Kim Fowley - Bubble Gum

Kim Fowley's life was an exercise in madness and excess. A Svengali-like character who worked as a songwriter, record producer and fixture on the Los Angeles club scene for many years, Fowley was perhaps best known as the man who engineered the success of the 1970s-era all-teen-female band The Runaways, a band that included a young Joan Jett.

Kim Fowley, with a sadly prophetic caption

Many facts are known about his life, and a few of them might even be true, as he was never so active as when he was cultivating his own image. But as he entered a career in the music business in the late 1950s, he began working with musical luminaries such as Berry Gordy, Alan Freed and Phil Spector. He gained his first taste of public notoriety as co-producer and co-publisher of the novelty song "Alley Oop" by The Hollywood Argyles.

He went on to bigger and bigger projects and acts from there.

From his obit at Billboard, By Jem Aswad and Colin Stutz:

After a long battle with bladder cancer, Kim Fowley, an impresario, record producer and scenester best known for his work with the Runaways, has died, Ralph Peer of Peer Music confirmed via author Harvey Kubernik. He was 75.

More of a character than a musician, he had an at times Zelig-like ability to place himself close to greatness. In the mid-1960s, he was a member of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention's extended family -- a group that included Captain Beefheart and the GTOs, an all-girl band of famous groupies that included the future Pamela Des Barres. In September 1969 he served as emcee at the Toronto rock festival where John Lennon and his Plastic Ono Band performed a last-minute set -- his first concert appearance since the Beatles' final show in 1966. On the album of the set, Live Peace in Toronto, Fowley's voice is heard introducing the band.

In 1975, Fowley helped form the Runaways, with whom he worked until 1977 when the group severed ties, due in large part to his rough work methods, mistreatment and verbal assaults. Yet it's very unlikely the group would have existed at all, let alone achieved the level of notoriety that they did, without him: He conceived and managed the band and co-wrote many of their early songs. The group garnered scads of press, influenced countless female rockers, and were underrated as band.

From his obit at the A.V. Club by Sam Barsanti:

Despite bad blood from the fallout and years of legal fights between Fowley and the former members of The Runaways over royalties, [lead singer] Cherie Currie actually began taking care of Fowley in recent years due to his failing health. According to Billboard, not only had the pair completely reconciled, but Currie had even moved Fowley into her home so it would be easier to help him. At the time, she told Billboard that, “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,” adding, “He’s a friend I admire who needed help, and I could be there for him.”

And once more from the Billboard obit:

In 2013 he released the first volume of a planned autobiography series called Lord of Garbage that covered his life up to 1969. He said the remaining two volumes -- the second was called Planet Pain, spanning 1970-94 -- were complete. The L.A. Times described the first volume as "the weirdest rock 'n' roll autobiography since … well, I can't think of what." 

Even from his hospital room, Fowley continued to work on his SiriusXM Radio show on Little Steven Van Zandt's "Underground Garage," and collaborated with Ariel Pink for his recent Pom Pom album.