In 1971, there weren’t many women in rock music. Janis Joplin, maybe Carole King? The Pleasure Seekers.. I honestly can’t name any more. True, there were succesful female singers and female guitarists, but what did girls do? Folk? Pop? Motown? Clearly there is nothing wrong with any of that. Some of the greatest performers and artists of the era were women. God help the man who says Aretha wasn’t The Queen.
But in 1971, rock music was a scene full of peacocking males, hirsute in velvet flares, waving their guitars around in a show of ultimate masculinity. Nobody wanted to see girls. Girls can’t play.
Enter Fanny. Even the name is a two-fingered salute. Chicks with guitars. Rocking hard. Talented and brimming with confidence, they wrote their own songs and they could really play. June and Jean Millington, Nickey Barclay and Alice de Buhr, natives of Sacramento, Ca. They weren’t a girl-group. They didn’t give a damn about sex appeal. They turned up in jeans and they served up a slice of rock’n’roll. All four had voices like you’ve never heard and they made heavy, soulful music that easily competes with any rock band from the early 70s. Five albums and a few lineup changes, Todd Rundgren producing, tours with Slade, Joe Cocker, Jethro Tull. The story is amazing.
Obviously, the story has its fair share of gender stereotyping and chauvinism and sadly, theirs is not a household name nowadays, but listen to their tunes and you will see why The Bangles and The Runaways raved about them. Better than that, Bowie was their biggest fan:
They were extraordinary: they wrote everything, they played like motherfuckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody’s ever mentioned them.
Yes, they were treated as a gimmick. Yes, they had to prove themselves all the time. Yes, they peaked before anyone was interested in female rock. But they were great. Not because they were girls, but because they were great.
Special Care was written by Stephen Stills and it features on Fanny’s 1971 LP, Charity Ball.
According to fannyrocks.com, Fanny takes Buffalo Springfield’s rather tame version of this song and tramples all over it.