Keeps on giving
This month’s echo from music’s cavern of the lost: pioneer allfemale rockers fight the good fight.
Fanny Charity Ball REPRISE, 1971
INTERVIEWED IN 1999, David Bowie described Fanny as, “extraordinar y: they wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them.”
Bowie’s plea wasn’t even based on the fact that Fanny were the first all-female band to release an album on a major label. The California quartet drew other notable admirers too, including Lowell George, Leon Russell and Bonnie Raitt. Yet they’re still waiting for their rollicking, sinewy rock’n’roll, and their vital trailblazing, to be recognised.
Fanny’s saga began when the family of a Filipino mother and a US naval officer left Manila for Sacramento, California in 1961. Mixed-race sisters June (guitar) and Jean (bass) Millington confronted racism early on, creating both self-doubt and determination. They started with the all-female high school covers band The Svelts. “We had no role models,” says June. “Every time a girl quit the band, Jean and I had heart attacks because it was so hard to find replacements.”
The sisters reconvened with former Svelts Alice de Buhr (drums) and Addie Lee (lead guitar) as Wild Honey, decamping to LA. Producer Richard Perry’s secretary caught a show and tipped off her boss, fresh from Top 10 success with Tiny Tim (he’d later rise higher with Nilsson and Carly Simon). After signing to Reprise, Wild Honey became Fanny: “Not because of any body part,” June avers. “I was thinking more of a female spirit. I loved the idea of a band being a woman’s name.”
When Lee left again, June was promoted from rhythm guitarist to lead. This time, she had mentors: Lowell George, Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter, Sneaky Pete Kleinow. “They all took me seriously. In a year, I went from zero to playing the solo in [a cover of] Cream’s Badge. There was never a time when the band wasn’t improving.” Rather than a second guitarist, Fanny wanted a keyboardist. Once Nickey Barclay had left Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen troupe, Fanny became four. It took time for the new quartet to gel; Fanny’s self-titled debut (1970) was only promising. But in 1971, they made Charity Ball. “We’d reached a place where we totally understood what we were doing,” says June.
The jubilant title track – which peaked at 40 in the Billboard chart – started as a jam at the band house they christened Fanny Hill after their lawyer’s girlfriend disinvited them to his New Year’s Eve Party.
“She felt threatened by us,” June sighs. “It originally started ‘Fuck you!’ which became “Dance! Whooo!’ Much better.”
While the Millingtons were more Motown and R&B, Barclay was versed in blues and funk, propelling Fanny toward in-the-pocket grooves. June singles out Barclay’s What Kind Of Love – “We could really chomp on that one” – and calls Place In The Countr y, “astounding. When we got into a song, it was with our full hearts.”
What’s Wrong With Me? showcased Fanny’s softer side, and songwriter Jean’s mindset: “I’d wonder, can I write a song? I didn’t consider myself a good bassist until I was 45.” Producer Perry also jangled their insecurities in the studio. “One time when we were making Charity Ball,” June recalls, “Richard just walked in and turned my amp right down as I was about to play this perfectly groovy part. Years later, I asked Richard, Was he afraid our audience wouldn’t accept a real sound? And he nodded. We were the first [all-female band] to record albums: how would people receive us?”
The answer was, with suspicion and condescension. “There was always a backhanded compliment,” June says. “Like, ‘Not bad for chicks.’ Even a woman wrote, ‘Fanny are a one-trick pony.’ We were so up against the wall with everything.”
One contributing factor was Barclay. Despite joining an all-female band, she hated being judged on her gender, and took it out on her bandmates, especially June. After Fanny’s fourth album, 1973’s Mother’s Pride, June had other reasons to quit.
“We never stopped working, and we had to play our asses off every night too, because we were representing all the women who’d come after us. I couldn’t take the pressure of being the first woman guitarist that was ‘known’. It was hard to leave Jean but I had an existential crisis. I went straight into Buddhism.”
June also found a haven in the lesbiancentric Women’s Music movement. De Buhr bailed too, eventually moving into video distribution. With replacements, Barclay and Jean made one last album, ’74’s Rock’n’Roll Survivors: lead single Butter Boy, inspired by Jean’s former lover David Bowie, just broke the US Top 30 in 1975. Marrying Bowie sidekick Earl Slick, Jean started a family; Barclay moved to London and virtually disappeared. Fanny was over.
But the tide might finally have turned. Following a reunion (minus Barclay) in 2018 under the name Fanny Walks The Earth, June’s 2015 autobiography Land Of A Thousand Bridges has been optioned for a film. A stage musical, titled Play Like A Girl, is in the works and a band documentary arrives in 2020. The only downside is the stroke Jean suffered just after the reunion. Yet she still hopes to play bass, and to see Fanny properly lauded. “I keep telling my husband, we’ll be famous by the time I’m 80,” Jean concludes. “We were ahead of our time, and time is now catching up.”
“We were representing all the women who’d come after us.” JUNE MILLINGTON