Fanny: Live at Last 

Fanny was not the first all-woman rock band. 

Before them came Goldie and the Gingerbreads, a band that included the now legendary Genya Ravan, who went on to form Ten Wheel Drive and produce albums by The Dead Boys and Ronnie Spector; Isis, a soul/funk band and The Liverbirds, from Liverpool. 

Fanny was, however, the first all-woman act to be given a multi-album deal by a major label. The band’s original line up – June Millington, guitar, vocals; Jean Millington, bass, vocals; Nickey Barclay, piano, organ, vocals; Alice de Buhr, drums, percussion, vocals – made four studio albums for Reprise: Fanny (1970), Charity Ball (1971), Fanny Hill (1972) and Mothers Pride (1973). 

Fanny toured widely and landed two songs on the Billboard Top 40 (“Butter Boy,” #29, 1975) and (“Charity Ball, #40 1971) before disbanding. Real Gone Music recently released the band’s first four albums, but the band made their reputation with their powerful live shows. Back in 1971, during a European tour, they made a few live recordings for The Beat Club, a German TV show. In 1972, while they were recording Fanny Hill at Abbey Road Studios in London, they flew over to Bremen and cut a few more tunes. Those sets have been collected on Live on Beat-Club ’71-’72.

Listening to these live tracks, it’s hard to understand why the band never broke through. “Charity Ball,” a celebration of the band’s prowess, rocks hard; “Blind Alley” rides a forceful mid-tempo groove, with a feminist undertone to its apocalyptical lyrics, while “Young and Dumb” is a simmering Ike and Tina cover, with a funky R&B influence that celebrates female sexuality with an unforgettable chorus: “I’m a hot lovin’, good lovin’, sweet lovin’ woman and I know how to love.” 

The album also includes their reinvention of The Beatles “Hey Bulldog” and a bluesy take on Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t That Peculiar.” It’s a memorable album, without a single weak track.

The band’s drummer, Alice de Buhr, who runs the band’s website Fannyrocks.com spoke with Rock & Roll Globe about the Band’s history and these reissues.

Getting this live album, and Fanny’s back catalogue reissued, presented some challenges to the band. Can you tell us how they came about?

Warner Music Group still owns the rights to our music, some 50 years down the road. Real Gone was able to relicense our first four albums and put them out on CDs. I wanted new people, and old fans, to hear the music without having to find an old vinyl copy in a record store, which is nearly impossible.

I’ve been trying to get a DVD of Live on Beat-Club out for years, ever since I was sent a copy of it years ago. I’d seen a few clips of the songs on Nick at Night and around the Internet, but haven’t seen the whole thing of us, with all the playing and chatting in between. The thing is, the cost of a DVD would be prohibitive. The footage has us covering The Beatles and Marvin Gaye. We could never afford what we’d have to pay to include those tunes.

When Gordon Anderson (co-founder of Real Gone) finally saw the footage a few years ago, he said this is the music people need to hear. That was the beginning of the process which led to the Beat-Club audio album that just came out. This is the next best thing to a DVD. It’s Fanny live, with studio quality audio. It’s something never heard on any one of our first four albums.   

What was unique, was the professionalism of the German crew and the respect they had for us as musicians, not female musicians. There was no audience, but it wasn’t odd to play without anyone there, but the technicians. We had a job to do and we did the job.

You consciously didn’t “put on a show” so to speak, preferring to play the music and let that be the message, like The Beatles.

Bands back then weren’t putting on shows the way they do now. We just wanted to play music. We didn’t think of it as a show. We wanted to let the music do the talking. I don’t think they knew how to market an all-female rock and roll band. They didn’t get it. People never expected to see an all-female band kick ass the way we did. 

You didn’t dress in what would stereotypically be called “women’s clothing.” 

We dressed in what we were comfortable in, until the last tour, when Warners made us wear flimsy sexy, sexist costumes. Mine included a vest made of American coins. I wore pasties on my nipples, cause they got pinched by the loops holding the coins together. June’s was full of beads, in a Native American style, and jeans made out of fake crystals. We hated ‘em. It was the final straw for June, she quit soon after. 

The crowds noted the difference in the outfits, but it was at the beginning of glam rock, so…

You and June were both gay, but really coming out didn’t feel like an option, although you never hid the fact that you were Queer. How do you feel looking back? 

It pisses me off. Warners never said to all of us, we can’t be gay, since we already have the female thing to fight. We knew if he audience knew we were gay as well, we’d never have a shot. We didn’t exactly hide it, necessarily. If an interviewer asked me if I have a boyfriend, I’d say ‘I’m taken,’ or ‘I have a special friend back home,’ without mentioning the sex of my partner. Being gay was still considered an illness, so, yeah, it was difficult. I was forced out of the closet, when I was 17, back in Iowa. My partner outed me because I didn’t want to go to California with her. My mom put me in a psych ward. It took me quite a few years to work through it all. 

Do you remember the first music that inspired you?

I started playing drums in second grade in the school band, and switched to a full drum set at 15 or 16 and taught myself how to play. The music that made me want to play rock and roll was The Beatles and Beach Boys. I had a band in Iowa called The Women. In my junior and senior years, we were playing teen clubs and bars, doing weekend gigs. It got me out of going to church. 

How did you connect with Fanny? 

I moved to Sacramento and found a card in a music store with June and Jean’s name on it. They were looking for a drummer for their band, The Svelts. Our connection was immediate. We changed our name, moved to LA, and got signed almost immediately.

You had Bowie singing your praises, but Reprise was reluctant to push you, even though some of you were session players for folks like Barbara Streisand and had side gigs with Joe Cocker. Why didn’t you make it?

That’s the question that remains today. Some people blame the record company, some blame management, some say we just weren’t good enough, but most people realize it was just our society. It was just too early to see women get up and get sweaty and play loud, kick ass, raunchy, rock ‘n’ roll. We were just too early, unfortunately. 

What are you up to these days, musically? Do you still play, produce? 

I’m not up to a lot, musically. I still have my drums set up, but I currently have a torn rotator cuff, and I’ve aged out of the chances of a successful reparative operation, so I mostly run the Fannyrocks website, (Fannyrocks.com). We’re the only source of the first four original Fanny albums. 

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j. poet

j. poet has been writing about music for most of his adult life. He has contributed to the San Francisco Chronicle, East Bay Express, Harp, Paste, Grammy.com, PlanetOut.com, American Profile, Creem, Relix, Downbeat, Folk Roots, New Noise and more national and international publications and websites than he can remember. He wrote most of the Musichound Guide to World Music (Visible Ink, 2000) and had two stories in Best Rock Writing 2014 (That Devil Music). He has interviewed a wide spectrum of artists including Leonard Cohen, Merle Haggard and Godzilla. He lives in San Francisco. 

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