Recently I went into the Chersonian Institute to put away some of the latest acquisitions to the collection and since I was still tweaking my Cher’s Los Angeles map (from a list I made reading Cher’s Memoir), I decided to look at all the Cher record covers to fill in some studio gaps (not a bad way to spend an early afternoon) and I quickly fell into a rabbit hole. Because looking at record covers is endlessly entertaining.

I started to track the unique aspects of each cover. This could stand a much deeper dive. Like which covers list musicians and which ones don’t. For the moment, I just started to look at a few things: the recording studios (and engineers), Sonny’s liner notes, poems, fan club mentions.

Now let me say I have not a clue what an engineer does. And this is a lifelong problem. When I was young, my friend told me her father was an engineer and I immediately thought he drove the train. No, she said, he was an engineer at McDonnel Douglas in St. Louis. He engineered war planes. Whatever that means. Does he design them? I don’t know. But in a recording studio I have a vague sense that an engineer is tied to a studio in some way.

For example, some early Sonny & Cher records are missing a studio credit, but I could see that Stan Ross was listed as the album’s engineer on all of those so I assume those records were also recorded at Gold Star. This theory was not always true but the theory was fortified as Cher records started to dissolve throughout the 1980s and beyond into a flock of studios and engineers per album, and sometimes per song.

And my findings were interesting so I decided to write about them here (as I update my map). If a studio location isn’t mentioned, the studio is understood to be in the Los Angeles area or was noted as being in the LA-area on Wikipedia, where I went to fill in gaps missing from album covers and CD booklets.

The Gold Star Studios Albums

The albums recorded at Gold Star Studios were:

  1. Look at Us (Sonny & Cher) (1965)
  2. All I Really Want to Do (1965)
  3.  The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher (1966)
  4.  The Sonny Side of Cher (no studio listed but Stan Ross is listed) (1966)
  5. In Case You’re in Love (Sonny & Cher) (1967)
  6. Cher (1967)
  7. With Love, Cher (no studio listed but Stan Ross is listed) (1967)
  8. The Good Times soundtrack (most likely Gold Star) (Sonny & Cher) (1967)
  9. Inner Views (Sonny)  (no studio listed but Stan Ross is listed) (1967)
  10. Backstage (no studio listed but Stan Ross is listed) (1968)
  11. The Chastity soundtrack (1969)

Sonny & Cher’s first duet album, Look at Us, includes an uncredited poem (in all caps for some reason), as does Cher’s album The Sonny Side of Cher! That one has a credit to Richard Oliver. I tried to look up “poet Richard Oliver” and AI informed me there “might be a mix-up in the query” and I probably meant the poet Mary Oliver. Sheesh, AI.

In any case, it looks like Oliver did the liner notes for this album and put in a poem for filler. And it is more filler-y than the typical Sonny liner note filler. Oliver says, “This album has feeling.” Feeling is a common theme in the 1960s and 70s liner notes on Cher.

(click to enlarge)

Sonny did his first liner notes for All I Really Want to Do (talking about how Cher feels) and there’s a letter from Sonny & Cher on The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher. Sonny does a lot of treading water in these liner notes. A lot of space is taken up explaining himself. But he does seem to be legitimately trying to connect with their fans (in both sincerity and detail).

The Sonny & Cher Fan Club (8560 Sunset Blvd) starts appearing on Cher (1967) and appears again on With Love, Cher. The 1967 Cher album also has a great double-exposure photo of Sonny and Cher in the studio while Cher was recording “Alfie.”

And the back of the Backstage album has fascinated me for years with more liner notes that don’t really have anything to say but that incorporate a conversation with Cher. This sits atop a selection of photos (common for the back of Sonny & Cher albums) but with captions presumably written by Cher.

 

The soundtrack to Good Times doesn’t list any recording credits but it has an interesting write-up and dialogue with Sonny and Cher by William Friedkin. I just saw The French Connection last weekend in honor of Gene Hackman’s very sad and strange passing.

The Muscle Shoals Album

3614 Jackson Highway (1969) was famously recorded in Muscle Shoals, Alabama. Cher handwrites the liner notes for this album and signs it. Tom Dowd engineered.

The Larrabee Sound Albums

When Sonny & Cher started working with Snuff Garret as a producer, they also started working with engineer Lenny Roberts (sometimes listed as Lennie for some reason). I got a chance to interview Lenny Roberts in 2009.

The albums recorded at Larrabee Sound were:

  1. All I Ever Need Is You (Sonny & Cher) (studio is not listed by Lennie Roberts is listed) (1971)
  2. Cher  (studio is not listed by Lennie Roberts is listed) (1971)
  3. Foxy Lady (1972)
  4. Bittersweet White Light (1973)
  5. Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer, Papa Used to Write All the Songs (Sonny & Cher) (1973)
  6. Half Breed (1973)
  7. Dark Lady (1974)
    Very likely this was also recorded at Larrabee, although no studio, engineer or musicians are listed on the back cover. Space is given instead to Richard Avedon for photography and Calvin Klein for the dress! But Wikipedia lists Lenny Roberts as engineer.
  8. Cherished (1977)

The covers are very spartan for most of these Larrabee Sound albums. Cherished starts listing a fan club at a P.O. Box in North Hollywood. Only Bittersweet has liner notes by Sonny, more about the feels. Feel-y Cher.

For some odd reason when I was eight or nine I highlighted liner notes and thank yous on my Cher albums, which is why that yellow text above looks a little green. (What a nerd.)

The Sunset Sound and The Record Plant Albums

  1. Stars (Sunset Sound)  (1975)
    Here Cher has started adding dedications and thank yous instead of notes. She thanks David Geffen for all his help on this album.
  2. Allman & Woman, Two the Hard Way (parts at Sunset and parts and The Record Plant in LA and NYC) (1977)
    I got lost in the information architecture of this album’s credits and gave up trying to find an engineer. Cher dedicates the album to her kids. She doesn’t thank Mr. Cher.
  3. Black Rose (Sunset Sound with a plethora of engineers) (1980)
  4. I Paralyze (parts at The Record Plant) (1982) (see more below)

My 8 or 9 year old self has written in cursive my name on the back of the Stars album. But backwards with my last name first. I do not know what that weird R in Mary is even doing besides standing up, turning around and trying to tell all the other letters to go back.

I’d like to do a little digression here to talk about the back cover of the Black Rose album and how it fails to rise above annoying rock music cliches. First, let’s look at the album covers where Cher previously attempted to change her image with rock music (and photographs).

The Stars album is a perfect cover, especially for 1975. It takes Cher’s then-current sparkly image and works it into something more substantially edgy. It’s creative and yet still glam. This is the way to do it. Another gold star.

Two the Hard Way, on the other hand, was trying way to hard. It’s a glamourous studio shot that compromises Gregg Allman more than it makes Cher convincing as a rock singer. It reads more like Allman has Gone Hollywood than it does that Cher has gone rock and roll, other than maybe what Hollywood’s idea of what that would mean. And although it fails to convert anybody, it has a kind of kitsch value (or it will decades later) because although it misfires in tone, it is a well made thing. And for all that I don’t hate it.

The 1987 eponymous album introduces the new rock Cher much more effectively. It’s sedate. The leather jacket signifies, the transgressive hand is unobtrusive. Cher is more matte, less glossy (after all, she’s an actress now). Very well done.

But then there’s the back cover of the Black Rose album…which makes me crazy….to this day.

It fails to be kitschy even.

Let’s look at all the cliches in this photograph that are supposed to signify “serious” rock music (snaking from the bottom to top):

  • Guy passed out of the floor
  • Tattoo on Cher’s ankle
  • Cher’s spiked ankle bracelet
  • Leopard print (but pink because it’s Cher)
  • Short, 80s-rock-perm Cher hair
  • Cher’s “I’m serious” face
  • Fishnets
  • Slitted skirt
  • Cher’s shorter finger nails
  • mustache guy behind Cher with his 70s side-pose and leather pants
  • Middle-guy with jaded 80s-hair-band face – “I’m here but I’m not here”
  • Disembodied girl stiletto on the TV
  • Les Dudek is the only one looking natural here with a face that says “Am I really in this photo?…but then also, here’s some rug, ladies
  • Here there are two ways to sit if you play rock music: ankle-to-knee pose and knees apart pose
  • Background 80s-suit guy who’s stumbled in from the band Devo
  • Menacing mustache guy in the shadows

I do not know what to make of the lamps.

Even though this is a 1980 album, that shadowy lighting reminds me of 1979. The whole musical year felt like this to me, the the shadow of the 1980s was bearing down on that year.

ABC Recording Studios

I’d Rather Believe In You (Phil Kaye engineering) (1976)

I think Cher’s reference is to Elijah’s birth, but I’m not sure.

A&M Studios and Studio 55 Albums

  1. Take Me Home (A&M, Larry Emerine) (1979)
  2. Prisoner (Studio 55, Larry Emerine) (1979)

The Take Me Home album thanks Neil and Joyce Bogart of Casablanca, Sonny,  a few people from her entourage, kids and Genie (Gene Simmons), Gregg Allman (spelled out with affectionate elaboration), her mom and sister. The credits also includes the North Hollywood fan club address. The album is dedicated to “Butterfly.” Does anybody know what that means? Around this time, Cher’s metaphor for herself was the butterfly, which turned into a snake in the 1980s.

The Prisoner album was the first one with lyrics printed on the inner sleeve (aside from Sonny’s 1967 Inner Views). This was very exciting at the time and I wore my sleeve out reading and re-reading it and had to retape it up at the edges. But it only includes song lyrics. Album credits are spartanly represented on the back cover.

Because I’m watching the Luther Vandross documentary now, I’ll point out that he makes an appearance singing backup on the song “Shoppin'” and his name is spelled Luther Van Dross here.

The Columbia Album and the Geffen Albums

Here begins a trail of studios crumbled across albums and songs. It might be related to the fact that around this time Cher liked to defend her use of many producers in saying producers would only care about their one song and wouldn’t work hard enough on songs they didn’t like. So she only gave them a song or two. Maybe this caused the proliferation of studios. Or maybe it was just the new patchwork process of assembling songs from multiple places and people spread across space and time.

This phenomenon for Cher started in the early 1980s and the studios and engineers proliferate as the years go by.

I Paralyze

  1. Sound Labs
  2. Record Plant (LA)
  3. Cherokee Recording Studios
  4. RCA (NYC)

No thank yous for this that you can track back to Cher. And I hate how the credits are slanted…like because wow, it’s the 80s! The North Hollywood fan club is listed again.

Cher (1987)

  1. Electric Lady Studios
  2. A&M
  3. Soundtrack Studios (NY)
  4. Power Station (NY)
  5. Hit Factory (NY)
  6. Giant Sound
  7. Record Plant
  8. The Complex
  9. The Grey Room

Cher thanks Sonny “with love” on this album where she re-records their song “Bang Bang.” She also thanks her entourage, her sister, her kids and Robert Camiletti with a blue heart and an exclamation point.

Heart of Stone (1989)

  1. Criterion Studios
  2. Ocean Way
  3. Bearsville Studios
  4. Electric Lady
  5. The Complex
  6. Cherokee Studios
  7. Village Recorders
  8. Lions Share
  9. Lighthouse Studios
  10. Hit Factory
  11. Studio Ultima
  12. Conway Recording
  13. Paradise Studios
  14. Right Track

Cher thanks everybody here, including their nicknames and inside monikers and “the entire Camilletti clan.” These thank yous are hard to read but they are a memoir in and of themselves, worth the effort. You get a sense of her relationships with people. She’s a kidder! I don’t know if I remember this correctly but I think her nickname for Robert was Mook.

Love Hurts (1991)

  1. Little Mountain Sound
  2. A&M
  3. The Complex
  4. Bill Schnee Studios
  5. Vancouver Studios
  6. Sunset Sound
  7. The Criterion
  8. Oceanway
  9. Village Recorders
  10. Studio F
  11. Skywalker Ranch
  12. The Music Grinder

The notes for this album were impossible to read,  small print designed on the CD fold-out with triangles and you had to keep reorienting the booklet and there was a numbering scheme to help you do it and it was a mess. The tarot card deck version of the album was not that much easier to read. The thank yous are much, much shorter but include the names of a few singers you might recognize.

The WEA/Reprise, ArtistDirect, Warner UK Albums

It’s a Man’s World (1995)

Elephant Studios (London) – according to Wikipedia.

Hunting down album credits to this one was both frustrating and fruitless. I started with the vinyl rerelease, which had no credits, so I went back to the rerelease CD, no credits. Then I had to track down the original release UK and US CDs (which where not in the Cher She-Shed related to another project) and once I found them, they didn’t have album credits. Just song credits. And no thank yous.

But if Wikipedia is correct and this whole album was created in one studio, that makes me very happy to know.

 

Believe (1998)

Engineer Marc Goodman, Wikipedia says

  1. Dreamhouse (London)
  2. Soundworks (NYC)

This was another set of credits that were hard to find. Again, the rerelease vinyl box was useless. All that wasted box space! My only CD copy was ensconced in a frame because Cher had signed it. So while I was breaking it out of the box, I cut my index finger on the glass and bled all over it. Sigh. The trials and tribulations of a Cher scholar right there.

But what did we find out? Cher dedicates the Believe album to the memory of Sonny (in a box to make it stand out). He has just died.

Not Commercial (2000)

The Power Station (NYC, July 24, 1994)

This is the only album where Cher has provided notes for each track. (Some examples below.) There are also a few original Cher illustrations between songs. She also includes a somewhat verbose (for her) explanation of the album’s origins. There is even a dedicated page in the booklet with much longer thank-yous with personal messages about them. More singers you might know.

Living Proof (2001)

  1. Metrophonic (Metro) (London)
  2. 143 Studios
  3. Eclectic (Stockholm)
  4. Fredonia International Studios
  5. Modena One Studios (UK)
  6. Sound Barrier Studios (NY)
  7. Stargate Studios (Norway)

Cher thanks a lot of people again here, mostly those helping her be Cher. She also tells us what she’s thanking them for in this set. There’s a new fan club in town. In Milford, Connecticut, to be exact. (I actually belonged to this one for a minute.) Cher dedicates the album to the people of New York City as this album came out soon after 9/11.

Burlesque songs – Emblem Music (Calabasas, CA) (2010)

Closer to the Truth (2013)

  1. Angel Studios (London)
  2. Eargasm
  3. Fishhead Music (Gothenburg, Sweden)
  4. Henson Studios
  5. Metrophonic Studios (London)
  6. Stamford Bridge Studio (London)
  7. Turtle Sound Studios (Weston, CT)
  8. Vine Street Music Studios
  9. Wally World (Davie, FL)

Everyone gets a paragraph here and Cher gives us two pages to explain what happens behind the curtain(s). We see her thank Joe DeCarlo many times over a lot of these liner notes. We find out why in the Memoir. She signs this one again (not since 1969…)

Dancing Queen (2018)

  1. Angel (London)
  2. Metrophonic (London)
  3. Mono Music (Stockholm, doing “Fernando” with Benny Anderson for Mama Mia: Here We Go Again)

This booklet didn’t have much. This whole project felt so shoestring. She dedicates it to her mom who was still alive but having some health issues.

Christmas (2023)

  1. The Hit Factory (NYC)
  2. Metrophonic Studios (London, UK)

We’re back to a page and a half of thank-yous, with names kindly bolded. Lot of the same entourage but she also thanks her guest singers and now Alexander and Slash. Like the last album, she dedicates it to her now-passed mother.

It seems the thank yous get more effusive the more Cher likes her album. Just a guess there. Man’s World might be the exception. Great album with very few credits. Hard to know how these things come together. But it’s interesting to see how they have evolved over the decades.