Kim Fowley, LA music legend, dies aged 75

One of rock’s most notorious, charismatic and peculiar figures – the producer, songwriter, musician, manager and impresario Kim Fowley – has died. Fowley, who was 75, had been undergoing treatment for cancer, though the cause of his death has not been announced.

In a career lasting nearly 60 years, Fowley worked with a roll call of rock legends, including Gene Vincent, Warren Zevon, Kiss, Alice Cooper, Leon Russell and Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers. As late as last year he collaborated with Ariel Pink on Pink’s Pom Pom album.

He is best known, however, as the svengali behind the all-girl rock band the Runaways. He recruited the group, which included Joan Jett and Lita Ford, by placing an advertisement in the Los Angeles fanzine Who Put the Bomp. “I didn’t put the Runaways together, I had an idea, they had ideas, we all met, there was combustion and out of five different versions of that group came the five girls who were the ones that people liked,” Fowley later said. He and the group parted ways in 1977 amid disagreements about money.

Fowley had been receiving treatment for his cancer in hospital in his hometown of Los Angeles, but last year moved to the home of former Runaways singer Cherie Currie. “I love Kim. I really do,” she said at that time. “After everything I went through as a kid with him, I ended up becoming a mom and realized it was difficult for a man in his 30s to deal with five teenage girls. He’s a friend I admire who needed help, and I could be there for him.”

Fowley had his first big hit as far back as 1960, when he recorded the novelty song Alley Opp with Gary S Paxton under the name the Hollywood Argyles. It was a US No 1. Two years later he scored a UK No 1 as the writer of Nut Rocker for B Bumble and the Stingers. In the mid-60s he latched on to the psychedelic movement, recording a cult single called The Trip in 1965, dabbled in bubblegum pop, then went glam in the 70s, as both songwriter and recording artist. He has songwriting credits on Kiss’s smash hit album Destroyer.

“Kim Fowley is a big loss to me,” said Steven van Zandt of the E Street Band. “A good friend. One of a kind. He’d been everywhere, done everything, knew everybody. He was working in the Underground Garage [Van Zandt’s online radio station] until last week. We should all have as full a life. I wanted DJs that could tell stories first person. He was the ultimate realization of that concept. Rock Gypsy DNA. Reinventing himself whenever he felt restless. Which was always. One of the great characters of all time. Irreplaceable.”

“Kim was a great and often misunderstood individual,” said Blondie’s Clem Burke. “When Blondie first came to Hollywood, Kim was one of the legends we wanted to meet. We did meet him at the Tropicana motel and became friends. I had the privilege of sitting next to Kim at a screening at SXSW of the Runaways film. When it ended, I turned to Kim and told him he was the hero of the film. He seemed happy to hear that.”

Former Rolling Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham described Fowley as “a leader of that American brigade and a forever part of American music”.