It’s never been easy to describe Kim Fowley in just a word or two.  Fowley is a producer, a songwriter, an actor, a manager, a publisher, a raconteur, and a promoter – both of himself and of various other acts.  Gray Newell, writing the liner notes for Tune In Records’ new Fowley anthology, adds a few more words: “musical maverick, Svengali of Sunset Strip, Son of Frankenstein, Lord of Garbage, King of the Creeps, Underground animal, rock ‘n’ roll survivor, Living Legend.”  Fowley’s career has crossed paths with everybody from David Gates to Frank Zappa, Cat Stevens to Phil Spector, Joan Jett to Warren Zevon, but Tune In’s new collection Wildfire focuses on just one period of the Sunset Strip wild child’s oeuvre: The Complete Imperial Recordings 1968-1969.

The 2-CD set concentrates on the brief period when Fowley shared a label with luminaries like Johnny Rivers, Cher, and Jackie DeShannon, though his music was considerably more outré.  Fowley first made his name producing hits like The Hollywood Argyles’ 1960 chart-topper “Alley-Oop” and The Murmaids’ 1963 “Popsicles and Icicles.”  The stage was set for Fowley’s Imperial years by his return to Los Angeles from London, where he worked with artists like P.J. Proby, Cat Stevens and The Soft Machine.  In his absence, it seemed like the scene described in his controversial 1965 single “The Trip” had become a reality.  Prior to signing with Imperial, the all-around hustler Fowley had released his first solo album on the Tower label, 1967’s Love is Alive and Well.  He co-produced the LP with Michael Lloyd, a West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band member, and with Lloyd also helmed albums for The Smoke and The Fire Escape.  Somehow Fowley also found time to record for labels including Reprise and Original Sound before an Imperial A&R man approached him to join the company’s roster.

After the jump: details on all three LPs included on the new 2-CD set, plus the full track listing and order links!

The October 1968 release of Born to Be Wild – The Exciting Organ of Kim Fowley was the first title to arrive from the relationship between Fowley and Imperial.  In one four-hour session, Fowley recorded an LP he described as “a keyboard-led instrumental album aimed at middle-aged, middle-class wannabe hipsters.”  To this end, Born to Be Wild featured renditions of songs popularized by Steppenwolf, Cream, The Doors, Archie Bell and the Drells, and Booker T. and the MG’s.  Fowley quips in the liner notes, “It sold 76,000 copies and that was that.”

He followed Born to Be Wild with the aptly-titled Outrageous, designed as a “rebellious record.”  Indeed it was, with its pre-punk, raw garage snarl that was completely removed from the sounds of the previous album.  Fowley was joined by Jimmy Greenspoon, Joe Schermie and Mike Allsup from Three Dog Night’s band, plus Steppenwolf’s Mars Bonfire, pedal steel guitarist Red Rhodes and drummers “Fast” Eddie Ho and Joe Torres.  Outrageous foreshadowed both punk and glam with its hard, driving attack.  Fowley says in the liner notes to Tune In’s reissue, “That was done in one night; we started at six and I believe it was over by midnight.  It was all live, there were no overdubs; it was basically a singer conducting a band and making up vocal melodies and making up lyrics, all in one take.”  His bizarre, freak-out opus was hardly music for the masses and not for the faint of heart.  It barely cracked the Billboard 200, so Imperial implored him to try something different.  He aimed to please with a “funny record.”

Michael Lloyd again joined Fowley for Good Clean Fun, along with Mars Bonfire, future Byrd Skip Battin, and musicians including Warren Zevon and, uncredited, Neil Innes and Vivian Stanshall of the Bonzo Dog Band.  The “Mayor of the Sunset Strip,” disk jockey Rodney Bingenheimer, joined in on the fun, too.   Good Clean Fun, with its somewhat ironic title, was as anarchic as its predecessor, if less abrasive. Fowley reflects that it was “a Benny Hill version of Frank Zappa on a disorganized level.”  Unlike the past two done-in-one efforts, it took Fowley a whopping three whole days to record the album!  Good Clean Fun marked the end of Fowley’s Imperial tenure, but he saw out the 1960s producing material for Sky Saxon and the Seeds and rockabilly great Gene Vincent, and the next decade would bring him even greater success when he steered The Runaways to stardom.

Wildfire: The Complete Imperial Recordings 1968-1969 includes all three of Fowley’s Imperial LPs in full.  Outrageous kicks off the first disc, followed by half of Born to Be Wild.  The second CD begins with Good Clean Fun before concluding with the balance of Born to Be Wild.  Simon Murphy at Another Planet Music has remastered all tracks, and the perennially hip Fowley has shared many memories in Gray Newell’s new essay.  The artist’s own, completely off-the-wall notes for the original LPs have also been reprinted.

If you want to Tune In and turn on to Kim Fowley’s zany sixties snapshots, Wildfire is available now from Cherry Red’s Tune In label, and can be ordered at the links below!

Kim Fowley, Wildfire: The Complete Imperial Recordings 1968-1969 (Tune In 009D, 2013) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

CD 1

1. Animal Man
2. Wildfire
3. Hide and Seek
4. Chinese Water Torture
5. Nightrider
6. Bubble Gum
7. Inner Space Discovery
8. Barefoot Country Boy
9. Up
10. Caught in the Middle
11. Down
12. California Hayride
13. Born to Be Wild
14. I Can’t Stop Dancing
15. Shake a Lady
16. Hello I Love You
17. Soul Limbo
18. Space Odyssey

CD 2

1. One Man Band
2. Ode to Sweet Sixteen
3. Good Clean Fun
4. Search for a Teenage Woman
5. Energy
6. Baby Rocked Her Dolly
7. Motorcycle
8. Kangaroo
9. Lights the Blind and Lame Can See
10. Good to Be Around
11. The Great Telephone Robbery
12. I’m Not Young Anymore
13. Wild Weekend
14. Pictures of Matchstick Men
15. Savage in the Sun
16. Sunshine of Your Love
17. Classical Gas
18. Fresno, 1963

CD 1, Tracks 1-12 from Outrageous, Imperial LP 12423, 1969
CD 1, Tracks 13-18 & CD 2, Tracks 13-18 from Born to Be Wild, Imperial LP 12143, 1968
CD 2, Tracks 1-12 from Good Clean Fun, Imperial LP 12443, 1969