Fanny

FANNY
 
 
Fanny  was an American all-female band, active in the early 1970s.  They were one of the first notable rock groups to be made up entirely of women, the third to sign with a major label (after Goldie & the Gingerbreads and the Pleasure Seekers), and the first to release an album on a major label (in 1970).  They achieved two top 40 singles on the Billboard Hot 100 and released five albums.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

 

 

The second album by IsisAin’t No Backin’ up Now featured a guest appearance by June Millington; she has been described by Guitar Player magazine as the hottest female guitarist in the business.  June Millington and her sister, bass guitarist Jean Millington had previously been part of another band called Fanny, which was the third all-female rock band to be signed by a major record label and the first to have a significant body of work. 

 

After moving to the U. S. from the Philippines in 1961, the Millington sisters organized an all-girl band while they were in high school in Sacramento, CA that was called the Svelts; the other bandmembers were Addie Lee (guitar) and Brie Brandt (drums), who was later replaced on drums by Alice de Buhr.  Brie Brandt has been active as a musician and also an actress for many years; under the name Brie Howard, she starred opposite Klaus Kinski in the 1982 science fiction film, Android.  After the Svelts disbanded, Alice de Buhr started yet another all-woman band called Wild Honey that June Millington and Jean Millington later joined; they eventually moved to Los Angeles.  

 

Wild Honey was on the brink of breaking up but made one last appearance at the L.A. nightclub the Troubadour.  While there, they met Richard Perry, who arranged to have the band signed in 1969 to Reprise Records.  After being signed, Wild Honey recruited keyboardist Nickey Barclay, who had played in Joe Cocker’s “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” musical ensemble. 

 

Richard Perry had a previous connection with Goldie and the Gingerbreads also; Genya Zelkowitz was the lead singer in Richard Perry’s band called the Escorts when she met Ginger Panabianco, who was playing drums for one of Perry’s friends.  Seeing a woman playing drums gave Zelkowitz the idea for an all-female band; they changed their names to Goldie Zelkowitz and Ginger Bianco and crafted the band name Goldie and the Gingerbreads as a play on their two first names. 

 

Fanny” is an interesting slang term:  Here in North America, the reference is to the buttocks (hence the cover shot above); but in the British Commonwealth, it means the female vulva.  Former Beatle George Harrison is the one who suggested the name Fanny to producer Richard Perry; the bandmembers themselves were not aware of its meaning on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean until much later. 

 

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Richard Perry was the producer on the first three albums by Fanny:  Fanny (1970), Charity Ball (1971) and Fanny Hill (1972); while Todd Rundgren produced their fourth album (the only one that I don’t have), Mother’s Pride

June Millington and Alice de Buhr left Fanny after the fourth album; they were replaced by guitarist Patti Quatro (who was also a bandmember in the Pleasure Seekers) and Brie Brandt, who had drummed in their earlier band the Svelts.  They came up with a final album in this line-up, Rock and Roll Survivors

 

David Bowie is a big fan of Fanny; in Wikipedia, he is quoted as saying:  “One of the most important female bands in American rock has been buried without a trace.  And that is Fanny.  They were one of the finest . . . rock bands of their time, in about 1973.  They were extraordinary . . . they’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time.” 

 

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If Goldie and the Gingerbreads were the first all-woman rock band to be signed to a major label, and Fanny was #3, who was the second?  That would be the Pleasure Seekers, which was Suzi Quatro’s first band  In her memoir Unzipped, Suzi said that she and her sisters searched through the dictionary for a name for their band.  They found the word “hedonist” and took their name from one of the definitions for that word, “pleasure seeker". 

 

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When Fanny first came on the scene, they were falsely advertised as being the first all-female rock band.  They might have been the first to release a full-length album, but I am not even sure about that.  In any case, as noted, Fanny was the third all-woman rock band to be signed to a major record label, but there were dozens more who never got that chance.  The series, Girls in the Garage includes songs by many such bands and runs to 12 volumes.   

 

(October 2013)

 

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Items:    Fanny 

 

Last edited: March 22, 2021