“I freaked out. I couldn’t believe it. Nobody else was doing that at the time”: The Beatles made the Leslie speaker an iconic guitar tone. But a pioneering “all-female” rock band were one of the first to take it out on the road

Left–Guitarist June Millington performs with Fanny (as The LA Allstars) at Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom on June 5, 1975 in Atlanta, Georgia; Right–George Harrison performs on stage with Delaney and Bonnie in Copenhagen, Denmark in December 1969. He is playing a 'Rocky' Fender Stratocaster guitar.

In the 1970s, Fanny – led by sisters June and Jean Millington on guitar and bass, respectively – broke the mold as the first all-female band to sign to a major label, Reprise Records – a Warner Bros. Records subsidiary that also housed acts like Jimi Hendrix and Fleetwood Mac.

Their pioneering approach also extended to their gear. June famously incorporated a Leslie speaker into her rig, after her original idea – that of using her Gibson ES-355’s stereo feature – didn’t quite work out.

“I am deaf in one ear,” she tells Guitar World. “That's why I'm always on the left side of the stage. I even tried to play it through two amps.”

However, there was one approach that actually did work. “Richard [Perry, famed record producer] came back from London because it was 1970, and we were in the studio, and he had a tape of the Beatles, and it wasn't finished yet, but it had George Harrison playing the [Let It Be] solo through a Leslie speaker. And I freaked out. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't done, but it was so powerful.”

The Leslie, designed by Don Leslie in the late ’30s, is a speaker cabinet that creates a swirling, moving sound by physically rotating its speakers. When used as part of a guitar rig, the player can then control it with an external switch or pedal that alternates between high- and low-speed settings, creating a truly distinctive sonic texture.

She continues, “I went right out and told our roadies we had to create my rig to include playing through a Leslie. What I would do is, I had a pedal, and I could turn it on, and I could vary the speed also.

“So I did have two amps on stage. I had my Fender, and I had that Leslie, and nobody else was doing that at the time. That Leslie was heavy, but we carried it everywhere.”

Guitar World’s interview with June and Jean Millington from Fanny will be published in the coming weeks.

And, speaking of the connection between Fanny and The Beatles, June recalls how the Fab Four turned out to be fans – and how the band ended up recording with seminal Beatles engineer, Geoff Emerick.