Fanny (band)
Encyclopedia
Fanny was an American
girl band, led by June Millington
. They were pioneers as one of the first rock band
s to feature all women, and the third to sign to a major record label
, after Goldie & the Gingerbreads
and The Pleasure Seekers (Mercury Records). They reached the Top 40 two times, with "Charity Ball" in 1971 and "Butter Boy" in 1975, peaking at #40 and #29 respectively in the Billboard Hot 100
. Fanny was the first all-female band to release an album
on a major label.
June Millington (born April 14, 1948, Manila
, Phillipines), her bass guitarist sister Jean (born May 25, 1950, Manila, Phillipines), drummer
Alice de Buhr (born 1950, Mason City, Iowa, USA), and keyboard player
Nickey Barclay (born 1951, Washington DC, Maryland, USA). The group signed with Warner Bros
imprint Reprise Records
in 1969, and released four albums by 1973. With young engineer Leslie Ann Jones
as their road manager and live sound mixer, Fanny toured worldwide, opening for Slade
, Jethro Tull
and Humble Pie
, gaining widespread popularity in the UK
, and charted in the U.S.
with "Charity Ball" in earlier years, and "I've Had It", and "Butter Boy" being the highest charted Fanny singles in 1974, from the Rock and Roll Survivors album on then-Warner owned Casablanca Records
in 1974 (after Patti Quatro and Brie Brandt
joined the band). In 1971, Fanny were session musician
s and did arrangement
s for Barbra Streisand
's self-titled album.
Fanny fan
David Bowie
said in Rolling Stone
- 29 December 1999: "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."
June and Jean Millington continued to record
and release albums together after Fanny disbanded, most recently in the group Slammin' Babes. June, described by Guitar Player
as the hottest female guitar player in the music industry, has had a career producing
albums as well, for artists including Holly Near
, Cris Williamson
and Bitch and Animal
. Jean has also done studio work for many artists, including Keith Moon
, Bowie and Roderick Taylor
. Jean continues to play bass guitar both in the recording studio
and in concert
, and is also an herbalist
.
Patti Quatro continued to do studio work for artists, including Suzi Quatro, ELO, Keith Moon and France Gall, as well as touring. Patti is also involved, with her sisters, in the retrospective release of the early Quatro musical female bands, "Cradle" and "The Pleasure Seekers".
Brie Howard
, now going by the name Brie Howard-Darling, continued on as one of the top session and touring musicians of the 80s and 90s, playing and recording with everyone from Carole King, Jimmy Buffett and Elton John to Robbie Nevil and Jack Wagner. She also fronted the band American Girls (who put out a lone effort on I.R.S. Records in 1986) as its drummer and co-lead vocalist.
Her next band was the Boxing Gandhis
, of which she is co-lead vocalist and percussionist. The band put out two records (Boxing Gandhis in 1994 and Howard in 1996) before breaking up in 2001. The band has since reformed for periodic gigs around L.A.
A reunion show
with the Millington sisters and de Buhr was held at Berklee College of Music
on April 20, 2007, where the band members received the Rockrgrl
Women Of Valor award for their achievements.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
girl band, led by June Millington
June Millington
June Millington is a Philippine-American guitarist, who along with her sister bassist Jean Millington, drummer Alice de Buhr, and keyboardist Nickey Barclay founded Fanny, which was signed with Warner Brothers' Reprise Records in 1969 and released five albums by 1974, including Fanny, Charity...
. They were pioneers as one of the first rock band
Rock Band
Rock Band is a music video game developed by Harmonix Music Systems, published by MTV Games and Electronic Arts. It is the first title in the Rock Band series. The PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions were released in the United States on November 20, 2007, while the PlayStation 2 version was...
s to feature all women, and the third to sign to a major record label
Record label
In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...
, after Goldie & the Gingerbreads
Goldie & the Gingerbreads
Goldie & the Gingerbreads was an all-female American rock band from 1962 to 1967 consisting of 3 musicians and a singer. They were the first all-female rock band signed to a major record label....
and The Pleasure Seekers (Mercury Records). They reached the Top 40 two times, with "Charity Ball" in 1971 and "Butter Boy" in 1975, peaking at #40 and #29 respectively in the Billboard Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
. Fanny was the first all-female band to release an album
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
on a major label.
Career
Fanny was formed by guitaristGuitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
June Millington (born April 14, 1948, Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, Phillipines), her bass guitarist sister Jean (born May 25, 1950, Manila, Phillipines), drummer
Drummer
A drummer is a musician who is capable of playing drums, which includes but is not limited to a drum kit and accessory based hardware which includes an assortment of pedals and standing support mechanisms, marching percussion and/or any musical instrument that is struck within the context of a...
Alice de Buhr (born 1950, Mason City, Iowa, USA), and keyboard player
Keyboardist
A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. Until the early 1960s musicians who played keyboards were generally classified as either pianists or organists. Since the mid-1960s, a plethora of new musical instruments with keyboards have come into common usage, requiring a more...
Nickey Barclay (born 1951, Washington DC, Maryland, USA). The group signed with Warner Bros
Warner Bros. Records
Warner Bros. Records Inc. is an American record label. It was the foundation label of the present-day Warner Music Group, and now operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of that corporation. It maintains a close relationship with its former parent, Warner Bros. Pictures, although the two companies...
imprint Reprise Records
Reprise Records
Reprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
in 1969, and released four albums by 1973. With young engineer Leslie Ann Jones
Leslie Ann Jones
Leslie Ann Jones is a multiple Grammy Award-winning recording engineer working as Director of Music Recording and Scoring at Skywalker Sound, a Lucasfilm, Ltd. company. She is a past Chair of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences Board of Trustees, the organization that awards Grammys...
as their road manager and live sound mixer, Fanny toured worldwide, opening for Slade
Slade
Slade are an English rock band from Wolverhampton, who rose to prominence during the glam rock era of the early 1970s. With 17 consecutive Top 20 hits and six number ones, the British Hit Singles & Albums names them as the most successful British group of the 1970s based on sales of singles...
, Jethro Tull
Jethro Tull (band)
Jethro Tull are a British rock group formed in 1967. Their music is characterised by the vocals, acoustic guitar, and flute playing of Ian Anderson, who has led the band since its founding, and the guitar work of Martin Barre, who has been with the band since 1969.Initially playing blues rock with...
and Humble Pie
Humble Pie (band)
Humble Pie was a rock band from England, finding success both in the UK and the US. They are remembered for songs such as "Black Coffee" "30 Days in the Hole", "I Don't Need No Doctor", and "Natural Born Bugie"...
, gaining widespread popularity in the UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and charted in the U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with "Charity Ball" in earlier years, and "I've Had It", and "Butter Boy" being the highest charted Fanny singles in 1974, from the Rock and Roll Survivors album on then-Warner owned Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records
Casablanca Records was an American record label started by Neil Bogart, who partnered with Cecil Holmes, Larry Harris, and Buck Reingold in 1973, and based in Los Angeles. The label was formed after all of them had left Buddah Records and secured financing by Warner Bros. Records to start the venture...
in 1974 (after Patti Quatro and Brie Brandt
Brie Howard
Brie Howard is an American musician and actress. She has also appeared or been credited under the names Brie Brandt, Brie Darling, and Brie Howard Darling....
joined the band). In 1971, Fanny were session musician
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
s and did arrangement
Arrangement
The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents...
s for Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
's self-titled album.
Fanny fan
Fan (person)
A Fan, sometimes also called aficionado or supporter, is a person with a liking and enthusiasm for something, such as a band or a sports team. Fans of a particular thing or person constitute its fanbase or fandom...
David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
said in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
- 29 December 1999: "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."
June and Jean Millington continued to record
Sound recording and reproduction
Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...
and release albums together after Fanny disbanded, most recently in the group Slammin' Babes. June, described by Guitar Player
Guitar Player
Guitar Player is a popular magazine for guitarists founded in 1967. It contains articles, interviews, reviews and lessons of an eclectic collection of artists, genres and products. It has been in print since the late 1960s and during the 1980s, under editor Tom Wheeler, the publication was...
as the hottest female guitar player in the music industry, has had a career producing
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
albums as well, for artists including Holly Near
Holly Near
Holly Near is an American singer-songwriter, actress, teacher, and activist for social change.-Early years:...
, Cris Williamson
Cris Williamson
Cris Williamson is an American feminist singer-songwriter, who achieved fame as a recording artist, and who was a pioneer as a visible lesbian political activist, during a time when few who were not connected to the Lesbian community were aware of Gay and Lesbian issues...
and Bitch and Animal
Bitch and Animal
Bitch and Animal, a duo consisting of musicians Bitch and Animal Prufrock, were a queercore band that performed from 1995 to 2004. Bitch and Animal have kept their birth names out of publication for both political and artistic reasons...
. Jean has also done studio work for many artists, including Keith Moon
Keith Moon
Keith John Moon was an English musician, best known for being the drummer of the English rock group The Who. He gained acclaim for his exuberant and innovative drumming style, and notoriety for his eccentric and often self-destructive behaviour, earning him the nickname "Moon the Loon". Moon...
, Bowie and Roderick Taylor
Roderick Taylor
Roderick Taylor, also known as Rod Taylor or Roderick Falconer, is an American poet, recording artist, screenwriter, television producer and television director. Taylor is the father of screenwriter and television/film producer Bruce A...
. Jean continues to play bass guitar both in the recording studio
Recording studio
A recording studio is a facility for sound recording and mixing. Ideally both the recording and monitoring spaces are specially designed by an acoustician to achieve optimum acoustic properties...
and in concert
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
, and is also an herbalist
Herbalist
An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....
.
Patti Quatro continued to do studio work for artists, including Suzi Quatro, ELO, Keith Moon and France Gall, as well as touring. Patti is also involved, with her sisters, in the retrospective release of the early Quatro musical female bands, "Cradle" and "The Pleasure Seekers".
Brie Howard
Brie Howard
Brie Howard is an American musician and actress. She has also appeared or been credited under the names Brie Brandt, Brie Darling, and Brie Howard Darling....
, now going by the name Brie Howard-Darling, continued on as one of the top session and touring musicians of the 80s and 90s, playing and recording with everyone from Carole King, Jimmy Buffett and Elton John to Robbie Nevil and Jack Wagner. She also fronted the band American Girls (who put out a lone effort on I.R.S. Records in 1986) as its drummer and co-lead vocalist.
Her next band was the Boxing Gandhis
Boxing Gandhis
The Boxing Gandhis are an American alternative funk/soul band from Los Angeles founded by music producer David Darling The Boxing Gandhis are an American alternative funk/soul band from Los Angeles founded by music producer David Darling The Boxing Gandhis are an American alternative funk/soul band...
, of which she is co-lead vocalist and percussionist. The band put out two records (Boxing Gandhis in 1994 and Howard in 1996) before breaking up in 2001. The band has since reformed for periodic gigs around L.A.
A reunion show
Concert
A concert is a live performance before an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, a choir, or a musical band...
with the Millington sisters and de Buhr was held at Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music
Berklee College of Music, located in Boston, Massachusetts, is the largest independent college of contemporary music in the world. Known primarily as a school for jazz, rock and popular music, it also offers college-level courses in a wide range of contemporary and historic styles, including hip...
on April 20, 2007, where the band members received the Rockrgrl
ROCKRGRL
ROCKRGRL was the first national publication for female musicians in the United States. Created by Carla DeSantis, the magazine purely focused on women in music and highlighted the artistic diversity of women musicians, often overlooked in mainstream culture...
Women Of Valor award for their achievements.
Original line-up
- Jean Millington: bass guitarBass guitarThe bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
, vocalsSingingSinging is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments... - June MillingtonJune MillingtonJune Millington is a Philippine-American guitarist, who along with her sister bassist Jean Millington, drummer Alice de Buhr, and keyboardist Nickey Barclay founded Fanny, which was signed with Warner Brothers' Reprise Records in 1969 and released five albums by 1974, including Fanny, Charity...
: guitarGuitarThe guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
, vocalsBacking vocalistA backing vocalist or backing singer is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists... - Nickey Barclay: keyboardsKeyboard instrumentA keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...
, vocals - Alice de Buhr: drumDrumThe drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...
s, vocals
Later members
- Patti Quatro: guitar, vocals - sister of Suzi QuatroSuzi QuatroSusan Kay "Suzi" Quatro is an American singer-songwriter, bass player, and actor.She scored a string of hit singles in the 1970s that found greater success in Europe and Australia than in her homeland, and had a recurring role on the popular American sitcom Happy Days.-Music:Quatro began her...
- Brie Brandt-Howard: drums, vocals
- Cam Davis: drums
Album discography
- Fanny (1970; Reprise RecordsReprise RecordsReprise Records is an American record label, founded in 1960 by Frank Sinatra. It is owned by Warner Music Group, and operated through Warner Bros. Records.-Beginnings:...
) - Charity Ball (1971; Reprise Records)
- Fanny Hill (1972; Reprise Records)
- Fanny Live (1972; Slick Music)
- Mother's Pride (1973; Reprise Records (producedRecord producerA record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
by Todd RundgrenTodd RundgrenTodd Harry Rundgren is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and record producer. Hailed in the early stage of his career as a new pop-wunderkind, supported by the certified gold solo double LP Something/Anything? in 1972, Todd Rundgren's career has produced a diverse range of recordings...
) - Rock and Roll Survivors (1974; Casablanca RecordsCasablanca RecordsCasablanca Records was an American record label started by Neil Bogart, who partnered with Cecil Holmes, Larry Harris, and Buck Reingold in 1973, and based in Los Angeles. The label was formed after all of them had left Buddah Records and secured financing by Warner Bros. Records to start the venture...
) - First Time in a Long Time, 4-CDCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
retrospective (2002; Rhino Records) - Rock and Roll Survivors CDCompact DiscThe Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
(2009; Cherry Red Records) - Play Like a Girl (2011)
See also
- List of all-female bands
- All female band
- List of guests appearing on The Midnight Special
External links
- Kickstarter Project: Play Like A Girl
- Fan forum and portal: Fanny Seven Roads (F7R)
- Metalmaidens' general history on the band
- F7R on MySpace
- The Flamekeepers: Fanny fans group on YouTube
- Boston Herald article touching on 2007 reunion
- Berklee press release announcing the Rockrgrl award
- NY Daily News article on new album Play Like a Girl