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| June Millington and Alice de Buhr (of Fanny) accepting the inaugural American Songbook Award (presented by Shanta Thake and Toshi Reagon) at the Gossip and ESG: Honoring Fanny tribute, co-curated by Kathleen Hanna and Tamar-kali |
In the second installment with Fanny: The Right To Rock director Bobbi Jo Hart and Fanny co-founder June Millington (who started The Institute of the Musical Arts with Ann Hackler) we are again joined by music producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman.
Bobbi Jo’s spirited documentary (which had a screening during the Lincoln Center Presents American Songbook: Singer Outsiders series, and included tributes to The Slits hosted by Vivien Goldman and Poly Styrene, co-curated by Kathleen Hanna and Tamar-kali) takes us on the journey of the first all-female rock band (June Millington, Jean Millington, Brie Howard Darling, Alice de Buhr, Nickey Barclay) signed to a major label. From performance clips we hear and see the formidable talent of Fanny and through insightful on-camera interviews, including Bonnie Raitt, Kate Pierson (the B-52s), Todd Rundgren, Kathy Valentine (The Go-Gos), John Sebastian (The Lovin’ Spoonful), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Gail Ann Dorsey, Earl Slick, Cherie Currie (The Runaways), and Fanny band members, including Patti Quatro, we learn about the determination it takes to overcome the pitfalls firmly in place of a music industry dominated by men.
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| ESG producer and 99 Records founder Ed Bahlman gifts come away with ESG (99-003LP) to a surprised Kathleen Hanna Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
June and Alice de Buhr were presented with the inaugural American Songbook Award during the Gossip and ESG: Honoring Fanny event by Shanta Thake (Chief Artistic Officer of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts) and Toshi Reagon, following the crowd-pleasing and inspiring performance of ESG, led by singer/songwriter Renee Scroggins (come away with ESG, 99-003LP and 99-10EP, produced and mastered by Ed Bahlman, 99-04EP, produced by Martin Hannett and Ed Bahlman, all on 99 Records) inside the Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall, Lincoln Center.
On Friday, April 11 the Lincoln Center Presents American Songbook: Singer Outsiders event was Kathleen Hanna’s Mixtape: Women in Punk with Lenny Lynch, Helen Holmes, Erin Markey, Katharine Battistoni, Privacy Issues (Liz Belly & Pier), Tracy Bonham, Mia Berrin, Mary Jane Dunphe, MILITIA VOX, Lisa McQuade, Tamar-kali, and a rousing Rebel Girl finale led by Kathleen Hanna.
From Montreal, Bobbi Jo Hart and from Goshen, Massachusetts, June Millington joined us for an in-depth conversation on Fanny: The Right To Rock.
Anne-Katrin Titze: The first time we see you on camera in the film, June, is in your pyjamas. And not just you are in your pyjamas, but your instrument is wrapped in your old pajamas!
June Millington: Genuine, absolutely genuine moments. Bobbi, you actually caught me opening my guitar case in my pyjamas with my guitar swaddled. And that's a woman. That's how you see your instrument. It's so precious, and it deserves that softness, you know, and I give my guitars that. I give them that kind of attention. It's so funny because guys and their relationship to guitars, they know how many frets, what kind of pickups, they know all sorts of stuff that I can't remember at all. I just know how the guitar feels. So that is my relationship to how the guitar talks through or with me. It's very sensual and intimate.
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| Kathleen Hanna introducing ESG at the Gossip and ESG: Honoring Fanny event Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AKT: And Bobbi Jo, you got that right away!
Bobbi Jo Hart: Yeah, no, I mean, I feel so honoured because my main DP, Claire Sanford, and I literally threw gear in a car. I didn't have much notice when I found out that the band was recording this new album, because June and I had been in touch, and I was finishing another film, and June was busy doing her thing. And then, next thing I know … This is a slight sidebar, but I was at the Women's March with my daughter in 2017, the one million Women's March on Inauguration Day.
She was really sad about the results of that election. So we flew down for that, and we were standing with a million other women and families and men, etc, and looked up on stage at the Jumbotron and Madonna was up there, and all these other artists, and I look and I see on the Jumbotron over Madonna's shoulder this woman with this camera.
And she takes it down, and it's June! The white hair, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm trying to call her. But the phones were all blocked, you know, too many people. So we finally talked, and then she says, hey, by the way, in a couple of weeks we start. We got this record deal. We're starting to record. So Claire and I drove down, and we embed ourselves at an Airbnb across the street, and literally met them in person for the first time, when we showed up and just lived across the street, for at least a week and a half, as they were coming back together.
Because June was living there at IMA [The Institute for the Musical Arts] with Ann. But then the other bandmates were flying in to start recording, and so it was really an honour to be able to witness that, and to have that trust to be in that space. That's very sacred when they're recording their album. And they're just magical.
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| Toshi Reagon with Shanta Thake presenting the inaugural American Songbook Award to Fanny |
JM: Toshi Reagan is the one who invited me to be part of the whole thing and sing with their band that day. She's also, I feel, really integral to this whole thing at Lincoln Center, because she knows the women who invited us. In fact, they got in touch with me through Toshi. So there's a through line there which is very cool.
Ed Bahlman: Something Fanny had to overcome was when - and it's related to Motown and others - the idea of a band was co-opted by just the singers. Calling The Supremes a band.
JM: They co-opted, I think, that's all they could think of. And so I can give you a list of supposedly all-female bands that were not so. That to me is a misrepresentation. But some people care, some people don't. I mean, I happen to care, because I know how hard it was to be in an all-girl band, and to be sneered at. Starting in ’65, when we started doing our first gigs as The Svelts, and being sneered at by the boys in front of the stage. That was terrible, and we had to overcome that. So to me it's a very visceral and important thing that you say. It was an all-girl band because of the derisive reaction we got from the boys
EB: Many of those groups had session people on their records, too.
JM: Yeah, I mean, that was really common, that didn't bother me at all. But to say that you're an all-girl band, and you actually recorded those tracks, that was what was important. Sonny and Cher, they had session musicians, I mean a lot of people did.
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| ESG singer/songwriter Renee Scroggins walks on stage with her children Nicholas Nicholas and Nicole Nicholas Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
AKT: The archival clips from the different shows are interesting. For The Dick Cavett Show, for example, I noticed what great pants you were wearing!
JM: We knew how to dress ourselves! That's the thing, we got to LA, those outfits on the first album cover, those are ours. So part of the reason why I left in ’73 was they were trying, well, they made us wear clothes that were designed for us, which I just didn't like at all. That offended me greatly.
AKT: Yeah, I understand. The change is so obvious. It is shown really well, from something that looks very organic and beautiful to sparkly, skimpy nonsense costumes.
JM: We did know how to shop. I'll tell you that we were built to know how to shop.
AKT: Kenny Rogers introduces you as “Another one of those long haired groups.”
EB: In the clip we see you are really great, and Fanny comes across really well.
BJH: Well, the way I took it when Kenny Rogers said that was like he was trying to treat them equally, like any other rock band. Here's another long hair group, you know, which I thought was a sign of respect. Not just, here's an all-girl band to look at. It was like, here's another one of those long haired groups, and I thought it was kind of a sign of respect.
JM: He did treat us with respect. He was not a put a downer. I can say that for sure he was very nice to us. He respected us.
AKT: It's very nice that Ruby Ibarra is in the film at the end!
JM: Fantastic. She's become a good friend, too, and I'm going to see her next month. Right after New York, in fact, Ann and I are going to go to Hawaii. We're stopping off in Jean's [Millington, her sister] house.
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| ESG performing in the Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall on April 6, 2025 Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
BJH: June recorded with Ruby as well. As this incredible matriarch in this incredible video.
JM: When she first got in touch with me, she said, would you sing on my record? And I said, sing? I mean, I never had anybody ask me to sing! They're always asking me to shred, you know. I said, don't you want me to play guitar, too? She said, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
EB: You have a great voice, June!
AKT: And the Bakunawa is a powerful story!
JM: Incredible.
AKT: I told you how strongly my students, 18,19-year-olds, reacted to the video!
JM: Well, you can tell the ferocity of Filipina women when you see that film. Not only is the goddess, or whoever that Bakunawa actually is, coming from the earth, incredibly fierce, but that also represents the ferocity of Filipina women, which, believe me, exists in the Philippines.
AKT: And that's also a very interesting point in the film. You mentioned that nobody asked you about that, about being Filipina. It was never addressed.
JM: At all! I loved [this shoot for Bakunawa] because I look around and all the crew, all the makeup people, everyone who was moving the stuff around - and it was a very well coordinated shoot, by the way, for three days - they were all Asian, American Asian, and it was terrific for me. I felt so comfortable.
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| Ed Bahlman holding up the ESG setlist Photo: Anne Katrin Titze |
BJH: Yeah, it was too bad, back in the day. In all the archives I was looking up articles, etc, no one was mentioning it. No one was digging deeper in terms of their identity. And not even digging, mentioning it or celebrating it, and so that to me was an opportunity, too, to right the wrongs of history in that regard, to celebrate their culture as well.
AKT: As in, when it’s women with instruments, that's already enough of a novelty! We don't go any further than that!
JM: That trumped everything else!
EB: There should be a Fanny the musical on Broadway!
JM: There should be!
BJH: Putting it out there to the universe!
JM: I think someday there will be. There have been several attempts. Covid, it interrupted that whole process.
EB: Anne-Katrin's friend, Michael Mayer, the film and Broadway director, did Head Over Heels, based on the Go-Gos [and Belinda Carlisle’s song catalogue]. That was great. And he also did the Neil Diamond one, A Beautiful Noise. He just directed Aida at The Met.
AKT: And Marnie and Grounded at The Met.
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| Fanny following the film screening/concert in Sacramento |
BJH: You should introduce him to June!
EB: Did somebody write a book for the potential musical?
JM: I wrote a book, and I'm writing a second one right now.
Read what Bobbi Jo Hart and June Millington had to say about how the documentary came about, Fanny living in the “electric” house previously owned by Hedy Lamarr, starting out in Sacramento, playing with all the up-and-coming bands in the Sixties and early Seventies, a different appreciation in Europe, and how June teaches the girls more than music at The Institute for the Musical Arts.
