Graham Reid | | 2 min read
It is strange and happens more often than you might think: we write about someone rather obscure or pull an unusual song From the Vaults . . . and a few weeks later that person or song appear in other media, often a British rock magazine.
Or we profile someone who is well off the radar and the next thing you know they pop up on other people's websites or social media.
Or worse, we write about someone and they die.
For a while there after the deaths of Ornette Coleman and Ravi Shankar I thought it was time for me to stop, I was killing people whose music I loved and championed.
In May I wrote a piece about Patti Waters and her astonishingly bleak interpretation of the old Black is the Colour of My True's Hair. A few weeks later she died.
This current instance is more positive: a week ago we profiled June Millington of the Seventies all-women rock band Fanny (who haven't had any press for decades I would guess) and immediately we are informed of a bio-doco about them appearing on New Zealand television.
Fanny: The Right to Rock is a 90 minutes film which features Bonnie Raitt, Joe Elliot (Def Leppard), Cherie Currie (Runaways, saying Fanny were iconic), Kate Pierson (B52s), Fanny producer Todd Rundgren, Jeff “Skunk” Baxter and others lining up to attest to the greatness of Fanny and bemoan how much they have been overlooked and written out of rock histories.
As we noted in our article they weren't the first all-women rock band but they were certainly one of the most critically lauded and popular, opening for acts like the Kinks, Humble Pie
David Bowie wrote them a fan letter and put them on the same platform as Mott the Hoople and T.Rex.
Singer-keyboard player Nickey Barclay could roar like Janis Joplin, guitarist Julie was a thrilling player and in fact the quartet were tight, tough, professional and wrote their own material.
They didn't have hits however, the albums sometimes – especially under producer Richard Perry were softer and more MOR than they were live.
The reason we pulled Fanny onto Elsewhere was to salute Julie and note the appearance of a live album which showed them are their more typical.
The doco shows three of them – the Millington sisters June and bassist Jean, original drummer Brie -- re-forming and recording a new album, Fanny Walked the Earth, after 45 years.
Then the story folds back to the start: we hear the Millington's story of the racism they encountered when the family moved from the Philippines to California, their early days gigging and playing rock (“they weren't standing around being cute", says John Sebastian), a line-up change with Alice de Burgh when Brie left to have a child, playing the Troubadour and being seen by a woman working with producer Perry, Brie back playing with them again . . .
Fanny were serious musicians, lived together in LA at a place they named Fanny Hill so they could jam, various bands would show up (The Band, Little Feat) and play in their space, the sexual liberation of the period and being openly lesbian, the drugs, Brie nudged out of the band by Perry . . .
Then follows success, albums, ambition driving them, the first all-female rock band signed to a major label, great reviews, headlining at Carnegie Hall . . .
The Right to Rock is a story of friendship through music, a rock'n'roll attitude, how inspirational they were for those who followed . . . and some great hard rock as seen in television and live footage where the band exude sheer joy in playing.
As June says, “we broke through that barrier and it wasn't through talking, through arguing or convincing anyone for us to play. We just fuckin' did it.”
Sure did.
.
Fanny: The Right to Rock. Sky Arts (Sky channel 20), September 15, 8pm
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