Kim Fowley - Born to Be Wild - Mini-LP Papersleeve CD Replica

Mini-LP Papersleeve CD Replica

Elemental Music, together with Universal Music Spain presents a new CD reissue of the long unavailable third studio album by one of the most colorful characters in the annals of rock & roll: singer, songwriter, producer, manager and published poet Kim Fowley. Back in the ‘60s when Hollywood producers of teensploitation B-movies wanted to reflect the hip psychedelic music of the time, they all too often employed Los Angeles studio hacks to record watered-down go-go jams with square-sounding surf guitars up front. It’s hard to tell if Kim Fowley was trying to make fun of this phenomenon with his 1968’s Born to Be Wild, or if he was just attempting to record more legitimately cool instrumentals to be used in random biker, hot-rod or surf-gang movies. Either way, he succeeded. A cover of the Steppenwolf classic opens with a solid horn section and dirty, distorted electric guitars backing up a lead Hammond organ. The results sound more like Kent-label mod-jazz than anything else. Fowley and company keep The Doors’ “Hello I Love You” pretty close to the original (but with an actual bass guitar), while their take on Status Quo’s “Pictures of Matchstick Men” becomes an eerie-sounding affair trimmed with Phantom of the Opera-sounding organ and loads of reverb.

Tracklist:

1. BORN TO BE WILD (2:44) (Mars Bonfire)
2. I CAN’T STOP DANCING (2:05) (Kenny Gamble / Leon Huff)
3. SHAKE A LADY (2:03) (Ray Bryant)
4. HELLO, I LOVE YOU (2:04) (John Densmore / Robby Krieger / Ray Manzarek / Jim Morrison)
5. SOUL LIMBO (2:38) (Steve Cropper / Donald “Duck” Dunn / Al Jackson, Jr. / Booker T. Jones)
6. SPACE ODYSSEY (2:46) (Kim Fowley)
7. WILD WEEKEND (2:30) (Thomas Shannon / Phillip Todaro)
8. PICTURES OF MATCHSTICK MEN (3:03) (Francis Michael Rossi)
9. SAVAGE IN THE SUN (2:43) (Mars Bonfire)
10. SUNSHINE OF YOUR LOVE (2:27) (Jack Bruce / Peter Brown / Eric Clapton)
11. CLASSICAL GAS (2:28) (Mason Williams)
12. FRESNO, 1963 (2:21) (Tom Ayres)

Credits:

Producer: Kim Fowley, Arranger: Mike Henderson, Engineer: Dino Lappas, Art Direction: Woody Woodward, Design: Gabor Halmos, Photography: Ed Caraeff, Kim Fowley, organ.

Recorded during a 4-hour afternoon session in California in 1968 featuring studio musicians. Other session details unknown. A division of Thomas Organ Company Leather outfits designed exclusively for Kim Fowley, June Fairchild, Jill and Patti by Harry Gottwald, Leather Hamlet Motorcycles courtesy of the Los Angeles Motorcycle Club Photography taken at Jack Hanson National Park, Beverly Hills, California. Superintendents: Rodney Bingenheimer, Mayor of the Sunset Strip, Marty Cerf, Chuck Leibman Dedicated to Motorcycle John Hillyard, Montreal, Quebec, Canada