Fanny was the first all female band to be signed to a major record label in the US. June and Jean Millington and Brie Howard are Filipina-Americans who started playing together as teenagers in the 1960s. They released five albums, one every year, from 1970 to 1974. With changes in their line up along the way, seven women were part of the group at different times.
They’ve been inspirations to female musicians ever since. But even though they were famous while they were together, after they broke up they were largely forgotten. Because no matter how talented they were, so many people at the time still didn’t take an all female band seriously.
June, Jean, and Brie reformed as Fanny Walked the Earth in 2018. I got to see their reunion tour in San Francisco in 2023, along with the documentary movie about them, Fanny: The Right to Rock. By then the reformed Fanny was made up of five of the seven women who had ever been part of it.
You’ve never seen women in their mid-70s rock like this before. That’s what pioneering something means. If you’re the first, you’re probably also the oldest.
