Kim Fowley

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Kim Fowley (born July 21, 1939) is an American record producer, impresario, songwriter and sometime recording artist. The son of Hollywood character actor Douglas Fowley (Singin' in the Rain), Kim's scattergun career in the music industry has been as varied and eccentric as it has been long. He has generally remained on the fringes of the mainstream industry, free to immerse himself in obscure and offbeat projects while occasionally stumbling on (and then happily milking) commercial success. Of all his ventures, he is perhaps best known for being behind a string of novelty and/or cult rock 45s during the 1960s, for conceiving and managing all-girl punk group The Runaways in the 1970s — whence came Joan Jett and Lita Ford, among others — and, perhaps surprisingly, for working as a producer and songwriter with Helen Reddy in the late 1970s, including her album Ear Candy.

During the 1960s in Los Angeles, Fowley produced and/or wrote hundreds of recordings with a wide range of acts and in a remarakably broad spectrum of styles - from bubblegum novelty rockers to girl group ditties, from folk and country to acid rock. While many attained a cult status over time, only a few achieved mainstream commercial success. His three biggest hits - all as producer - were "Alley Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles (a US #1 in 1960); "Nut Rocker" by B. Bumble and the Stingers (a UK #1 in 1962); and "Popsicles and Icicles" by The Murmaids, a US #3 in 1963. The latter was written by a pre-Bread David Gates, then a jobbing musician and songwriter who had met Fowley while hitch-hiking in LA.

During the mid-60s Fowley relocated for a time to London where he worked and recorded with a surprising number of then-unknown acts who went on to become famous: Cat Stevens (Fowley co-wrote "Portobello Road", the B-side of Stevens' first single); an early incarnation of Slade known as the N'Betweens; Soft Machine (he produced their first single); and the Lancasters, an instrumental rock group featuring a young Ritchie Blackmore. He also helped Napoleon XIV record the 1966 novelty record "They're Coming to Take Me Away Ha-Haaa!", which was a hit in the UK but banned in the US. The B-side consisted of the A-side played backwards.

Fowley also worked as an occasional recording artist in the 1960s, issuing opportunistic flower-power albums such as Love Is Alive and Well. In 1965, he wrote and produced a song about the psychedelic experience, called "The Trip". Released as a single in June of that year, it was probably the first recorded rock song about LSD. Though largely ignored in the USA, it scored in Europe and oddly, was one of the first releases on Island Records. Other 45s by Fowley as a recording artist included the notorious, darkly comic "Animal Man" (1968).

In 1969 Fowley produced a critically acclaimed comeback album for Gene Vincent entitled I'm Back and I'm Proud. Fowley perhaps came closest to mainstream recognition (and chart success) during a period from 1969 to 1971, when he collaborated with his friend Skip Battin, then bass player for the Byrds, on a number of songs. Several appeared on the group's hit 1970 album, Untitled; one, from the 1971 LP Farther Along, was even released as a single: "America's Great National Pastime". The novelty-Americana slant of much of this material was not well-received, however.

Later he put together and managed the legendary all-female punk combo The Runaways, helping to cement his Svengali reputation by printing the girls' ages (as young as 14 or 15) on the back cover of their first album. He also co-wrote songs for acts as diverse as KISS, Helen Reddy, Slade, Alice Cooper, Leon Russell and Kris Kristofferson. He also co-produced, with John Cale, the debut album by cult new-wavers the Modern Lovers.

His efforts as a solo artist since 1970 have sold poorly, but his albums of the 1970s such as I'm Bad and International Heroes have been cited as an influence on punk rock. Some of his New Wave styled recordings of the late 1970s have been cited as prefiguring the electroclash genre, and electroclash band Add N to (X) featured Fowley as a guest on their "Loud Like Nature" album. He has tended to keep a lower profile in the 1990s and 2000s.

He is featured in Mayor of the Sunset Strip, a 2004 documentary about influential LA DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, in which Cherie Currie of the Runaways accuses him of being a misogynist. This may have been due to considerable litigation between the members of the Runaways and Fowley over various unsettled financial matters. Fowley currently lives in California and still works as a record producer for hire and occasional recording artist.

In 2005 Fowley was recruited by Steven Van Zandt to join former Runaway and solo star Joan Jett, original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham, humorist/producer Martin Lewis and others by hosting his own radio show on Van Zandt's Underground Garage radio channel heard throughout America on Sirius Satellite Radio. Fowley is presently heard every weekend on the channel - with a 4-hour show on Saturdays and Sundays.