Winger
Pull

THE REVIEW

Charles Frederick Winger, known as Kip, is a talented musician native to Colorado, with jazz musician parents who immersed him (lucky him) in music from a tiny embryo. His parents started him on music theory and practice studies at just five years old, so by nine he was already performing in schools with his older brothers, playing the Beatles and later even progressive music.

As a young man, Kip diversified his artistic interests by studying classical guitar and ballet in depth, then he moved to New York to become a professional musician, soon succeeding by relocating to Los Angeles, being hired as a bassist by Alice Cooper. The subsequent meeting with two excellent guitarists like Reb Beach (dazzling and highly technical, later in Dokken and now in Whitesnake) and Paul Taylor (more ordinary, but a great composer, currently a respected soundtrack composer) and with fusion drummer Rod Morgestein (formerly of Dixie Dregs, then Jelly Jam, currently a teaching professor at Berkeley, a demon of precision and taste) gave rise to the Winger project, the band.

The times (late eighties) were those infamously known as Hair Metal, with teased hair, booming and catchy choruses, leggings, and hairy chests. Winger allowed themselves to be guided by their managers and rode the trend of the moment, receiving immediate and plump returns in terms of success and sales. The first two albums entered the charts and MTV rotation, and established Winger within the vast group of classic metal realities capable, at the time, of selling millions of records, similarly to Dokken, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Journey, Cinderella, Bon Jovi, Kiss naturally and then again Poison, Heart, Warrant, Giant, Triumph.

These are two well-played and sung records but perfectly anonymous, today after twenty years entirely superfluous, holding up very poorly over time. But the true and commendable career of Kip Winger begins with what is officially the third album of the band, in reality to be considered as his first solo. It was released in 1993, exactly at the period when the major American record labels were orchestrating a drastic shift towards grunge for nearly all commercial and financial resources dedicated to rock. Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden were in vogue, everything from Seattle turned to gold, the anger, depression, and raw immediacy of late punk took the place of the stallion poses, macho lyrics, and virtuosic barrages of guitar notes that had infested the previous decade. So much better because there is almost nothing of the glossy and narcissistic hard rock of the first two albums in this record, a genre at that point definitively fallen into disgrace after years of revelry.

The guiding instrument of nearly all the tracks is, so to speak, the acoustic guitar, played almost exclusively by Kip himself, in a sober and powerful style, absolutely distant from folk, with the tension and resolve typical of hard rock. The leader's voice becomes dramatic and engaging, his arranging skills make it the protagonist of rich scores, with overdubs and harmonizations often providing a backdrop, in a role usually reserved for keyboards. The lyrics become introspective and even political, one of them ("In For The Kill", beautiful) directly addresses the Gulf War and the true interests that promoted it. It's truly a genuine, inspired, exciting, well-sung record and inevitably well-played since Reb Beach and Morgestein are two real virtuosos and add extra value to everything with instrumental passages covered in class (the band had meanwhile reduced to a trio, doing without Paul Taylor).

Unfortunately, the change of direction, intensity, and quality was not picked up by rock enthusiasts, and the album sold much less than its predecessors. Probably the Winger name was by then tarnished, let's say it that way, by the group's previously constructed image, or perhaps more simply anything done at that time without wearing flannel shirts and without having even a relative from Seattle couldn't in any way be acceptable, and therefore pushed and promoted by the industry leaders.

The right album at the wrong time, then, what a shame. Everything about this album is perfect or nearly so, including the elegant packaging and without the ridiculous Robocop-style Winger logo that infested the previous covers. I therefore warmly recommend this fine specimen, little known and widespread, of American hard rock, intelligent, captivating, and full of talent, pointing out, to conclude, its best features. These are "Down Incognito," beautiful in its being the single, reasonably successful at the time in the USA, then "Junkyard Dog" with its peculiarity of starting electric and ending acoustic, changing skin with incredible coherence and force, then again "The Lucky One" a magnificence with infinite electroacoustic resonances, and also "Like A Ritual" which enjoys a percussive coda where Rod Morgestein and guest Alex Acuna, far from performing solos, do magical things with magnificent, almost tribal sounds. The cherry on the cake, the epilogue "Who's The One," Kip Winger's career masterpiece: two acoustic guitars, percussion, and infinite background voices, for a hard ballad that in my opinion should belong to the memory of any good rock music lover, being among my absolute favorites.

How can a strong and passionate voice and an acoustic guitar played with tension and pathos completely eschew folk atmospheres and insert themselves into heavy rock? Here lies a shining example, worthy of a Led Zeppelin III.