From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sat Jul 27, 2002  1:58 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Kim Fowley
 
KIM FOWLEY

Born 27 July 1942, Los Angeles, California (some sources say Manila,
Philippines)

Producer / songwriter / singer.
The son of actor Douglas Fowley (Singin' in the Rain, Wyatt Earp TV show),
Kim has been active in the music business since the late fifties. He claims
to have been a member of Kip Tyler and the Flips (a group that included Sandy
Nelson, tenor sax man Steve Douglas and future Beach Boy Bruce Johnston),
but was probably more like a roadie. After working with a number of short-lived
groups including the Paradons and the Innocents, Fowley found his first taste
of success by producing the Top 20 hit "Cherry Pie" for schoolmates Gary
Paxton and Skip Battin, who performed under the name Skip and Flip. With
Paxton, Fowley next created the group the Hollywood Argyles, topping the charts
in 1960 with the novelty smash "Alley-Oop." The duo subsequently masterminded
the early instrumental recordings of Paul Revere and the Raiders ("Like Long
Hair"
peaking at # 38 in 1961) and in 1962 transformed the Sharps into the Rivingtons,
scoring with the classic nonsensical single "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow". Earlier in 1962,
Fowley had produced "Nut Rocker" by B. Bumble and the Stingers, which reached
# 1 in the U.K. In 1964 he relocated to England for a few years, handling
promotion
chores for singer P.J. Proby, appearing on "Ready Steady Go!" and producing
several UK groups, like Slade, Family and The Soft Machine. The rest of his long

and varied career is not very interesting from a rock and roll point of view,
though
he did produce Gene Vincent's 1969 album "I'm Back And I'm Proud". He became
closely associated with flower power and with the Los Angeles counter culture,
singing on Frank Zappa's "Freak Out" album. Fowley's role as a pop svengali
continued unabated in the seventies and he was responsible for piecing together
the Runaways, an all-girl group whose average age was 16. The advent of punk
provided scope for further exploitation, but as the '80s progressed Fowley's
once-sure touch seemed to desert him.

Official website: http://www.kimfowley.net
Autobiography: Vampire From Outer Space, unpublished, 1999. Selections can
be found on the Web. For his adventures in the UK, see:
http://www.rocksbackpages.com/features/fowley/fowley_chapter1.html

For more info on B. Bumble and the Stingers see:
http://www.rockabillyswing.boom.ru/surf/bumble/bumbleng.htm