Kim Fowley

Throughout a lengthy career spanning multiple decades, Kim Fowley emerged as one of rock & roll’s most flamboyant personalities, operating across an array of roles that encompassed singer, songwriter, producer, manager, disc jockey, promoter, and published poet. He also served as a driving force behind much of the pop music that arose from the Los Angeles region in the 1960s and 1970s, steering various associates and protégés toward fame and financial success while he himself lingered as an enigmatic cult figure well beyond the boundaries of mainstream attention.

Born on July 27, 1942, in L.A. to actor Douglas Fowley (who appeared in Singin' in the Rain), Kim Fowley cut his first recordings alongside drummer Sandy Nelson in the late '50s. After brief stints with short-lived ensembles such as the Paradons and the Innocents, he achieved an initial breakthrough by producing the Top 20 hit "Cherry Pie" for schoolmates Gary S. Paxton and Skip Battin, performing as Skip & Flip. Together with Battin he next assembled the Hollywood Argyles, whose novelty smash "Alley Oop" reached the top of the charts in 1960. The pair went on to oversee Paul Revere & the Raiders’ first hit, "Like Long Hair," and in 1962 contributed to the launch of the Rivingtons with the classic "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow." Another novelty success, B. Bumble & the Stingers’ "Nut Rocker," hit number one in the U.K. (later covered by Emerson, Lake & Palmer); in 1964 Fowley also took on promotional duties for singer P.J. Proby and produced the girl group smash "Popsicles and Icicles" by the Murmaids.

During the mid-'60s Fowley immersed himself in the Los Angeles counterculture, forming friendships with Frank Zappa and his band the Mothers of Invention and later contributing to their Freak Out! LP. A highly productive songwriter, he penned material recorded by the Byrds, Cat Stevens, Them, and Kiss while also producing artists including Gene Vincent, Warren Zevon, Soft Machine, and Helen Reddy. In 1967 he released his own solo debut, Love Is Alive and Well, an album that placed him squarely within the flower power movement. (Fowley further asserted that he had organized the first "love-in" in Los Angeles.) Additional solo releases followed, among them 1968’s aptly named Outrageous, 1970’s The Day the Earth Stood Still, and 1973’s International Heroes, although none matched the commercial impact of many projects he guided for others.

After finishing the LP Animal God of the Streets in 1975, Fowley resumed his Svengali function by forming the notorious Runaways, a teenage hard rock girl group that included a young Joan Jett, Lita Ford, and Cherie Currie. Conceived as a blend of manufactured novelty and an attempt at female rock & roll supremacy, the band sold modestly during its initial run yet exerted enormous influence; once the original lineup disbanded, Fowley even assembled a subsequent version of the Runaways in the '80s. (He likewise originated another girl group, the Orchids, along with the Hollywood Stars, envisioned as the L.A. counterpart to the New York Dolls.) He exerted considerable influence in the early Los Angeles punk scene, creating yet another fabricated act, Venus and the Razorblades, and organizing "New Wave Nights" at Hollywood venues, one of which yielded the Germs’ early live album Germicide.

Fowley’s prominence within the musical world diminished across the ensuing decades, yet he never fully disappeared; in later years he collaborated with artists such as Ariel Pink and BMX Bandits. He persisted in recording for his small but devoted following, notably with 1980’s Hollywood Confidential, 1993’s Hotel Insomnia, and 1995’s Kings of Saturday Night (a joint effort with Ben Vaughn), in addition to two albums featuring a changing roster of Detroit-based musicians, Michigan Babylon and Detroit Invasion. Fowley also teamed with Norton Records to issue multiple compilations of rarities from his catalog, while their associated publishing imprint Kicks Books released a volume of his writings, Lord of Garbage. On January 15, 2015, Fowley died in West Hollywood, California, following a struggle with bladder cancer; he was 75 years old.