Episode 38! In this episode, it’s Part 1 of our hashtag #AskAlice! Fanny’s drummer answers fan’s questions as she talks about her drumming on a variety of Fanny tunes. We play “Seven Roads” from Fanny’s first album, and “A Little While Later” from the “Charity Ball” album in full, as well as clips from other songs.
“Seven Roads”
Okay, just re-listened! Must say, I like the first version better (I think, the only difference was the intro organ cut, and vocals either added to or re-done ~ I noticed a few crossing parts) because it feels so much better and vital! And, quite frankly, I can feel all our hours of jamming and playing and just jamming and jamming!
I think Jean and I started the groove and Alice came down and we were off!
And now, to Alice’s parts: From the intro, Alice has got her part “blocked out,” exquisitely. She starts out with a few hh hits, then launches. She is incrdible, and all of it is exciting! You know, Alice’s style (and maybe, everyone’s drum parts back then, but in particular Alice has it down) is “busy” compared to now, but it totally works! And try to do it without her perfectly placed fills, no baby ~ no no, won’t work. I also noticed that on ‘Hey Bulldog,’ you gotta do her parts – when we first played with Lee [Jean’s son], he of course was playing the modern way, and I was like ‘what’s wrong?’ It was, like, chubby, clunky, no life, even though what he was playing was in essence, perfectly fine. So, we listened, and I said, ‘You gotta absolutely do what Alice did.’ Click!
As I was listening to version #2, I noted just a little lick at 2:15 that Alice repeated a few times, it just talks to you. (well, if you know how to listen ~ but even if not, you can feel it). And how about that last long press roll Alice does at the end?? Godalmighty, how dare she?? Who does that?? Alice, that’s who – she went right to the line, and crossed it. Total success!
You know, when Jean and I did a Honolulu gig back in the late ’90s, fans came out of the woodwork. And a few told us that they’d seen Fanny in the Midwest back in the day. They were like, “how did she do that???!” They said her parts were impossible, but she did ’em anyway. Their mouths were still wide open. Now, that’ drumming Art and, moreover, sleight of hand 🙂 )” – June Millington
“It was an exercise in writing a rock song…when we wrote it. We wanted to have the song represent ourselves and to show that we had the ability to pound away at rock…but because we’re Fanny – we were melody conscious and lyrics conscious – not just straight-ahead R&R. And so what we came up with was a much more polished rock song. It was our sound and that’s how we did rock.” – Jean Millington on Fanny’s approach to “Seven Roads”
“A Little While Later”
Alice gives it a lot of space at the top (we all do, I think it was just Jean with the piano) and when Alice comes in she’s just loping, nice and easy. Perfect. And on the choruses, the cymbal part must’ve been overdubbed because it’s in double-time and there’s no way she could’ve played that along with the underlying drum track. (and I must say, I didn’t stick around – or maybe, pay attention to – every bit that was laid down, I knew it was going on but also knew everyone was taking care of business. Essentially, I’d just get in the way. Much better to hang out with Harry Nilsson or whoever else was around!). We must’ve done this track with a click, but at the end of chorus two there’s, again, that sleight of hand because I could swear that Alice slows the drums down just that little bit (after the triplets) to get us back into the lope-y feel of that repeat first verse: perfect.
