On Friday night, I attended the New England premiere of Fanny: The Right to Rock at the Brattle Theater here in Cambridge. The screening was part of the 2021 Boston Women's Film Festival.
This is actually my third time watching this movie and here were my thoughts on it back in July. As such, I don't have anything really new to add about the film itself other than it does make a difference when you're watching it in a theatre full of people. It makes for a far more meaningful experience. In case you're wondering, to get into the Brattle you had to be masked and present proof of either your vaccine status or a recent negative COVID test.
The main reason I went to see to film tonight was because Fanny's lead guitarist June Millington would be in attendance. Joining her was Fanny: The Right to Rock director and producer Bobbi Jo Hart. The two had a conversation with the audience following the film. I joined in to tell June how she turned my world upside down. I thought I knew everything there was to know about early 1970's music until I heard June play slide guitar on "Ain't That Peculiar" last year. Given what she has gone through this year in fighting breast cancer I told her how gratified I was that she could be here to see the love people have for her music. Some of June's contemporaries like Tim Buckley and Judee Sill didn't live long enough to see their music appreciated in the way it should have been.
June performed a short acoustic solo set with a mix of 1970's Fanny songs ("Long Road Home", "All Mine" and a snippet of their cover of The Beatles' "Hey Bulldog") and newer material ("Girls on the Road" from the 2018 Fanny Walked the Earth album plus the live debut of "Girls Don't Dream (The Big Lie)") along with a spontaneous rendition of "The Letter" made famous by The Box Tops. She concluded the evening by reading a passage from her 2015 autobiography Land of a Thousand Bridges recounting the night she saw Albert King, Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana at the Fillmore West.
I stuck around to briefly meet with Bobbi Jo Hart as well as June's longtime partner Ann Hackler. Ann told me the evening reminded her of some of June's livestreams which she did until her cancer diagnosis. June would often be joined in her barn by her nephew Lee John, his longtime girlfriend Naia Kete and his father Earl Slick, who only played guitar for David Bowie and John Lennon. It was truly a family affair. Not many people watched but those who did were devoted and we knew we were in for a treat after a home cooked meal.
I volunteered to help Ann carry some gear and had the opportunity to carry one of June's guitars. Not exactly a roadie. A streetie perhaps. In any case, it is not everyday one gets to carry the guitar of a rock 'n roll pioneer.
Alas all things must come to an end. All in all though it was a Fannytastic evening.
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