Early Life and Career
Born Larry Wayne Fischer in Los Angeles, California, United States, Fischer was institutionalized at age 16 for attacking his mother with a knife. He was later diagnosed with two mental disorders — severe paranoid schizophrenia and bipolar disorder (manic depression). Following his escape from the hospital, (he said no one ever bothered to take him back to the hospital), Fischer wandered Los Angeles singing his unique brand of songs for 10¢ to passers-by. Discovered by Frank Zappa, with whom he recorded his first album, Fischer became an underground concert favorite, earning him the title "godfather of outsider music." Zappa was responsible for Fischer's initial foray into the business of music, an album called An Evening with Wild Man Fischer, contains 36 tracks of "something not exactly musical." Zappa and Fischer remained close, until Fischer threw a jar at Zappa's daughter Moon Unit Zappa, barely missing her. Due to this falling out, Zappa's widow Gail Zappa has not yet released An Evening with Wild Man Fischer on CD.
In the 1980s, Fischer worked with Art and Artie Barnes (actually Bill Mumy, of Lost in Space/Babylon 5 fame, and Robert Haimer), to produce two albums, Pronounced Normal (1981) and Nothing Scary (1984).
Fischer appeared on national television (Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In) and was the subject of a comic book (The Legend Of Wild Man Fischer).
In 1986, Barnes and Barnes also wrote and produced "It's A Hard Business", a duet featuring Fischer and Rosemary Clooney. The song was the result of a telephone friendship that began after Clooney heard Fischer's song "Oh God, Please Send Me A Kid To Love." In 1987, Fisher performed his only East Coast performances at the Mass College of Art and Design.
Read more about this topic: Wild Man Fischer
Famous quotes containing the words early, life and/or career:
“Some men have a necessity to be mean, as if they were exercising a faculty which they had to partially neglect since early childhood.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what our goals are, and what we take life to be. The question is not what we can do now for the hypothetical Mexican, the hypothetical Negro. The question is what we really want out of life, for ourselves, what we think is real.”
—James Baldwin (1924–1987)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)