In music industry, he is a rock star
How do you describe Danny Fields’ place in popular music? Alice Cooper calls him the “pulse of the underground.” John Cameron Mitchell of “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” fame says he’s like a “handmaiden to the gods.”
Danny Fields, born Daniel Henry Feinberg, had his own description: “a nudgie.”
In the documentary “Danny Says,” Fields and others in the industry look back at Fields’ involvement in the careers and crazy antics of such greats as the Doors, the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, the Stooges, Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen. He probably had a hand in the career of almost every rock musician from the mid’-60s and ’70s.
Fields and contemporaries in the business (like Collins, Cooper, Iggy Pop, record company executives, etc.) also reflect on the culture of the times, especially gay life before Stonewall, Andy Warhol’s Factory and the New York City punk rockers. Fields advanced musicians’ successes through his roles as writer, editor, manager, agent, record producer and friend — always with a little bit of chutzpah.
Among the film’s many anecdotes: At one of Warhol’s famous parties, when Fields prevented someone from jumping out a window, Warhol and his cohorts were disappointed. “Being cool was doing nothing in the world of Andy Warhol,” Fields says. And to fit in, he became one of those elitist people. And that’s an art form: knowing who the right crowd is at the right time.
Fields was the one who unintentionally brought on a national outrage when he published John Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” quotes and Paul McCartney’s antiracist comments that included a racial epithet in the magazine Datebook (no relation to The Chronicle’s arts section).
Fields gives most of his recollections in a dry and wry way with indignation, irreverence, cynicism and bemusement. Director Brendan Toller uses archive footage and droll animation that keep the stories revelatory and entertaining.