Richard Perry (born June 18, 1942) is an American record producer. Perry began as a performer in his adolescence, but shifted gears after graduating college and rose through the late 1960s and early 1970s to become a highly successful and popular record producer with over a dozen gold records to his credit by 1982. From 1978 to 1983, he ran his own record label, Planet Records, which scored a string of hits with the main act on its roster, pop/R&B group The Pointer Sisters. After Planet’s sale to RCA, Perry continued his work in the music industry as an independent producer. With hit records stretching from the 1960s through the 2000s, his more successful modern releases includes albums by Rod Stewart and Carly Simon. (More from Wikipedia)
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 on their first album, Fanny); 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.
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.
(October 2013)
