Fanny: Fanny - 1970

As I flipped through album sleeves in record shops as a teenager in the seventies, I often came across covers featuring an all-girl rock band called Fanny. Their name made us young boys giggle, of course. I also noticed them on adverts for their LPs in NME and Disc. It is, however, only now that I have come to listen to them properly. It's only taken me fifty-four years!

The group were highly unusual in that they were an all-girl rock group as opposed to a vocal group, featuring the Millington sisters June and Jean on guitar and bass respectively along with shared vocals, Nickey Barclay on keyboards and Alice de Buhr on drums. Incidentally, I had always thought the luxuriously dark-haired Millington sisters were Native Americans, but they were actually Filipinas. 

They were acknowledged to have been a big influence on Suzi Quatro, The Runaways and Joan Jett. Surprisingly, though, their debut album is not as all-out rocking as one may expect. It is very much a child of 1970, with hints of Bread, America, Badfinger, Delaney & Bonnie and even Carole King floating around. The girls wore their hair long with centre partings, cheesecloth shirts and low rider bell-bottomed jeans. The music on offer here audibly represents that too, if you get my drift. It's an album with flares.

When the melodious tones of the opener Come And Hold Me gently breeze their way in, you think The Mamas And The Papas have joined the girls on vocals. It is all very airy, tuneful country rock 1970 style, with lots of those carefree hippy vibes. A bit more down 'n' dirty is I Just Realised, which has the vocalist (was it June or Jean?) showing just how much Suzi Quatro was influenced by the band. The song also has hints of The Beatles' Everybody's Got Something To Hide Except Me And My Monkey in its "take it easy" bit. 

Candlelighter Man is one of those songs that sort of reminds me of something else from the period. Possibly Badge by Cream, which appears a couple of tracks down the line on this album. There's a great guitar, keyboard and organ rock-off part in the middle that needs savouring. The group go all Carole King on the gentle ballad Conversation With A Cop. It's a good song with good lyrics about a cop shining a light in the subject's car window when all they want to do is find a place to walk their dog. "I've done no wrong...I'm just looking for a place to walk my dog...".

The afore-mentioned cover of Cream's sixties bluesy freakout Badge is probably as heavy as the girls get on this album. Whisper it quietly, but their version stands up well against the original. It seems tailor-made for Fanny's sound. Actually, the next track, Changing Horses, rocks out vibrantly too, with some great piano throughout. It has a feel of early Doobie Brothers and Little Feat. Check out the stonking mid-song guitar solo too - great suff. These girls could play. A pity that nobody seemed to notice, apart from Suzi Quatro.

Bitter Wine is typically pleasant, airy early seventies rock, with some nice vocal harmonies. Similarly appealing is Take A Message To The Captain, a track that sort of puts me in mind of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder tour output, musically and vocally (on the chorus). Love that clavinet (?) solo halfway through. It Takes A Lot Of Good Lovin' is a bit Stonesy but with a soulful side to it as well, particularly on the "hum it to me girls" vocal harmony bit. Listen to the girls rock out around two and a half minutes in - seriously kick-ass good and presented in great seventies stereo sound too.

I love the bass solo backing to Shade. It is another song that shows the girls' soulful/occasional rock-funk sound and there are bits of Janis Joplin to be found on the gritty vocal. Musically, it carries a real maturity to it. Seven Roads is a quality rocker with echoes (maybe) of Foghat in it. The early-mid seventies were such a fertile period for rock, weren't they? So much so that little gems like this album barely get a mention.

A good debut, to be sure.

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