Wild Man Fischer 1944-2011

MY 43 YEARS WITH A WILDMAN

Wildman Fischer was the spiritual godfather of Rhino. His energy, passion, creativity, and unwavering belief that he could become bigger than the Beatles in spite of his inability to keep a tune, play an instrument, have a band, have a manager, and be schizophrenic, gave us the confidence that if Wildman wasn’t giving up neither should we.

I moved to L.A. in 1966 but didn’t start going to the strip till I graduated high school in 1967. By 1968 all my friends were talking about this crazy, hippie guy who would come up to you on the strip and ask you if you wanted to hear a song for a dime. Somehow I never was able to experience him first hand, but was so enthralled by his persona I happily bought his album when it came out shortly thereafter. I was always hangin' out in record stores so sometime in 1969 I was in Wallach’s Music City and a guy comes up to me and says, "Hey did you see my album" and lo and behold it was Wildman himself holding up a totally battered copy of his album which turned out to be a store demo... I was pinching myself because a) I had been hoping to see Wildman in person for the past two years and b)he was the first musician I had ever met in person that actually had an album out. Anyway we talked for a long time (or should I say he talked and I listened). At the time, I was going to USC and knew the student Head of Events and promised him I’d try to get him a meeting with the Events Director, which I did. One day I’m walking through the Events Center office and I see the Events Director running down the hall, and then I see Wildman chasing after him... Well even though he didn’t get the gig, Wildman always remembered that I tried to help him out and was forever appreciative of that. In the next couple of years, I would run into him here and there and have a few more interesting stories that are too long to tell here.

I lost track of him for a few years, but when I opened the Rhino store in 1973 he found us and started hangin' out at the store frequently. While most record stores would kick him out of the store for “well just being a Wildman,” we were honored that he would visit us and appreciated him so much. It turned out that although the employees at the store had totally diverse musical tastes, years before any of us had met we had all independently bought his album. So in 1975 when we decided to record a theme song for the store, press it on a 45, and give it away to customers, we had Wildman go to the back of the store and record a jingle called “Go to Rhino Records” on Jeff Gold’s twenty dollar portable Panasonic cassette recorder. Harold sent the record to a DJ in England who started playing the record, and lo and behold, Virgin Records (then a distributor) ordered a thousand copies from us and we were in the real record business. So it was only natural when we decided to record our first album in 1978, it would be by Wildman. While the album wasn’t bigger than the Beatles as Wildman expected, it did sell five thousand copies which gave us enough dough to put out our second album and then a third and then tens of thousands more.

And while Wildman never achieved his goal of being “bigger than the beatles,” his passion sparked a little label that collectively did rival the fab four in albums sold and brought a lot of joy to millions.

- Richard Foos, Founder Of Rhino Entertainment