RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
One of rock and roll's great svengalis has died. Kim Fowley was the infamous first manager and producer of the all-girl band The Runaways. Fowley died late last week in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer.
NPR's Neda Ulaby has this remembrance.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Checkered barely begins to describe Kim Fowley's long, crazy career in music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PAPA-OOM-MOW-MOW")
THE RIVINGTONS: (Singing) Papapapa-oom-mow-mow-mow.
ULABY: He was a songwriter, manager, producer, promoter and scenester. Back in the early 1960s, he helped put together this novelty song for the R&B group the Rivingtons tends.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PAPA-OOM-MOW-MOW")
THE RIVINGTONS: (Singing) The greatest sound I ever heard.
ULABY: Fowley wrote or producer or popped up on songs for Cat Stevens, Frank Zappa, The Birds and his own, weird late 1960s album called "Outrageous.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALBUM, "OUTRAGEOUS")
KIM FOWLEY: (Singing) I'm the devil. I'm vulgar.
ULABY: Kim Fowley was an orphan of Hollywood. His mother, a struggling actress, abandoned him to foster homes repeatedly. He suffered from polio as a child, and the disease marked him physically and emotionally. But by the 1970s, he was known for arranging and producing songs for the movie "American Graffiti" and writing for Alice Cooper, Helen Reddy and Kiss.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DO YOU LOVE ME")
KISS: (Singing) Do you love me.
ULABY: Kim Fowley was over six feet tall with freakishly long arms and legs. He was a flamboyant king of the Sunset Strip, then a louche intersection where glam and hair metal crashed into punk. Rock stars cavorted with underage groupies in the parking lots of nightclubs. Fowley trolled the scene in peach-colored jumpsuits and kabuki-style makeup.
EVELYN MCDONNELL: He was probably a predator.
ULABY: Rock critic Evelyn McDonnell wrote a book called "Queens Of Noise" about The Runaways.
MCDONNELL: You know, he was looking for talent, and he was looking for prey.
ULABY: One night, Fowley met a 14-year-old who wanted to be in an all-girl band. Fowley loved the idea. In 1975, he helped assemble a group of 15-, 16- and 17-year-old musicians. In a documentary about The Runaways called "Edgeplay," Fowley, who liked to call himself the band's pimp, fondly described his vision.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "EDGEPLAY")
FOWLEY: Runaways were strong. They were the Amazon culture. Runaways were not T and A. Runaways were a sports team with musical instruments and teenage lyrics.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHERRY BOMB")
THE RUNAWAYS: (Singing) Can't stay at home, can't stay at school.
ULABY: Still, Fowley was not above having the 15-year-old lead singer perform in fishnets and a bustier.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHERRY BOMB")
THE RUNAWAYS: (Singing) Hello, daddy. Hello, mom. I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb.
ULABY: That song was co-written on the fly by Fowley and guitarist Joan Jett as an audition number for lead singer Cherie Currie. Fowley handpicked her for her blonde, baby Brigette Bardot looks. Bassist Jackie Fox remembered the drama that engulfed the band as it toured relentlessly in the mid-1970s.
JACKIE FOX: He really abused Cherie mercilessly - much worse than the rest of us. But he would set us off against each other so we could never gang up, figure out what he was doing and replace him.
ULABY: By the time The Runaways finally replaced Fowley after fewer than two years, the band had imploded in a storm of rivalrie,s financial mismanagement, libidinal dramas and drugs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LOVE PLAYING WITH FIRE")
THE RUNAWAYS: (Singing) That's why I love playing with fire.
ULABY: It was a tragedy to Kim Fowley that partly drove his hustle, his jive and the emotional wreckage he created. And it shadowed his terrific ambitions for the all-girl band he described in the documentary "Edgeplay."
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "EDGEPLAY")
FOWLEY: I was trying to capture noise. I didn't break it down to fingernail polish or cup size. I'm looking for magic and noise. I want authentic slime. I want the golden garbage, and I succeeded and so did they.
ULABY: The Runaways, a pivotal band of the 1970s, did succeed because of and in spite of Kim Fowley. His outsized character dwarfed his legacy. It could've been so much greater. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.