Because I started out as a post-toddler Sonny & Cher fan and because I purchased an extra copy of Cher’s memoir to use as my marginalia-strewn one (gotta have a MIB one), I thought I should revisit Sonny’s take on everything and compare books.

 

  • Cher, The Memoir (parts one and two), Dey Street Books (an imprint of HarperCollins), 2024 and 2025 (predicted); page numbers refer to the hardback edition
  • And the Beat Goes On, Pocket Books (an imprint Simon & Schuster), 1991; page numbers refer to the paperback used copy I just bought on ThriftBooks for this exercise

I thought I would do the comparison in parts: early childhood, late childhood, the S&C cute-meet through 1969, 1970-1979, and wait for Cher’s part 2 to come out to continue.

Sonny’s book cleanly cut off at age 7, but Cher had no similar cut off, hers was more at age 9 (and a lotta livin’ happens between 7 and 9 so that wouldn’t work). Then I decided the cutoff would be end-of-high school for both of them, but Cher’s high school ending was murky so that didn’t work either. By the way, I had read many times that they both dropped out of high school but Sonny’s book maintains he graduated.

So the easiest solution was to break it up by these three sections:

  1. Before S&C
  2. S&C in the 1960s
  3. S&C in the 1970s

I started by comparing the structures of the two books.

First of all, it’s a sobering thought to realize Sonny only lived about 20 years after the last Sonny & Cher concerts of 1977 (Sonny died in January of 1998). He fit a lot of living into those 20 years.

The best story they both relay in common is the cinematic “Sahara’s Kitchen” story so it must have been indelibly memorable for both of them. It’s a description of their hard early-70s nightclub tour where they had to stand in the casino kitchen in full suit and gown, dodging waiters at the swinging doors, waiting for their cue to go out on stage. It’s a story that says a lot about show business but shows their sense of humor about their career nadir.

Re-reading Cher’s front-matter, I now see that she says her 2024 story is based on memory. So fact-checking her is beside the point. I mean, scholars still have to fact check as historians but this is basically her get-out-of-jail-free card.

In Sonny 1991 story, he thanks Mary and his four kids and Denis Pregnolato (who is one of the bad guys in Cher’s book but I have a feeling he will be portrayed as a good guy in Sonny’s) and his publisher. He also adds a note that says “This story is not about right or wrong. It’s just another story of a life and what one goes through, hopefully gathering wisdom as one travels.” This Sonny’s get-out-of-jail-free card. A bit of false modesty maybe. But okay, he’s trying. It’s also a way of saying ‘I’m not going to cast blame here’ right before he casts a lotta blame.

Cher’s book has no dedication but a note on the use of the names Chastity, Chas and Chaz (a usage cleared by her son). However, in the back are a list of acknowledgements with thanks to Joe DeCarlo (Cher’s heroic manager to contrast Sonny’s Dennis Pregnolato) and by name her family members, a list which includes both Sonny and “Sonny & Cher,” as well as and her friends, assistants and publishers.

Right there, you can see a difference. Sonny does not thank Cher in this ritualistic way and he should have, no matter what he has to say about her in the text of the book. It’s just the right thing to do. Even if they were sworn enemies, which they weren’t even.

They both use music for chapter and section titles (in Sonny’s case). Cher sticks to mostly song titles (only 3 of 21 chapters being songs original to her own act), but Sonny uses songs and lyrics exclusively from his oeuvre. His section one is Needles and Pins, part two The Revolutionary Kind, part three I Got You Babe, part four Bang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down (not even correctly using the parentheticals there) and part five The Beat Goes On. You can easily figure what happens in each section by these sections by their titles. Frustratingly, Sonny’s book has no table of contents. I will probably flip it to death trying to find things.

Sonny’s preface story is basically a chapter titled, “She’ll Make Me Cry Until the Day I Die,” a line from “Needles and Pins” and a pretty hefty admission of emotion considering the chapter is about how Cher keeps reappearing (via fans and the press) into his professional life despite attempts to escape the omnipresence of Sonny & Cher. His story begins with scenes of him running for the Mayor of Palm Springs and having to dodge Cher questions from fans and the media. This story then feeds into the whole David Letterman appearance and his take on it. We’ll return to this episode once Cher finishes her 1980s chapters in the forthcoming memoir.

Cher’s preface is watching American Bandstand in 1956 as a ten year old and seeing Ray Charles sing “Georgia on My Mind.”

The chapters of Sonny’s section 2 are “It’s Gotta Start Sometime…It’s Gotta Start Someplace” which are lines (reversed) from his song “Laugh at Me.” (I went right to the lyric part of the song by the second! High five!), which is a chapter about his childhood. The next chapter is “Why Can’t I Be Like Any Guy” another line from “Laugh at Me,” a chapter about his early jobs pre-Cher, jobs he had hustling in the L.A. music business. He meets Cher halfway through chapter 4, suddenly using a song title, “A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done.”

Chapter 2 starts with things Sonny wrote in that that diary Cher gave him in the late 1960s and how this diary got him to thinking about his life story.

Sonny’s book is much smaller than Cher’s  which is famously in two parts. Sonny didn’t become the big legend Cher did so this is understandable, but there’s only a slim amount of genealogy from before his parents, which is unfortunate because there are probably interesting people back there somewhere all contributing to his unique Sonnyness. Why did his relatives migrate from Italy? Did he know any of them?

Cher’s family and childhood stories run from pages 1 to 124. Sonny’s from pages 1-34.

In Cher’s book, the main Sonny & Cher saga goes from pages 124 to 369ish (stuff happened between them even into the 80s and 90s). Sonny’s Sonny & Cher stories go from pages 57 to 239. Cher’s life with Sonny takes up most of her first book, as does Cher in Sonny’s book.

Cher’s book ends with life-after Sonny from pages 369-441, very little room to talk about major love affairs with Gregg Allman, Gene Simmons and Les Dudek. Sonny’s book ends with his his marriages to Susie Coelho and Mary Whitaker (she’s been married four times now, by the way which is why we’re just going to revert to her maiden name from now on), his restaurants. mayoral and congressional professions, all running from pages 243 -277, just over 30 pages to cover about 10 years of his life (1981 to when the book was published in 1991).

Cher’s genealogy, childhood and first forays out into the world are covered in eight chapters called “Georgia On My Mind,” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry,” “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” “Unforgettable,” “I’m Movin’ On,” “Because You Loved Me,” “Trouble” and “New York, New York.”

Another thing to note right off is the differences in tone in how they speak about themselves and each other.

Although interviews for Cher’s memoir focused mostly on Sonny’s dick moves, the book is really much more even-keeled about Sonny, his good and bad points and Cher takes some responsibility for some of her own moves or lack of moves. She tries to be fair and true as much as she can. Cher said it was a hard relationship to describe.

Sonny’s tone was different. Even in the preface he takes pains to reinforce that he knows what’s going on in the Late Night with David Letterman experience. He wants us to know he doesn’t feel used by show business. He knows the score. He’s a smart guy so this isn’t as pronounced as in other memoirs of faded stars which often devolve into defensive victimizing, but these are gestures in here that still reflect his need for control, especially because the power relations dictated by the media were different for Sonny and Cher respectively and had become pretty unbalanced by this time. Cher had more cultural capital by this time and more professional capital. You sense that Sonny feels he has to stake his ground.

He also consistently describes Cher as cold and distant, sometimes in a disingenuous gesture of innocence. He’ll say that he has no idea what’s going on in the world of Cher, that since the divorce he never really sees her. Forget all the stories about Cher babysitting Sonny’s girlfriends kid (Anthony Kiedis) in the mid-70s or Sonny extensively photographing and babysitting Elijah in the late 70s. Or that trip to Paris Cher describes them taking together after the divorce. He absents Cher in his life story in ways Cher never did absent him in her stories. And it says something about how they must have felt about each other, each in their own way.

And there are problems with his point of view. Even if we give him the benefit of the doubt because his relationship with Cher was different than her relationship with any of her other romantic partner. Their relationship had aspects of caretaking, parental guidance and sibling rivalry. So the Cher he knew was unique to him.

But it’s worth mentioning that no other former husband or boyfriend describes Cher as anything but lovely and amazing (except for Josh Donen, I don’t know if he’s ever gone on record). I have seen glowing (recent) comments from Gene Simmons, Les Dudek and Richie Sambora. Robert Camiletti stays out of the press but he is still Cher’s friend so that speaks for itself. Gregg Allman is not that great at compliments and their marriage ended on a sour note but even still, his comments about Cher-as-person are positive. Val Kilmer, who passed away recently, was known as one of the few men who left the relationship first and even so, Cher took him in when he was sick with cancer. And his comments about her before and after that gesture were always very positive. None of these men describe Cher as Sonny does, as moody and distant and as selfishly ambitious.

I am chalking this up to two things: their relationship was different, not on equal footing, and possibly this required extra distancing behavior from Cher after it was over. Maybe like a young adult leaving the nest, it became easier to distance yourself rather than to fall under Sonny’s spell again. (It reminds me of stories of Cher’s fast-talking father, Johnnie Sarkisian.)

Also, we’re dealing with Sonny here: jealous, proud, egotistical, a willing Hollywood player with a show-biz tendency to self-mythologize opportunistically. He’s not a reliable narrator for this reason. That said, his stories are necessarily told here albeit imperfectly; and it takes a bit of effort to separate his Cher-wounds from his truths. But it’s possible.

Sonny even takes control of his self-criticisms. He readily admits to his flagrant cheating and tries to explain why he did it. And he apologizes for it.

As I re-read Cher’s book I see different things. I don’t have many memories reading Sonny’s book, except for some of the factual errors. We’ll see if I can find them again.

In the very first biography I ever read of Cher, Simply Cher by Linda Jacobs, I learned that her birth name was Cherilyn Sarkisian, but we learn in her memoir that this was never a name she really used all that much except during the time her parents were re-married when she was around eleven. The name is so solidly and continually trotted out as her “real name” but it never really was a name she used for more than a few years. And you can see how, for Cher more than any other mononymed person because of all her many step-fathers and husbands, that the idea of surname for her is a truly contested space. So her mononym is more than just a show-biz pseudonym.

The story of Cher getting kicked out of her house by her mother after a creepy come-on from one of Georgia’s boyfriends named Gabe (and Cher saying she had to wait until her mother “cooled off” until she could return home) is oddly similar to the story Chaz Bono tells of coming out to Cher in New York City and also having to leave the apartment until Cher had time to “cool off.”

Cher uses the word “soch” (for socialite) to describe popular kids, which is the word we used at my high school in the mid-1980s as well. Other points I connected with this read were her love of running around barefoot. My mother’s pediatrician (a Dr. Spock-like iconoclast) was a big proponent of letting children run around barefoot for the better development of their feet. I rarely remember having shoes on and never wear shoes inside. Cher also tells a story about crying in the bathtub once after a trauma and how a running bath makes her want to cry to this day. And I have cried in so many bathtubs, I would say the same. And what tween or teen girl hasn’t danced around her bedroom to their favorite songs?

In the TV special Dear Mom, Love Cher there is a picture of Georgia Holt kissing the sidewalk (shown multiple times) and in the memoir Cher tells us the story of that picture and that she still has the picture.

I mentioned incorrectly in the Cher Show Phoenix musical that the musical conflated two stories of Cher meeting Phil Spector, the first being with an earlier boyfriend I misidentified as Red. It was really her earlier boyfriend Nino Tempo who first introduced her to Phil Spector, the meeting where they had the saucy exchange.

In Cher’s first chapters, she talks a lot about the history of her mother’s side, a bit about living in Fresno with her father’s family and lots of stories about childhood adventures and struggles. She details life with her mother’s boyfriends and husbands, star encounters, life in New York, taking acting classes with Jeff Corey back in Los Angeles and her fist attempts at trying to leave the nest.

Sonny beginning covers his life in Detroit and the Hawthorne and Inglewood areas of Los Angeles, early struggles with his father, high school stories. Both books talk about how he was suspended from high school for hiring an R&B band to play prom. And both books mention he was a masseur, but Sonny’s book elaborates on the story, how he had to fake it as a masseur for only a week to earn plane ticket money back to L.A. from Detroit. His early stories also include learning how to play three chords on a ukulele and learning to write songs. A good amount of story is given to the problems of his first marriage to Donna Rankin. He called her “an ornament, blonde and beautiful, someone that I didn’t believe a chance of getting.” This was sadly an ego relationship and Sonny admits they weren’t compatible. She was a homebody and he wanted to be a music industry mover and shaker. He also admits he was absent from most of his daughter Christy’s early life.

The story of how he got his first song in front of Frankie Lane is pretty incredible. It shows how he built his future on both luck and chutzpah. He tells how he came to start friendships with Jack Nitzsche and Harold Battiste while renting a guest house from Art Rupe, the owner of Specialty Records. Battiste used to practice saxophone in Rupe’s hot house and one day Nitzsche and Sonny were listening to it and Nitzsche said, “this place would make a helluva coffee house.” Sonny tells stories about being a songwriter and A&R man with Specialty, including the dramatic moments when both Little Richard and Sam Cooke left the label (Richards to become a minister and Cooke to become a pop star). Sonny also describes his first recorded songs with Larry Williams (“High School Dance” and “You Bug Me, Baby”) and involvement in early Payola (and what that looked like) with DJs while he worked as a promotion man. He talks about trying to start his own label (he calls it Gold) and recording songs under the monikers Ronny Summers and Sonny Christie. But this is strangely misremembered.

First of all, this man needs a better Wikipedia singles discography. Let’s explore what I was able to figure out in a day:

Specialty Songwriting

According to https://tims.blackcat.nl/messages/sonny_bono.htm “Sonny convinced Rupe that he was also a songwriter and he managed to place two of his songs, “High School Dance” and “You Bug Me Baby”, on the flip-sides of Larry Williams’s hits “Short Fat Fannie” and “Bony Moronie”…his best rock ‘n’ roll composition is undoubtedly “Koko Joe“, recorded by Don and Dewey in 1958, with “She Said Yeah” (1958, Larry Williams) as a close second.”

The later song was also recorded by the Rolling Stones in 1965. The first two Larry Williams songs are credited to Williams-Bono. The Don and Dewey song is credited to S. Christy.

Don Christy versus S. Christy

So it appears S. Christy was the writing pseudonym and Don Christy was was the singing pseudonym; and under Don Christy I was able to find some singles but not under any Gold label. But Don Christy songs span many labels.

Specialty:

  • The site above continues, “In 1959 Bono recorded a single of his own, under the pseudonym Don Christy (“Wearing Black“/”One Little Answer,” Specialty 672)”

Fidelity:

  • Discogs has “Wearing Black” also released with “You Don’t Have to Tell Me” on the (unintentionally ironic) Fidelity label.
  • Another message board has conversations about Sonny’s early work, including this note: “Sonny Bono & Little Tootsie (!!!) on Specialty, and it’s called “Coming Down The Chimney“. The record was issued on Specialty #733 and was flipped with “One Little Answer” as credited to Sonny Bono instead of Don Christy. I would presume it to be the same take as on the 1959 release of the song.” (the label shows Fidelity not Specialty). (Find at the 4.20 mark.)

Go:

  • Discogs also has “I Don’t Care” with “Teach Me” on a label called Go. (Is this the misremembered Gold label?)
  • Discogs also has “As Long as You Love Me” at the 10:50 mark with “I’ll Always Be Grateful” (Go)  at the 13.12 mark (credited to S. Christy on Go).

Rush:

  • And Discogs also has a Rush label single “I’ll Change” at the 28.03 mark with “Try It Out on Me” at the 30.17 mark (S. Christy credit).
  • Discog’s also matches “Little Miss Cool” at the 33.12 mark (credited to S. Christy and arranged by Jack Nitzsche) with “Glass of Tears” (also arranged by Jack Nitzsche) at the 35:35 mark.

Prince Carter

Sonny doesn’t mention this but he also recorded under the pseudonym Prince Carter.

Ronny Sommers

There’s probably even more. And I couldn’t find much on release dates. Like I said, we need a Sonny Scholar to fully sort this out.

According to the forum chat, “There were three more records as by ‘Don Christy’ before’ ‘Ronny Summers’ entered the picture, and on three different labels: Go, Fidelity, and Name. All were apparently 1960. The Sommers issue was in 1961 on the Swami label. (This info also gotten via Goldmine.) His first release as by Sonny Bono was on the Highland label in 1963 (again, Goldmine).”

In any case, the credit is never “Christie” on the record labels as Sonny has it, always “Christy.”

It’s at this point that Sonny & Cher meet each other.