Fanny - Live on TV (1971-1973)

I want to turn you on to the band Fanny if you haven't heard of them already. They were the first major all-female rock band. Here's what David Bowie said about them in 1999, "They were one of the finest f-cking rock bands of their time. They were extraordinary. They wrote everything, they played like motherf-ckers, they were just colossal and wonderful, and nobody's ever mentioned them. They’re as important as anybody else who's ever been, ever; it just wasn't their time."

I think it's safe to say in hindsight that the band was held back by sexism, which was rampant in the rock world at that time. There are countless stories of them being dismissed simply because they were women. Furthermore, two of the band members, including the lead singer, were in part ethnically Filipino, so racism held them back too. But I also think it's safe to say that if you just listen to their music, Bowie was right. 

If you want to know more about them, here's their Wikipedia page:

Fanny (band) - Wikipedia

They did okay in terms of sales, having a few minor hits. Yet it's shocking to me how little known they are these days. You'd think they'd be considered trailblazers for women in rock, much like Janis Joplin, Grace Slick, and Joni Mitchell, but instead it seems they'd disappeared down the memory hole. But at least many famous all-female bands like the Runaways, the Bangles, and the Go-Go's were very aware of them and cite them as a key influence.

Anyway, getting to the music here, there is one official live album from them. But as far as I can tell, there are no other live recordings, no bootlegs, other than their appearances on some TV shows where they actually played live instead of lipsyncing. I've collected all of those here. 

I think it makes for a very good album. Everything here is officially unreleased. Yet the sound quality is excellent throughout. On all but three of the songs, these were recorded in studios without an audience, so that helps the sound quality.

Eleven of the 16 songs come from two appearances on the German TV show "Beat Club." That helped ensure that they didn't play the same few songs over and over. There are a couple of instances where the same songs were played more than once, and I didn't include those. But there were literally only two or three cases of that, which is lucky. 

Most of the songs are originals, except for "Hey Bulldog" by the Beatles, "Ain't That Peculiar" by Marvin Gaye, "Special Care" by Buffalo Springfield, "Badge" by Cream, and "Last Night I Had a Dream" by Randy Newman. That list alone strongly suggested they had excellent music taste.

This doesn't contain all their best songs, but it does contain most of them. Furthermore, I think they played with more fire on these live versions than on their album versions. So if you're not familiar with them, this is a good place to start. And if you do have their officially released music, I'll bet you don't have this.

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Cat Fever (Fanny)
02 Charity Ball (Fanny)
03 Place in the Country (Fanny)
04 Hey Bulldog (Fanny)
05 talk (Fanny)
06 Thinking of You (Fanny)
07 talk (Fanny)
08 Ain't That Peculiar (Fanny)
09 talk (Fanny)
10 Blind Alley (Fanny)
11 talk (Fanny)
12 Special Care (Fanny)
13 You're the One (Fanny)
14 Badge (Fanny)
15 Young and Dumb (Fanny)
16 Summer Song (Fanny)
17 Knock on My Door (Fanny)
18 Borrowed Time (Fanny)
19 All Mine (Fanny)
20 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289915/Fany_1971-1973_LveonTV_atse.zip.html

Since most of the songs were played on "Beat Club," I figured it would be appropriate to have a cover image from that. So I took a screenshot from one of their "Beat Club" videos found on YouTube. The picture quality is rather low-res, but I didn't have any other good options of them playing on stage anyway. I took the band name at the top from a 1972 concert poster.