Real Gone reissues Fanny’s Mother’s Pride

We’ve discussed the great 1970s-era band Fanny on the site before (see the Rev’s Fanny Hill CD review), and Real Gone Music has done an admirable job in restoring the band’s long-out-of-print back catalog by reissuing Fanny’s first three Reprise Records albums on CD. Concluding their (much welcome) crusade, Real Gone will wrap up the Fanny catalog with a CD reissue of the band’s fourth and final Reprise album, Mother’s Pride, scheduled for August 5th, 2016 release.

Produced by rock ‘n’ roll wunderkind Todd Rundgren, whose deal was that he would oversee the final mix of the album, Fanny Hill was the band’s most ambitious and best-sounding album to date. While it failed to chart in the states, it helped further increase Fanny’s popularity in the U.K. The Real Gone reissue of Fanny Hill includes eight bonus tracks including rare album demos that were only previously released on CD as part of Rhino Handmade’s expensive box set. The reissue includes track-by-track annotation by the band, rare photos from the Fanny archive, liner notes by guitarist/singer June Millington, and original gatefold album art. Real Gone will also be re-pressing the band’s debut album, which it originally reissued in 2013, also making Fanny available again on August 5th.

Fanny was just the third all-female rock ‘n’ roll band signed by a major record label (following Goldie & the Gingerbreads and the Pleasure Seekers, which featured future Fanny member Patti Quatro), and the first to release an album with their self-titled 1970 debut. Their sophomore effort, 1971’s Charity Ball, scored a Top 40 hit with its title track, the album rising to #150 on the Billboard magazine chart. Their third album, Fanny Hill, charted higher than its predecessor at #135 and the band toured constantly, especially in the U.K., opening for such barn-burners as Slade, Jethro Tull, and Humble Pie.

When Mother’s Pride failed to chart, June Millington and Alice de Buhr left the band, replaced by the aforementioned Quatro and drummer Brie Howard (who would later play with another group of distaff rockers, the Screamin’ Sirens). This line-up released a single album, 1974’s Rock and Roll Survivors, which gave the band its biggest hit with the song “Butter Boy” (#29). Howard left the band after the album was finished and the band broke up shortly thereafter. Fanny left behind a rock-solid catalog of five albums, and counted legends like David Bowie among their many fans; kudos to Real Gone for preserving the band’s immense and important musical legacy.

Buy the CDs from Amazon.com:
Fanny's Fanny
Fanny's Mother's Pride