Kim Vincent Fowley (July 21, 1939 – January 15, 2015) 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".
Kim Vincent Fowley was born on July 21, 1939, 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.
In 1957, he was hospitalized with polio and, upon his release, became manager and publicist for the local band the Sleepwalkers, which 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 a producer was "Charge" by the Renegades, a group comprising Johnston, Nelson, Nik Venet, and Richard Podolor. He promoted records for the duo Skip & Flip (Skip Battin and Gary S. Paxton), including the No. 11 hit "Cherry Pie".
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 (who were only allowed to use the band name Other Them in the UK, but called themselves Them on the European continent, releasing an album called Them Belfast Gypsies and a single "Let's Freak Out" under the name Freaks of Nature); an early incarnation of Slade known as the N'Betweens; Soft Machine (he produced "Love Makes Sweet Music", their first single); 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 (with Potger writing under the nom de plume John Martin) they wrote the lyrics to "Emerald City". Potger has said the song was originally quite unlike the eventual Seekers single, and 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 ("Choral") 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 (later Gail Zappa) 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 "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 (bass), Bill Kirkland (guitars), Vic Sabino (vocals, harmonica and percussion), Michael 'Papabax' Baxter (keyboards, arranger), and Shelly Scott (drums). 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 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".
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 (1971's Hunky Dory). Fowley then moved to Sweden and produced the group Contact's album Nobody Wants to Be Sixteen for Swedish label MNW (Music Network) 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 (minus Roger McGuinn) as sidemen and was used in the soundtrack of the Edie Sedgwick film Ciao! Manhattan (1972). 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 (aka Skip).