Tuesday May 24, 2022 “Badge” Fanny
I’m trying to sell this band yet again.
Fanny is such a contradiction. Neither me nor David Bowie, who called Fanny his favoritre band, no ‘girl band’ qualifier, can understand why they were not superstars. They had the look, they could sing, they could write songs and they were all just kick-ass musicians.
They weren’t the first all girl band but Fanny was the first all-female rock band to be signed to a major label, inking a deal with Reprise in 1970. But they were hard to categorize. Thing was, they weren't really psychedelic, and although they could rock, they weren't heavy rockers, nor did they push the boundaries of what constituted pop and rock. Quite the contrary, they belonged to the mainstream.
George Harrison wrote this song and I always wondered just what he was going for with the title “Badge” as it is never referenced in the song. That is until I discovered that Harrison was having trouble with some of the music and sent it to his friend Eric Clapton asking for help with the ‘bridge’ in handwriting so poor that Clapton thought Harrison had named the song ‘badge’…and it stuck.
Stay safe and well…and unlike many of the bands of their time who had studio musicians play for them, Fanny played all of the instruments on this recording, there is no Wrecking Crew covering for them.