Fanny: The Right to Rock Helps Make David Bowie's Dream Come True

In a 1999 interview with Rolling Stone, David Bowie paid homage to Fanny, an all-female band who recorded five albums during the early 1970's and had been relegated to the ash heap of history:

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 fucking rock bands of their time, in about 1973. They were extraordinary: They wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them. They’re as important as anybody else who’s ever been, ever; it just wasn’t their time. Revivify Fanny. And I will feel that my work is done.

Bobbi Jo Hart, a Montreal-based documentary filmmaker, has done her part to revivify Fanny with a new film she both directed and produced called Fanny: The Right to Rock which premiered in Canada this past April before its U.S. premier last month in San Francisco. Hart first discovered Fanny five years ago when she was looking to buy a guitar for her daughter. While looking on the Taylor guitar website, Hart came across a video of Fanny lead guitarist June Millington leaving her both thrilled and upset:

I was equally thrilled and upset, because I grew up in California as a preteen in the seventies, and my parents were hippies—they were into all the best rock 'n' roll that was going around, you know. They had piles of LPs, and when I discovered Fanny I just thought, 'How come their LP was not on the pile? How come it was not played on our record player when I was growing up?' California is where they formed, and where they launched.

Hart is far from alone in feeling simultaneously thrilled at discovering Fanny's music and upset at not discovering them sooner. These sentiments permeate the comments section of Fanny's performance of the Marvin Gaye classic "Ain't That Peculiar" which has garnered more than 4 million views on YouTube. "Ain't That Peculiar" was part of a 35 minute, 7-song set Fanny played on the West German TV show Beat Club in November 1971 which has attracted a respectable 700,000 plus YouTube views. Similar comments can be found there such as, "Why wasn't this a huge hit band? Why aren't we hearing them every day on every classic rock station? Someone dropped the ball on these ladies."

Fanny: The Right to Rock examines these questions by tracing Fanny's origins through June Millington and her younger sister Jean who emigrated from The Philippines to the U.S. in 1961 as they entered their teens settling in Sacramento, California. The Millington sisters soon encountered racism and the isolation which comes with it. They would escape the isolation through music by forming an all-girl group called The Svelts with June on rhythm guitar and Jean on bass. The Svelts would soon be fixtures performing at sock hops and for soldiers leaving for war. Their musical prowess was such that the Millington sisters' younger brother Scott tells the story of how The Svelts would attract hundreds of people when they would rehearse in the backyard. 

At one point, The Svelts would have three Filipina members with the addition of Brie Berry (now Brie Howard-Darling) on drums. After Darling departed to have a child, Alice de Buhr would replace her on drums awith Addie Clement on lead guitar. By the end of the '60s the group now known as Wild Honey would move to L.A. in search of a record contract and would attract the attention of producer Richard Perry after his assistant Norma Goldstein-Kemper (who is briefly interviewed in the film) witnessed a raucous performance at an open mike night at The Troubadour. Perry would arrange for Wild Honey to sign with Reprise Records. After subtracting Clement, keyboardist Nickey Barclay would be added while June would move from rhythm to lead guitar. Darling would briefly rejoin the group before being unceremoniously kicked out when Reprise wanted a female Beatles and thus only four members. Soon they would be renamed Fanny and the group would make history becoming the first all-female group to release an album on a major label in 1970.

After four albums (Fanny, Charity Ball, Fanny Hill and Mother's Pride), Fanny still faced skeptical audiences and a media unconvinced that women could play rock 'n roll. Sexism was complicated by June and Alice having to hide their sexual orientation. As de Buhr put it in the film, "You couldn't be a lesbian in Fanny." With poor record sales, Reprise pressured the group to wear skimpier outfits emphasizing their sex appeal over their soulful music. This would be the final straw for June Millington who quit the band and was soon followed by de Buhr. 

Fanny would release one last album on Casablanca Records called Rock 'n Roll Survivors with Darling returning to the band on drums and Patti Quatro (from the Detroit-based, all-female rock band The Pleasure Seekers) replacing June on lead guitar. Fanny would enjoy their highest charting hit with the Jean Millington penned "Butter Boy" which was inspired by David Bowie with whom she had a romantic relationship. However, by the time the song peaked at 29 on the Billboard charts Fanny had broken up.

Fanny: The Right to Rock features interviews with the likes of Bonnie Raitt, Joe Elliott of Def Leppard, Cherie Currie of The Runaways and Earl Slick, the longtime sideman to Bowie who was also married to Jean Millington. Viewers are also treated to archived footage of Fanny's TV appearances as well as rare footage of The Svelts performing. 

Hart spends much of the documentary focusing on the Millington sisters' reunion with Darling to record their 2018 album Fanny Walked The Earth - the band's first release in more than 40 years which also featured contributions from de Buhr and Quatro. Sadly, a week before they were set to go on tour, Jean would suffer a stroke which has rendered her unable to play bass. However, it has not robbed the younger Millington sister of her dignity, grace and optimism she will again play bass one day.

Having immersed myself into Fanny's music over the past year, I have several quibbles about Fanny: The Right to Rock. For starters, the film doesn't pay nearly enough attention to the musical contributions of either Nickey Barclay and Alice de Buhr aside from a brief clip of them performing "Blind Alley" from the Beat Club session. While Barclay has long since dissociated herself from Fanny, the fact remains she wrote or co-wrote a majority of the songs on the first four Fanny albums. To the extent Barclay is discussed it is in reference to her temperamental personality rather than her talent. To not discuss Barclay's songwriting prowess would be akin to producing a documentary about The Byrds while ignoring Gene Clark. 

As for de Buhr, before moving to California she was also in an all-female trio in Iowa called The Women. In their own way, The Women were every bit as pioneering as The Svelts. After leaving Fanny, she spent many years working in the marketing department of A&M Records and was involved in promoting the The Go-Go's. Given that Go-Go's bassist Kathy Valentine was interviewed for the film it is odd that de Buhr's association with the group isn't mentioned. Equally odd is that Addie Clement is never mentioned in the film despite having signed and recorded with Fanny before departing prior to the release of their debut album.

Hart also omits the fact that the following the success of "Butter Boy", the Millington sisters, Darling along with percussionist Padi Macheta (who collaborated with June in a post-Fanny band called Smiles) and keyboardist Wendy Haas, a member of the 1960's all-female band The Freudian Slips, had formed a group called L.A. All-Stars and were to sign a record deal with Arista Records. However, June would balk when the deal was contingent on the group calling itself Fanny and playing only Fanny songs. 

Fanny didn't disappear without a trace right away which somewhat complicates Hart's narrative. The music business, fickle as it might be, was still interested in Fanny in the mid-1970's. So what would have happened had Fanny had been reconstituted? Given the conditions laid out by Arista there's a good chance the group would have been constrained creatively and remained a novelty act thereby further exacerbating June's personal anguish. 

In the grand scheme of things, June putting the kibosh on putting Fanny back together might have been for the best for all parties concerned. Perhaps June doesn't meet Ann Hackler, her partner of nearly 40 years, much less collaborate with her to establish the Institute of Musical Arts (IMA) which has mentored a generation of aspiring female musicians. Yet whatever role sexism in the music industry played in burying Fanny, some of its members carried shovels and helped dig the group's grave.

Nevertheless, as movie theaters gradually reopen in the post-pandemic world, Fanny: The Right to Rock will help to serve as a gateway for broader awareness of Fanny's music and their revivification. If David Bowie were to suddenly fall back to Earth, I believe he would be heartened by Bobbie Jo Hart's film.