Wild Man Fischer
Wild Man Fischer | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Lawrence Wayne Fischer |
Born | Los Angeles, California, U.S. | November 6, 1944
Died | June 16, 2011 Los Angeles, California, U.S. | (aged 66)
Genres | Outsider music |
Occupation(s) | Songwriter |
Instrument(s) |
|
Years active | 1968–2006 |
Labels |
Lawrence Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer (November 6, 1944 – June 16, 2011) was an American
Born in Los Angeles, Fischer was repeatedly sent to mental institutions as a teenager, where he was diagnosed with
In 1975, Fischer helped jumpstart
Biography
Early life
Larry Fischer was born on November 6, 1944, in
An Evening with Wild Man Fischer
By 1967, Fischer was on medication and acting as a street performer in Hollywood. For a nickel or a dime, he would offer a "new kind of song" to passersby as an a cappella performance. This led him to become an opening act for the Byrds, Bo Diddley, and Iron Butterfly.[3] While performing onstage and outside at the Sunset Strip, he was noticed by Frank Zappa, bandleader for the Mothers of Invention.[6] Zappa later said: "I thought from the first day I met him that someone should make an album about Wild Man Fischer."[4] He invited Fischer into a studio and recorded him singing about topics such as his mother, mental hospitals, fame, circles, and how he could move faster than a cat could see him. The Mothers of Invention, record producer Kim Fowley, radio DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, and Zappa's girl group the GTOs made guest appearances on some of the tracks.[8]
Released as a double album in 1968, An Evening with Wild Man Fischer was given a positive review in Rolling Stone magazine, where it was described as "captur[ing] the total being of one strange member of the human community".[8] On September 23, 1968, thanks to his connections with Zappa, Fischer appeared on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, singing "The Leaves Are Falling" and "Merry-Go-Round".[3] During this period he also made contributions to the 1968 psychsploitation album "Bedlam" by The Crazy People.[9] In December, Zappa arranged for him to perform at a Christmas show involving the Mothers, the GTOs, Easy Chair, and Alice Cooper. Fischer sang "Circles".[5]
Fischer was frustrated that the album failed to bring him the fame he expected.[3] One day, he visited Zappa and threw a bottle that nearly hit Zappa's infant daughter Moon. This ended their relationship.[5] In a song Fischer later wrote ("Frank"), he alleged that Zappa subsequently withheld his recording income ("Frank's got my publishing rights / You could say he's on my mind / I think about him all the time"). After Frank's death in 1993, Gail Zappa inherited her husband's musical copyrights, and refused to reissue the album for as long as she lived[4] feeling that the recording was "a poor example of Frank's work."[10]
Rhino Records albums
In 1974, Larry appeared as a guest vocalist on noise band
In 1998, Date with the Devils Daughter, an album by Robert Williams (a drummer formerly with Captain Beefheart) includes "Hello Robert", which consists of messages that Fischer left on Williams's phone.[citation needed] In 1999, Rhino released The Fischer King, a two-CD package comprising 100 tracks and a 20-page booklet, which sold out within weeks. The limited-edition album comprises his entire Rhino catalog, including all three of the Rhino albums plus singles, unreleased material, interviews done for this release, and his duet with Clooney. It releases almost everything Fischer ever recorded, except An Evening with Wild Man Fischer, for which the Zappa family still held the rights.[6]
Final years and death
In the early 2000s, Fischer was filmed as the subject of a full-length documentary, Derailroaded: Inside the Mind of Wild Man Fischer, which premiered at South by Southwest in March 2005.[4][5] Co-director Josh Rubin called the four years making the film "the most arduous, trying time of my life" due to Fischer's erratic behavior. It included an appearance from Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh who called him: "as pure a rock and roll icon as you can find. He's mainlined into the creative subconscious."[11] In 2004, Fischer was the subject of a comic book (The Legend of Wild Man Fischer by Dennis Eichhorn),[8][12] and in October, appeared on ABC-TV's late-night talk/comedy show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!.[4]
In 2003, Fischer had a six-month-long paranoid episode, convinced somebody was trying to kill him, and he started living on the streets again. He called Bill Mumy up to 20 times a day, hanging up each time, until Mumy finally had to change his phone number. Fischer eventually moved in with his aunt Josephine, but three weeks later she was diagnosed with terminal cancer (this happened during the filming of Derailroaded). Fischer and his family consented to move him into an assisted-living mental institution in Van Nuys. The medications he was prescribed helped him control his behavior, but it also eliminated his creative drive, or "pep".[3][1] Fischer made his final performance on August 16, 2006, at the Trunk Space in Phoenix, Arizona.[citation needed]
The last seven years of Fischer's life were spent peacefully but uneventfully. On June 16, 2011, he died of heart failure at the Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles, at the age of 66.[1][3]
Discography
Studio albums
- 1968: An Evening with Wild Man Fischer (Bizarre Records)
- 1977: Wildmania (Rhino Records)
- 1981: Pronounced Normal (Rhino Records)
- 1983: Nothing Scary (Rhino Records)
- 2018: Deep State (CDBaby)
EP
- May 1968: Laminas (7-inch 33rpm project of UCLAart students, three tracks by Larry, miscredited as "Fisher")
Compilations
- 1981: The First One ...(First-1) (A.T.C. Records)
- 1999: The Fischer King (Rhino Records) (compilation of all Rhino recordings)
Singles
- 1975: "Go To Rhino Records" (Rhino Records)
- 1981: "Don't Be A Singer" / "I Got A Camera" /" Do The Salvo" (Rhino Records)
- 1981: "Larry Comes Alive" (A.T.C. Records)
Filmography
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f Fox, Margalit (June 17, 2011). "Wild Man Fischer, Outsider Musician, Dies at 66". The New York Times.
- ^ "I'm crazy for you... but not that crazy". The Observer. March 18, 2006.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Cromelin, Richard (June 18, 2011). "Larry 'Wild Man' Fischer dies at 66; vagabond singer made albums with Frank Zappa". Los Angeles Times.
- ^ a b c d e f "Larry 'Wild Man' Fischer". The Daily Telegraph. July 8, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e Perrone, Pierre (July 22, 2011). "Wild Man Fischer: Outsider musician who was discovered by Frank Zappa but could never transcend his psychiatric disorders". The Independent.
- ^ a b c d arwulf arwulf. "Wild Man Fischer". AllMusic. Retrieved March 31, 2018.
- Wadham College. p. 100. Retrieved March 10, 2018.
- ^ a b c d Sanford, Jay Allen (June 17, 2011). "R.I.P., Larry "Wild Man" Fischer, Frank Zappa's Discovery". San Diego Reader. Retrieved March 31, 2018.
- ^ "Jack Millman is Johnny Kitchen". Ubiquityrecords-blog.tumblr.com. Retrieved September 3, 2019.
- ^ Sanford, Jay Allen (June 17, 2011). "R.I.P., Larry "Wild Man" Fischer, Frank Zappa's Discovery". San Diego Reader. Retrieved October 25, 2019.
- ^ Gritten, David (February 11, 2006). "The really wild man of rock". The Telegraph.
- ISBN 1-891830-61-9.
External links
- Wild Man Fischer at AllMusic
- Wild Man Fischer discography at Discogs
- Wild Man Fischer at IMDb
- Official Derailroaded site
- Wild Man Fischer segment from the documentary From Straight to Bizarre on YouTube