Kim Fowley
Kim Vincent Fowley was an American record producer, songwriter, and musician who was behind a string of novelty and cult pop rock singles in the 1960s, and managed the Runaways in the 1970s. He has been described as "one of the most colorful characters in the annals of rock & roll", as well as "a shadowy cult figure well outside the margins of the mainstream".
Early life
Born in Los Angeles, California, Fowley was the son of character actor Douglas Fowley and actress Shelby Payne. His parents later divorced and Payne married William Friml, son of composer Rudolf Friml. Fowley attended University High School.Career
In 1957, he was hospitalized with polio and, on his release, became manager and publicist for local band the Sleepwalkers that included Bruce Johnston, drummer Sandy Nelson and, occasionally, Phil Spector. He spent some time in the armed forces and, by his own account, worked in the sex industry in Los Angeles in the late 1950s. In 1959, he began working in the music industry in various capacities for both Alan Freed and Berry Gordy. His first record as producer was "Charge" by the Renegades, a group comprising Johnston, Nelson, Nik Venet and Richard Podolor. He promoted records for the duo Skip & Flip, including the No. 11 hit "Cherry Pie".1960s
During the early 1960s, Fowley was involved as co-producer/co-publisher with a string of successful records produced in Los Angeles. With Gary S. Paxton he recorded the novelty song "Alley Oop", which reached No. 1 on the charts in 1960 and was credited to the non-existent group the Hollywood Argyles. In 1961 he co-produced the instrumental "Like, Long Hair", arranged by Paxton, which became a No. 38 hit for Paul Revere and the Raiders. He arranged "Nut Rocker" for B. Bumble and the Stingers, which became a No. 1 hit in the UK in 1962 and talent scouted "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow", a No. 48 hit for the Rivingtons. The following year he produced "Popsicles and Icicles" by the Murmaids, which reached No. 3 in the charts in 1963 and which was written by a pre-Bread David Gates, then a session musician and songwriter who had met Fowley while Kim was hitchhiking in Los Angeles.During the mid-1960s, Fowley publicized/consulted singer P.J. Proby and relocated for a time to London, England. Fowley wrote the lyrics for the song "Portobello Road", the B-side of Cat Stevens' first single, "I Love My Dog". He produced a Them spin-off band led by two ex-Them members, brothers Pat and Jackie McAuley ; an early incarnation of Slade known as the N'Betweens; Soft Machine ; and the Lancasters, an instrumental rock group featuring a young Ritchie Blackmore. He worked with an up-and-coming band, the Farinas, and renamed them "Family".
In London around 1967 Fowley collaborated with the Seekers' guitarist/arranger Keith Potger. Together they wrote the lyrics to "Emerald City". Potger has said the song was originally quite unlike the eventual Seekers single, and that he heavily "Seeker-ized" the arrangement before presenting it to the group. The tune was based on the "Ode To Joy" theme from Beethoven's ninth symphony.
Fowley worked on occasion as a recording artist in the 1960s, issuing albums such as Love Is Alive and Well. In 1965, he wrote and produced a song about the psychedelic experience, "The Trip". In 1966 Fowley and Gail Sloatman recorded a spoken word single as "Bunny and Bear". The record is a satire of Sonny and Cher.
With Brian Parker, Fowley co-wrote "Sea of Faces" for UK group, Unit Four Plus Two when he was living in England with P.J. Proby. The group recorded the song but it was never released. Another group, The Ways and Means who were managed by Ron Fairway recorded it and it was released on Pye 7N 17277. It became a minor hit for the band making it to no.39 on the Radio City City Sixty chart for the Sunday 1 to Sunday 8 January 1967 period, and to no. 41 on the Radio Caroline chart on the 21st.
He was credited for "hypophone" on the Mothers of Invention's first album Freak Out! When asked later about this, band leader Frank Zappa said that "The hypophone is his mouth, 'cause all that ever comes out of it is hype." Other singles by Fowley as a recording artist included "Animal Man" from his 1968 album Outrageous; during the song he remarks, "It's too dirty, it'll be banned". All his efforts as a solo artist since 1970 have become cult items, both in reissue and bootleg formats.
In 1968, Fowley joined forces with a young band, St John Green, from Topanga Canyon in California, to produce their only album, which contains songs, musical soundtracks, comedy and dark poetry. The band members were: Ed Bissot, Bill Kirkland, Vic Sabino, Michael 'Papabax' Baxter, and Shelly Scott. The album was engineered by Michael Lloyd. Fowley later claimed it to be "one of the great lost records...Somebody will reissue it someday and people will start crying and jacking off and smoking dope to it. It's a great record. There's only a handful of records that I've made that are great." The album was released by MGM on the Flick Disc label, but the group disbanded soon afterwards.
He is credited with being the inspiration behind promoter John Brower's call to John Lennon that resulted in the last-minute appearance of the Plastic Ono Band at the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival on September 13, 1969, where Fowley was the MC. At this event, Fowley invited the audience to light matches and lighters to welcome a nervous John Lennon to the stage.
In 1969, Fowley produced the album I'm Back and I'm Proud for Gene Vincent. He co-wrote for Warren Zevon's first solo album, Wanted Dead or Alive. Fowley collaborated with his friend Skip Battin during Battin's membership as bassist with the Byrds on a number of songs which appeared on their early 1970's albums: "The Hungry Planet", "You All Look Alike", "Tunnel of Love", "Citizen Kane", "Absolute Happiness", "Precious Kate", and "America's Great National Pastime". The latter song was released as a single in late 1971. When Battin moved on to the New Riders of the Purple Sage in 1974, Fowley and Battin co-wrote five songs for the New Riders: "On the Amazon", "Big Wheels", "Singing Cowboy", "Neon Rose" and "Strangers on a Train".
1970s
In 1970, Fowley moved to Helsinki, Finland, where he worked with the progressive rock band Wigwam, whom he called "The Finnish Beatles." Fowley produced the band's second album Tombstone Valentine, which was released in Finland on the Love Records label. The album was released as a double album in the US by Verve Forecast, with a second LP of extra tracks from the band's previous catalog. According to Fowley, he gave a copy of the LP to David Bowie, who allegedly utilized the production style of the album for his next album. Fowley then moved to Sweden and produced the group Contact's album Nobody Wants to Be Sixteen for Swedish label MNW Records, which landed in the Swedish Top 20. MNW released the Kim Fowley solo LP The Day the Earth Stood Still the same year. Upon returning to Los Angeles, Fowley co-wrote the song "Michoacan" which was recorded by the Sir Douglas Quintet and appeared in the 1972 movie Cisco Pike starring Kris Kristofferson.In 1971, The Byrds recorded three songs for the album Byrdmaniax that were co-written by Byrds member Skip Battin and Kim Fowley. Fowley produced a re-recording of one of these songs, "Citizen Kane," with Battin later in the year. The re-recording featured the rest of the members of The Byrds as sidemen and was used in the soundtrack of the Edie Sedgwick film Ciao! Manhattan. Signpost Records signed Battin to a solo recording contract in 1972, and the Battin/Fowley team co-wrote every song on the resultant solo album Skip Battin.
Fowley produced the Boulder, Colorado-based rock and roll revival act Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids for a television appearance in early 1972. The group signed a contract with Epic Records in September of that year, and Fowley produced their self-titled debut LP for the label at Gold Star Studios in Los Angeles. Fowley also produced three recordings by Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids that were included in the film American Graffiti. These songs were "At the Hop", "She's So Fine" and "Louie Louie". The first two tracks were also featured on the film's soundtrack album.
In May 1972, Fowley was signed to Capitol Records for a long-term solo recording contract. Capitol released Fowley's LP I'm Bad in June of that year. Fowley's follow-up solo LP, International Heroes, was mixed in February and released in March 1973.
While on tour to promote his solo album I'm Bad in the summer of 1972, Fowley met Boston disk jockey Maxanne Satori, who introduced him to a pre-fame Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. Fowley returned to Boston after the completion of the tour and arranged to have engineer Stuart "Dinky" Dawson record a demo with The Modern Lovers in Dawson's home studio. Later in autumn 1973, Fowley worked with the band again, this time recording them in Los Angeles at Gold Star Studios on behalf of Warner Bros. Records. Tracks from these sessions were released as bonus tracks on later issues of The Modern Lovers, the album The Original Modern Lovers, and the Warner Bros. Loss Leaders compilation Troublemakers.
In 1973, Fowley assembled the Hollywood Stars, his first "conceptual band". Musician, songwriter and future Hollywood Stars member, Mark Anthony, was working as Fowley's chauffeur at the time. At one point, Anthony spoke to New York Dolls manager Marty Thau at a party and asked him how the New York Dolls were formed. Thau stated that the members were "a bunch of broke street kids hanging around." Upon hearing this, Fowley decided to create a West Coast answer to the New York Dolls in a similar manner, taking the band name from the minor league baseball team of the same name. Upon assembling the group, Fowley rented a studio in the San Fernando Valley and put the band on a rigorous rehearsal schedule, utilizing songs written by songwriter Mars Bonfire, and by himself and producer/songwriter Peter Lion. The band played an invitation-only concert at Studio Instrument Rentals in Hollywood, which brought a crowd of 380 people, including representatives of the labels Liberty Records, A&M Records and Columbia Records. A&M and Columbia began bidding against each other to sign the band. Columbia signed The Hollywood Stars on March 28, 1974, and Bill Szymczyk was brought in to produce the band's debut album, which was recorded at The Record Plant over the course of 34 days. Early in the recording process, Szymczyk abandoned the project, leaving the engineer to produce the album. Soon afterward, Columbia dismissed The Hollywood Stars' A&R representative in an internal staffing change, decided not to release the album and dropped the group from the label. Despite the band's local popularity, internal tensions and industry stigma from the failure of the Columbia Records deal led to the decision to break up the band. The group played their final performance headlining the Whisky a Go Go on November 10, 1974.
In December 1973, Fowley connected the Hollywood Stars with producer Bob Ezrin, who worked with the band on arrangements for their song "Escape", which was co-written by Fowley and Hollywood Stars member Mark Anthony. Although Ezrin initially passed on working with the band further, he expressed interest in utilizing two of their songs. Just before the band's breakup in 1974, Fowley went back to Bob Ezrin and offered him usage of the two songs. Ezrin then took "Escape" to Alice Cooper, who made changes to the lyrics and included the song on Welcome to My Nightmare. Similarly, Ezrin took "King of the Night Time World" to Kiss, who altered the lyrics slightly and recorded the song for the album Destroyer. Ezrin also asked Fowley to write lyrics for "Do You Love Me?," another song that was recorded for Kiss' Destroyer LP. Fowley worked on the lyrics for the latter song in 1975 while assembling the band The Runaways with Joan Jett.
Fowley produced and wrote songs for the Helen Reddy albums Ear Candy and We'll Sing in the Sunshine. He also co-wrote songs with Leon Russell during this period.
In 1978, Fowley formed the Orchids, another all-female rock band, with Laurie McAllister, the last bassist from The Runaways, and Sandy Fury, a 13-year-old rock prodigy on rhythm guitar and vocals.
In 1979, Fowley signed new artists, such as Tommy Rock, the Popsicles, and the Orchids. Fowley promoted "Kim Fowley Night" featuring these bands at the Whisky a Go Go. Fowley brought Stiv Bators & the Dead Boys, the Popsicles, and the Orchids into Leon Russell's Cherokee Recording Studio in Hollywood to record "LA, LA ". Also in 1979, Fowley produced the five man group Streettalk at Mandrill Studios in Auckland, New Zealand.