Filipino-American guitarist, songwriter, producer, educator and actress June Millington is on her “Island Girl in a Rock & Roll World Tour” and will be playing one rare performance on the Big Island.
Filipino-American guitarist, songwriter, producer, educator and actress June Millington is on her “Island Girl in a Rock & Roll World Tour” and will be playing one rare performance on the Big Island.
Millington takes the stage 7 p.m. April 30 at Kilauea Military Camp Theater in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Doors open at 6:30.
The tour follows the release of her latest book, an autobiography titled, “Land of a Thousand Bridges.”
She is perhaps best known for being a co-founder and lead guitarist of the all-female rock band “Fanny,” which was active from 1970-74. Millington is also the co-founder and artistic director of the Institute for the Musical Arts, a teaching, performing and recording facility dedicated to supporting women and girls in music and music-related business, in Goshen, Massachusetts. The institute also runs summer rock programs for girls and young women. The concert benefits the institute.
Millington and her sister, Jean, have been playing music since they were children strumming ukuleles in the Philippines. When they moved to the US in the 1960’s, they traded in their acoustic guitars for electric and formed a succession of all-girl bands that eventually became “Fanny,” one of the first all-female rock bands to be signed to a major label. It was while recording in major studios with engineers like Apple’s Geoff Emerick that Millington began to study the art of sound recording and producing.
After Fanny, she became involved in the women’s music movement when she was asked to play on and tour behind Cris Williamson’s “The Changer and the Changed.” “Women’s music” quickly evolved into an independent feminist music network that included (often collectively run) production companies, venues, festivals, record labels, and distribution networks. It was in that genre that Millington began to produce albums for, among others, Williamson, singer-songwriter Holly Near and jazz pianist and composer Mary Watkins.
The sisters continued to record and perform throughout the 1980s and 90s – with Jean taking time off to raise her two children, and June, together with her partner Ann Hackler, founding the Institute for the Musical Arts.
Tickets purchased in advance are $20 for general admission and $45 for Gold Circle seating. General admission ticket prices increase to $25 at the door. Children younger than age 12 enter free.
Info: www.lazarbear.com, or 896-4845 or 982-9104.