Biography
June Millington launched her professional path in 1969 as lead guitarist in Fanny, the all-female rock outfit that reached mainstream audiences, yet she quickly saw how few doors existed for women in that arena. Over the group's five-year run in the 1970s, when scant female artists had produced notable rock releases, Fanny issued four Warner Bros. albums—Fanny, Charity Ball, Fanny Hill, and Mother's Pride—demonstrating that women could compose and perform rock & roll with full intensity rather than limit themselves to vocals. At the same time, recording studios and concert tours operated almost entirely without female technicians, while female agents, managers, and promoters remained rare.
In 1975 Millington received an invitation to contribute guitar to Cris Williamson's landmark album The Changer and the Changed. Having progressed from childhood ukulele experiments in her native Manila to command of electric rock in California, she now crossed an even wider divide by stepping away from commercial success into the circle of "women's music." Aligning with the movement's emphasis on female creative autonomy, she founded Fabulous Records and issued Heartsong in 1981, Running in 1983, and One World, One Heart in 1988. From that base she began planning sustained guidance for women entering music and related fields, envisioning the Institute for the Musical Arts as a vehicle to advance careers for women, particularly women of color, to connect the mainstream and "women's music" spheres, and to advance equity throughout the industry and broader society.
Her vision quickly attracted veteran musicians to IMA advisory boards, among them Bonnie Raitt, Linda Tillery, Teresa Trull, and Cris Williamson. After relocating from Northern California to Goshen, Massachusetts in the early 2000s, the organization continues as a multicultural nonprofit dedicated to teaching and performance, with Millington serving as Artistic Director. Participants acquire practical skills through classes, apprenticeships, live shows, and studio work in artist management, concert lighting and sound, entertainment law, instrumental and vocal technique, marketing, music composition, promotion, sound technology, stage management, video, and recording and engineering—efforts that have yielded multiple albums by emerging artists on the Fabulous label.
In 1975 Millington received an invitation to contribute guitar to Cris Williamson's landmark album The Changer and the Changed. Having progressed from childhood ukulele experiments in her native Manila to command of electric rock in California, she now crossed an even wider divide by stepping away from commercial success into the circle of "women's music." Aligning with the movement's emphasis on female creative autonomy, she founded Fabulous Records and issued Heartsong in 1981, Running in 1983, and One World, One Heart in 1988. From that base she began planning sustained guidance for women entering music and related fields, envisioning the Institute for the Musical Arts as a vehicle to advance careers for women, particularly women of color, to connect the mainstream and "women's music" spheres, and to advance equity throughout the industry and broader society.
Her vision quickly attracted veteran musicians to IMA advisory boards, among them Bonnie Raitt, Linda Tillery, Teresa Trull, and Cris Williamson. After relocating from Northern California to Goshen, Massachusetts in the early 2000s, the organization continues as a multicultural nonprofit dedicated to teaching and performance, with Millington serving as Artistic Director. Participants acquire practical skills through classes, apprenticeships, live shows, and studio work in artist management, concert lighting and sound, entertainment law, instrumental and vocal technique, marketing, music composition, promotion, sound technology, stage management, video, and recording and engineering—efforts that have yielded multiple albums by emerging artists on the Fabulous label.
Albums
Singles
