bolton were label mates at RCA Records when David, at the age of 17, issued his freshman and sophomore efforts in 1974 and 1975. (Bolton’s, then 22 and under his birth name of Bolotin, were issued in 1975 and 1976.)

Werner got his second spin at the wheels of Fate through a pair of promotional compilation albums issued by his next label, CBS/Epic, which included his new 1979 single, “What’s Right.” (There was a box of the albums tossed into the $1.00 cut-out section of the record store. We all bought one!)

Believing they had something with David Werner (they did: it’s a great, new wave-pop debut): CBS bankrolled a headlining tour. His opening act was an up-and-coming singer on the scene with her debut album, In the Heat of the Night (1979 on Chrysalis Records), featuring a nifty little rocker, “Heartbreaker.” There’s David Werner’s single, “What’s Right,” stalling on the chart in the upper 100s — and his opening act, Pat Benatar, has a song in the U.S “Top 30.”

While his recording contract with Epic Records was over: His career was just beginning.

Werner’s songwriting skills earned him a spot on the top of the charts with Billy Idol’s recording of “Cradle of Love,” on his fourth solo album, Charmed Life (1990). Signed to EMI Records with a publishing deal, David Werner continued to write and produce for other bands, such as successful blues and county music artists Mark Copely and Mary Fahl amid his 100-plus and climbing credits.

Below is the rare video—that I do not recall MTV ever spinning—for “What’s Right,” along with the two singles released from his debut album, Whizz Kid: the title cut and “The Ballad of Trixie Silver.”