This are Cher’s comments about this album cover from her memoir on page 261:

“Entitled Chèr (with the accent I’d adopted when I was eleven and practicing my autography to make me seem chic), my seventh album’s cover photo was a black-and-white close-up by Richard Avedon depicting me pensive, with we hair combed down over my face. I fought with everybody for that album cover. I was the only one who seemed to like it.”

Well I’m pretty sure most of her fans like this cover but we’re biased. Turns out young non-fans might like it too.

So long story but we had our neighbors over for pizza a few months ago. Anyway, it was the first time I’ve been able to show them my Cher she-shed even though we’ve lived in this house since 2018 and they are forced to see it every day out of their kitchen window. In fact, I was at a Chiefs football party at their house years ago and we could see the shed from their kitchen window. We apologized for the blight and told them it was full of Cher memorabilia and we all laughed because the mom, Jeanette, said she actually loved Cher but never in a million years would have guessed Cher-shit was in that shed right now. (It stared out as a glass-blowing shed and then the next owner made award-winning beer in it).

So later Jeanette saved the Albuquerque Journal with Cher’s Hall of Fame induction news in it for me when I got back from Cleveland. And then a few months ago I finally had a chance to show her the Cher shed. She admitted she thought it was going to be tacky but she thought it was actually very cool. I defended its tackiness but she held firm.

Then recently she inherited an old phonograph piece of furniture (from her mother’s house in Poquaque, New Mexico) and she said when she gets it working again she wants me to come over with a Cher record to christen it. So  I decided to look for the two used Cher records I could just leave with her. I have various copies of some albums due to my own trips to used record stores and the copies my friends have come across and mailed me. I picked the 1975 Stars and the 1971 “Cher” album (there are three “Cher” albums from 1967, 1971 and 1987). When I ordered the 1971 album on eBay, the seller sent me a note about the cover. This was our conversation:

Seller: Hey Mary, this is such an awesome cover. I will get your record out tomorrow morning.

Me: Thank you! I’m buying this for my neighbor who just inherited an old phonograph. The cover is great!

Seller: Yeah, when I pulled this out and cleaned it, I’ve never seen it before. It’s fantastic, the cover. The jugs, the position between the front and the back is crazy. Anyway, that’s kind. Hope your neighbor appreciates it and if you’re looking for anything, let me know in the future I can pretty much find anything.

The jugs comment confused me so I asked if the cover was black or green. Take Me Home has the best Cher jugs on an album cover IMHO. Was the seller confused? No. They confirmed with a photo of the back-cover so I never did figure out the jugs thing.

When this copy finally arrived in the mail, I was astonished to see it was a pristine copy (it was only ten bucks!) on the Kapp label. Which I didn’t think I had. (I actually had three Kapp copies). But it was an alternate label version I didn’t have.

So then I asked Cher scholar Robrt Pela to explain the differences to me. And it turns out my vinyls and covers are mixed-up, which Pela says often happens in the lives of used records:

  1. First version:
    The album title is just Cher.
    The first-pressing label is solid red.
    The Kapp logo is the red hat in the white box.
    Subsequent pressings were the orange-and-red label with black-and-white logo.
    (Of my copies, the first pressing label is the middle version above but it should be with the far-right cover. Both pressings use the far-right cover.)
  2. Second version:
    The album title has been changed to Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves (due to the success of the single) and the front cover photo has been given a frame. Other prominent songs have been added under the title.
    The first-pressings use the label for the second pressing above, the orange-and-red label with the black-and-white logo.
    At some point the label switches to the orange-and-red label with the new black logo for all remaining Kapp pressings.
    (In the picture above this is the first and third label which would go with the first two covers.)
  3. Third version:
    Pela describes this as a transitional cover.
    It’s the second-version Kapp cover, but with a sticker showing the new MCA catalog number (because Kapp had just become MCA).
    The label is the final Kapp one, the orange-and-red with the black logo.
    Pela says MCA did this with all Kapp titles they didn’t put out of print during the change from Kapp to MCA.
  4. Fourth version:
    The MCA label with the rainbow logo.
    The cover has the MCA catalog number printed on the cover (and not a sticker) along with a note on the back mentioning the old Kapp catalog number.

Amazing! Ok, so then I asked him about how different original covers seemed to be different shades and maybe it’s a trick of the mind, but are the pictures the same? I keep thinking her head is cocked differently or one has a bigger face but I might just be nuts. Pela said different press runs often had variant covers, say if there was more ink used at one plant versus another.

Anyway, I ended up keeping that mintish new copy and reorganized my other copies (including my “house” copy that sits next to my own record player) and will give my neighbor one of my duplicates.

Turns out there are layers and inner layers to obsessive completism.