Category: Books (Page 1 of 3)

The I Will Always Love You Chapter

December 20, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

So I finally finished the book last night. Finally! I really wanted to enjoy it slowly. Anyway, lots to talk about. I’ll do a review later, after we go through the television appearances in support of it.

But first I want to talk about the big scene! That action-packed chapter.

First let me just say something about this picture, which is from the back cover of their last duet album. I remember a talk show years ago where the host was showing this photo (somewhat snarkily), indicating Sonny might be a tad fat in this photo. Cher immediately came to his defense, saying something about this is just the way the picture looks, pointing to his…oh wait, I forgot to give us a partial-Sonny-shirtless alert. This guy liked to show off his rug, huh?

Anyway, I have always been fascinated by The Sonny & Cher bedroom, stories that take place in it, pictures of it…I don’t care if the reality was just sleep and reading books. Cher once said most of their lives took place in their bedrooms. And this is one of my favorite pictures of them. There are some pictures of Sonny & Cher that show the real story in a way and I think this is one of them: El Primo with his Prima Donna.

So back to the memoir. Cher often talks about how she wanted to tell stories in this book versus just relay a bunch of facts you could look up somewhere else. This book has a lot of storytelling in short bits but not many scenes dramatically re-enacted over a long period of time.

Except the chapter about Cher breaking up with Sonny. This chapter stands out. Every other chapter operates differently. The other ones are packed with as much life as she can fit into them, often years worth of events in one chapter. But this chapter slows it all down. Is this because the scene is that important in her life? Or is it because this story had the biggest impact on her Sonny & Cher fans and it’s the incident the public is most dying to read about?

Of all the things Cher has done in her life before or after this chapter, this scene feels like the fulcrum. It’s like the birth of Christ in the timescale. B.S. (before Sonny) and A.S (After Sonny).

People have often treated Sonny like an incident, a flash-in-the-pan, at most a kind of a Porter Wagoner figure (not to diminish the bigness of Porter Wagoner), a launchpad for a big female star. But the energy of the book (and Cher’s due diligence in other chapters letting us know all of Sonny’s accomplishments) tells you otherwise. It’s hard to compare this part of the book to the other relationships at the end (Gregg Allman, Gene Simmons and Les Dudek). The Gregg Allman relationship reads like one drawn-out series of many breakups and try-agains, starting all the way back to the first date, which was kind of shocking to read. I mean we all knew there were a few breakups but it seems “he disappeared in the morning” quite a bit. Gene Simmons gets a few packed pages, Les Dudek not much more than a paragraph. We don’t have any scene that dramatically depicts any of those breakup days.

The Sonny and Cher breakup gets its own chapter.

First, it’s important to go back to this same scene in other biographies about Cher. It’s always seemed a bit anticlimactic. Cher at her wits end, on the ledge a time or two, and then announcing to Sonny one night in a hotel that she wants to sleep with The Guitarist.

(In some books, he’s only referenced that way, like Jerry Lee Lewis’ teen wife. But he has a name. It’s Bill Hamm.)

And that was it, nothing like a drawn out episode unwinding through many hours and days and a whole traveling band freaking out in the background.

In other bios it was a short cast: Sonny, Cher and “The Guitarist.”

But in Cher’s memoir, this scene was a legitimate page turner, starting with Cher explaining her loneliness which built up to her ennui around hearing that her best friend and personal assistant, Paulette (and the beginnings of their relationship is fascinating too), was hanging out after their live shows with the whole band in a hotel room. “She’d tell me some variation of ‘I don’t know, go to the bedroom of one of the guys in the band to drink beer, smoke pot, and pass around guitars. It’s not that exciting, Cher.” (274) .

These people traveled and worked with Cher (arguably for her) but she didn’t even know them very well because she wasn’t allowed to fraternize with them. And she wanted to.

I won’t recreate the chapter here (as if I could). But the crush The Guitarist had on Cher is super sweet. Cher talks about performing the song “Superstar,” (which is about a fan in love with a guitarist), and she gives us her thoughts while singing it live: “I’d noticed him playing my riffs back to me one night when we performed…I thought ‘God, he’s really good, and he’s really listening to me.’” (The listening thing is poignant because the only artist Cher had access to at this time, her husband, was most decidedly not listening to her). Unbeknownst to Cher, The Guitarist was nursing a big crush on her, at one point getting caught by Paulette while was trying to render Cher’s portrait on the band’s Etch A Sketch.

(The band shared an Etch A Sketch? I am immediately wondering what I was doing with my brother’s Etch A Sketch at this very moment in the late months of 1973.)

As I mentioned, in the previous stories, the scene only contained Cher, Sonny and The Guitarist interacting. But in reality, the cast was much bigger, full of band members freaking out about what Cher was doing, worried about losing their jobs. David Brenner, the comedian opening for them, was too afraid to tell Sonny. The drama included the whole band, their friends, limo drivers, airport personnel. The scene is surely a movie unto itself.

It’s like Cher crossed the top of fulcrum and then all the chips fell down on the other side and everyone was worried Cher (whom everyone agreed was living an impossible life) was finally making a life decision that was going to lose them their jobs (and in one case, Sonny’s, a hard-won career).

It’s a completely digestible narrative that fully explains why it took Cher so long to change her life and also how she became the strong Cher persona we know today.

So it’s a scene that describes a fulcrum.

But then we return to the title.

All the other titles serve to explain or summarize what follows: Tony Meets Maria, Georgia on My Mind, New York, New York, etc. Most of them are song titles and they work like labels, which is what most titles do.

But then you come upon a title that, itself, works like a fulcrum.

A good example I happened to read the very same day I read this Cher chapter is a poem by Billy Collins titled “Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House.”

Fulcrum titles (I don’t even know if they’re really called that but that’s the best I can do right now) don’t work like labels. In a label title you would expect the poem above to be about guns. There’s not a gun mentioned in the entire poem. You’re meant to read the poem and then return to the title and go “ahh yes…I see.” The title is equivalent to the poem, not an introduction of it. The whole point of the poem is answered by the title and only the title. It gives the title a lot more weight and meaning. In fact, the meaning can’t be made without both the poem and title.

Title poems are decorative in comparison. You could read any of the other Cher titles or not. There are no additional or hidden meanings set up between other titles and chapters for the most part.

You read the chapter title “I Will Always Love You” and you think of Dolly Parton leaving The Porter Wagoner Show. Porter Wagoner was really upset with Parton for leaving and she is singing this song to him as both a love song and a fare-the-well, I’m-leaving-your-employment song. You’d expect Cher to similarly talk about how she will always love Sonny even though he had oftentimes been a dick to her.

Nothing like that happens. She doesn’t say that at all. She tells that dramatic story and ends the scene. Then you go back to the title and there’s something extra there. The title renders a kind of judgement on the text, cluing in the reader to something unsaid in the chapter: after all of this, I still loved this person and pretty strong.

Cher is not often sentimental-seeming. Her story about seeing the Silkwood trailer back in the early 1980s is a good example. Everyone in the darkened theater (not knowing Cher had snuck in with her sister) laughed when her name came up on the screen after Meryl Streep and Kurt Russell. Instead of crossing those people off as assholes, she labeled this a unified, visceral response that “you couldn’t really argue with.” Maybe she said “what a bunch of assholes” first and has just never mentioned that part in the retelling. But her story is very grounded in a kind of collective realism and not much her feelings.

So glimpses of these feelings can be very moving. But am I, myself, just a sentimental, sappy. essentialist Sonny & Cher fan overreading a chapter title? Where these titles just stuck on by an editor after the fact?

Valid question. I am sentimental, yes, but am also worried about being sentimental. I could always be over-reaching.

Except that there was a similar song gesture during her interview on Desert Island Discs on BBC Radio. And there was no mediation there with an editor. It was just Cher and the interviewer, Lauren Lavernehad, talking about Cher’s life in thematic segments followed by a somewhat tangential song (her childhood matched up with an Elvis song, the Phil Spector sessions matched up with “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling”) and then at the end of the Sonny segment, Cher picked this Bonnie Raitt song. She introduces it with an “Ugh” like it took some muster to voice its title, “I Can’t Make You Love Me.”

🥹

As Sonny might say, “Yeesh, Cher.”

Press and Stuff for Cher The Memoir

December 17, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

–

As I talk about the new Cher book, I’m breaking the posts up into (at least) three parts. The first part (this post) includes the links and artifacts of the book and book review highlights.

Next I’ll do highlights of interviews from television, radio and podcasts that I’ve accumulated.

Finally, I’ll go into my own review notes at the end.

There will also be stray posts focusing on bombshell pieces of the book. I’ve already done one on Sonny not letting Cher listen to music in the house and I have one planned about the chapter where Cher dramatically depicts leaving Sonny for “The Guitarist” in the band.

So here we go. According to Harper Collins, the book will eventually come out in these languages and formats:

French
Amazon FR: https://www.amazon.fr/Lautobiographie-lic%C3%B4ne-pop-Cher/dp/B0D89PLCLT/ref=sr_1_2
This one is currently shipping. I haven’t received my copy yet.

Italian
Amazon IT: https://www.amazon.it/Cher-memoir-Vol-1-Cher/dp/B0D97PQ8JJ/ref=sr_1_1
I ordered mine from the ES site below because the IT Amazon site gave me an error, but it seems a few euros cheaper at the IT site.

Amazon ES: https://www.amazon.es/Cher-memoir-Vol-1-Cher/dp/B0D97PQ8JJ/ref=sr_1_3
I received mine almost a week early. It’s in paperback form and some things are strangely untranslated, like the chapter titles and Diane Warren’s lyrics. Although the preface chapter is translated. There has been some snickering about Cher’s bio on the back flap of the book (simply “Cher is a global icon”). I’ll go into that below but it assumes everyone knows who Cher is. The Italian version strikes me as funny (which many things in Italian often do): “Cher é un’icona globale.”

Spanish
Amazon ES but there is still no page for this one, although Harper Collins confirms there will be a Spanish edition.

Mañana!

German
Amazon DE: https://www.amazon.de/-/en/CHER-Die-Autobiografie-Teil-eins/dp/3365009205/ref=sr_1_1
You can purchase this one but it looks like it doesn’t ship until March of 2025.

Portuguese
Amazon ES: https://www.amazon.es/-/pt/dp/B0DNFZ61F4/ref=sr_1_1?
Only available in Kindle so far.

Mañana!!

The Audio Book
Cher and Stephanie Block read the book which you can get anywhere audio books are sold. Next year they will also release a CD version of the audio book.

News about the audio book: https://www.eonline.com/news/1409267/cher-announces-audiobook-for-her-memoir-and-weve-got-you-on-all-the-details

Get it from Audiobooks.com: https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/cher-the-memoir-part-one/786439

Review Highlights

So now on to the highlights of the book reviews and newspaper interviews, which were all pretty intensely positive. This was both surprising and not surprising since Cher seems most popular as a vehicle unto herself than for any specific piece of work or media effort. She commented to The New York Times that she wouldn’t be reading the reviews because she didn’t want to get her feelings hurt. She needn’t have worried. They’re the best of her career.

New York Times Book Review:
“Her frank autobiography is a testament to resilience…before Twitter morphed into the strange ghost town of X…Cher was one of its finest sheriffs…her confident, confiding new autobiography…her famous contralto has been modulated, but not Autotuned past recognition…America’s melting pot personified, and her long place on the front (and sometimes back) burner of pop culture evokes both the country’s loftiest promises and its worst failures…these 400 pages show the mettle behind the Mackie. Here’s to a sequel with sequins.”

The Washington Post (paywall):
(Louis Bayard)
[This one was a bit catty and overwritten.]
“That the woman may take a while to grasp her centrality becomes the de facto narrative arc of Cher…[the book] had nearly as many ghostwriters as the King James Bible [but] her hearteningly profane voice still emerges…Surely, of all the pop divas in the past half-century, she has been the least concerned with her own reputation….even protesting the very idea of fixing herself in history. Catch her if you can….Then, too, there’s the question of which Cher we’ll be reading about. I have lived through at least four or five…decades later, and to her credit, Cher is able to recover veins of joy [with Sonny]…”

iNews UK:
“Breathless memoir…spares no details and we’re only halfway through her life…the 411 breathless but soberly delivered pages…my, how Part One delivers…eschewing frippery [I had to look that word up], Cher unfurls a life full of Dickensian poverty, mansions with servants, heartbreak, good luck, bad luck, financial chicanery and unlikely events…it’s an extraordinary and extraordinarily cathartic memoir. Even when she’s winning during a journey that defies rational belief, Cher still thinks and acts like the underdog she so often was as a child: only the most flint-hearted could fail to root for Cher. The next forty-something years are barely alluded to. This is more than enough for now.”

The Los Angeles Times:
(Marc Ballon)
“The personification of female empowerment, Cher has done it her way…intelligent, sensitive and engaging…at the center…is the life-changing, tortured, supportive, destructive and co-dependent relationship with Sonny. Without his prodding, vision and drive, Cherilyn LaPierre Sarkisian would likely have never become the fabulous Cher. And without her talent and love, Bono would have likely remained a bit player on the fringes of the entertainment industry…[their] arduous climb back makes for some of the book’s most gripping reading…the memoir soars when Cher writes about Bono, it flags a bit when she discusses her other relationships, [Geffen]…similarly, her reflections about [Gregg] Allman lack depth…these are minor quibbles. [The book] is a fun read, a candid and well-written book…Cher is one of the handful of artists whose extraordinary life merits the extra ink.”

Kirkus:
“The vicarious experience of wealth, glamour, and romance is rarely this much fun. A truly great celebrity memoir…an all-American rags-to-riches dream….[of Sonny] she loved this man, and always will. The story of Sonny & Cher is a story of the ’60s and ’70s, of the growth of the music and television industries, of fashion and celebrity culture, of the evolving role of women in the 20th century. And the skinny on her relationships with music mogul David Geffen, second husband Gregg Allman, and KISS front man Gene Simmons is just as riveting.”

Slate:
(Laura Miller)
“Fabulous…this irresistible book…its candid (yet not-quite gossipy) accounts….despite the involvement with ghostwriters, her voice rings out frank, profane, and delightfully unaffected…it’s the story of Cher’s life and roots before her arrival…that offers the real key to the diva–to bother her personality and her particular flavor of celebrity. Cher begins way back….the misfit cool made Cher a star in the ’60s and ’70s…She was a girl mocked and rejected by the small-minded and provincial, who triumphed in the greater world thanks to her unconventional beauty, her innate sense of style, and above all her authenticity. Even as Cher evolved into a full-fledged diva, her feet never left the ground. So much of the charm in Cher comes not from the stories about other celebrities, but from her vivid memories of childhood, her long friendships with other women, her penchant for cooking big holiday meals for her family. She can turn a phrase and speak the unvarnished truth….Cher was no calculating Madonna or steely Streisand. She played it by ear, like so many of us, taking her knocks with grace and her wins with humility. This makes Cher the best sort of company in stormy times. If she can make it through and thrive, maybe the rest of us can too.”

The Irish Independent (paywall):
[I could not access this review.]

The Atlantic #1, “What a 16-Year Old Doesn’t Yet Know (paywall):
(Emma Sarappo)
“Cher’s book is a valuable document of a young girl thrust into an adult world. Her current perspective, at 78, allows for frank assessments of difficult situations.”
[I was unable to access the full review.]

The Atlantic #2, “Cher Has a History Lesson for Us All” (paywall):
(Sophie Gilbert)
“Cher has come to stand for a brassy, strutting kind of survival over the years, and on this front, her memoir is awash in insight and rich in details…a Steinbeckian saga of grim endurance, her life with Bono is a volatile scrapbook of life in 20th-century entertainment…the American musical establishment initially deemed her too outré in her bell bottoms and furs, and then–as the sexual revolution and rock music took fire–too square…in Cher, she offers a persuasive, wry, rousing account of what made her, and what she was able to make in turn…her read of things [luck] understates her sheer force of will–her outright refusal, as with the Oscar dress, to ever be counted out….[on Cher saying she just wanted to tell stories] “and she does, but in a form that can’t help doubling as a broader history–an account of all the things women have suffered through (casting couches, financial ruin, humiliating public scrutiny) and fought for (authority over their own bodies).”
[I was unable to access the full review.]

The Pinnacle Gazette:
“Extraordinary life story…a survivor against the odds…the grit and determination behind the persona….a figure who has consistently defied mainstream norms and stereotypes…the vulnerability behind her glamorous exterior…the complex web of love, anger and forgiveness intertwined throughout [Sonny and Cher’s] lives…Fame may have been swift for Cher, but it was built upon her relentless work ethic and the desire to create genuine connections….[the memoir] successfully weaves complex tales of personal strife and resilience….her trademark blend of sincerity and cheekiness…one of the most beloved icons of our time. Cher’s larger-than-life personality leaps off the page, engaging readers with her sharp yet warm voice.” This review quotes other reviews:

“a riveting tale spun with spontaneity and humor” (Alexandra Jacobs)
“in moments of vulnerability, Cher manifests strength, capturing the essence of what it means to be human.” (Gerard Shans)

The Guardian:
(Barbara Ellen)
“Cher is one of the all-time great US entertainment queens…in sometimes unnecessary detail…while reading Cher’s passages about Bono….you’re reminded of her ‘faulty emotional thermostat…she still seems intent on spraying air freshener over Bono’s reputation, reminiscing at great, fond length about their onstage chemistry and banter. You find yourself wanting to scream: ‘Cher, he stole all your money!’

[This and the LA Times review both mention that Cher fails to note that David Geffen later comes out as gay. I’m sure this was intentional.]

“Does it matter? Only sometimes, when, among the forensically detailed recollection, there’s a sneaking sense of the real Cher, the one we’re very keen to get to know, standing behind carefully frosted glass. Still, in the main, Part One makes for a hearty, full-bloodied read: a gusty tale of high-octane showbiz survival from one of pop culture’s true 20th (and 21st) century stars. As it ends, Cher is toying with disco and contemplating acting. Maybe in Part Two, she’ll really let herself rip.”

The Independent :
(Adam White)
“Cher’s flat new book exposes the limits of the ghostwritten memoir….not sounding like ‘her’…saucy without being crude [stories] …her delivery and timing, her way around a punchline.” [The book feels] “oddly stilted…no suspense and silliness, no smack-talk….never quite sounds like Cher. It’s Diet Cher. Lukewarm Cher. Whipped-into-shape-by-an-overzealous-editor Cher. There is a smattering of swear words…and some brief flashes of withering disdain to the drab and unchic among us. But overall the book sis just too conventionally told….ribald jokes are drained of their spiciness…the book seems lost in translation. Absent is the je ne Cher quoi, if you will….The problem with trying to emulate Cher on the page is that her voice is particularly distinct: a dryer-than-dry mis of innocence, bluntness and almost masculine swagger…there’s that deep, silky tone to it, too–something evocative even when transcribed in an interview. It’s as if God wanted to create a voice easily imitable for the world’s drag queens, then worked backwards from there until he made the woman…it’s particularly disappointing because the material is there…[For part two, White wants] “Cher on paper thwacking half of Hollywood. I want Cher being ruthless and mean. I want Cher!”

[So The Guardian and Independent reviews are not positive. But White is clearly a Cher fan and I cannot disagree that the voice in both of her self-penned books is watered-down Cher. White is actually very good at describing that unique voice of Cher in interviews. I just disagree with him that the Cher Voice is what we need here. If you’ve ever heard Cher tell a story at a live show, live talk or give an acceptance speech, there are a lot of gaps there in her performative thinking, a lot of rambling off topic. Alexandra Jacobs of The New York Times might call it a “round of verbal 52 pickup” similar to her old Twitter posts. Reading a book of that would be incredibly difficult for most people. Not something I still wouldn’t buy. After all, I love difficult books. But aside from that, there are biographies out there made up entirely of Cher quotes. You can go buy those. To explain Cher’s story to the world at large, we need more clarity, more narrative organization. And to get this kind of clarity we have to sacrifice Cher’s unique storytelling style and idioms. However much we fans like it, the story of Cher’s life can’t be a frustrating read for everyone else.

The Sunday Times:
(Hadley Freeman)
“[Her] life story is jaw-dropping…prime ministers and presidents are allowed–just–to write multi-volume autobiographies, not pop stars who once sang “The Shoop Shoop Song”…there was some sniggering [at that]. Not even Elton John, not even Barbra Streisand pulled such a power move with their memoirs. Could one celebrity’s life really stretch to more than one book? This, it turns out, was very much the wrong question. The correct one is, is there enough paper in the world to contain a life as jaw-dropping as Cher’s?…Not even Dolly Parton–not even Streisand–can hold a candle to Cher’s cultural dominance. Music, TV, and film: she’s been a star on them all….most celebrity memoirs suggest that the star’s success was all but inevitable, such was the strength of their talent. What comes across in Cher’s was how extraordinarily lucky she was. Talented and determined, no question. But the near-misses are extraordinary….it’s a shame the writing is too often so unlike Cher’s charismatic voice…[but] some laden writing isn’t going to diminish her.”

The Arts Fuse:
(John R. Killacky)
“A compellingly candid chronicle…for over sixty years, Cher’s expansive talents have not only blazed multiple trails, but been amazingly resilient….a hardscrabble life…

Salon:
(Kenneth Womack)
“[Her] story of grit is purely American…a uniquely American story…surviving on pure grit.”

Womack jokes about the back-flap bio “Cher is a global icon….virtually any other celebrity would be required to rehearse a slew of accolades. But not Cher. In her case, it’s patently unnecessary. You’ve always known her.” [We see below that this is, in fact, false. The kids below don’t know her.] Womack describes his first concert, Sonny & Cher at their extended residency at Houston’s Livestock Show and Rodeo (Cher talks about this run of shows in the book).

Hodges Figgis booksellers customer review:
(Alex Diam)
“What a life, what an artist, what an icon!….She’s truly a survivor.”

Rolling Stone (paywall):
[I couldn’t access this review.]

Vulture:
(Justin Curto)
“Stunning stories…Cher has lived many lives–singer, actress, TV host, fashion icon, not to mention wife and mother….

Washington Examiner (paywall/sign-in):
“One of the more likeable qualities of the clunkily titled Cher: The Memoir, Part One, is that its author appears to have taken great delight in writing it. Cher guides the reader through…with chutzpah.”
[I was unable to access the full review.]

Book Reporter:
“Her remarkable career is unique and unparalleled…her trademark honesty and humor…this diamond in the rough succeeded with no plan and little confidence to become the trailblazing superstar the world has been unable to ignore for more than half a century….it is a life too immense for only one book.”

The Sydney Morning Herald:
(Nathan Smith)
“There were many doubters who didn’t believe she could sustain a career on her own…she finally pauses from persevering and looks back…a two-part memoir, one emblematic of the entertainer’s legendary excess and extravagance….inspiring grit and resilience…forced to reinvent in a merciless industry…an unapologetic, electrifying account of the artist’s long refusal to relent as it is a larger story of one woman finally emancipating herself.”

The Daily Illini:
(Bella Schott)
“The sheer amount of information on houses, boyfriends’ families, friends and locations made it difficult to finish all 432 pages. Interesting pockets of stories were hidden in an unfocused memory stream.”

[I suspect this was a young college student review. See below.]

Digital Journal:
(Markos Papadotos)
“This is a life story that needs to be experienced by all fans of music, pop, and Cher. There are so many life lessons that people can learn from this fearless and relentless woman…a bold, unflinching, revelatory book, where she doesn’t hold anything back. It truly captures the conscience of a living entertainment icon, and it humanizes her at the same time. Cher is not afraid to be raw and vulnerable. It is evident that Cher is the epitome of toil, resilience, and she possesses an indomitable spirit. Cher is a woman that has found the means to go beyond the ordinary, and she has expanded and redefined music, arts, entertainment, and contemporary storytelling into what it is today.”

SFChronicle:
(Tony Bravo)
“An unflinching story in an era of big celebrity memoirs…in her more than 60 years in show business she has [been] defined by her ability to find new relevance….frank, funny and defiant….this memoir dives much deeper into the big themes, especially the familial…[she] just kept picking herself up, dusting off her beaded Bob Mackie costumes, and continuing to make a place for herself in the changing culture….some of the best writing is about her developing her image, and the roles masters like Vogue editor-in-chief Diana Vreeland and especially her longtime fashion collaborator Mackie played in creating the Cher look…she takes us along on her journey as she slowly finds the Cher signatures–the voice, the sarcastic stage persona, the hair flip…”

[I feel like I missed some of this in the book.]

USA Today:
(Melissa Ruggieri)
“As expected from someone as divinely unflinching as Cher”

Daily Mail (excerpts):
“The full unvarnished story of her life in a rock ‘n’ roll memoir like no other.”

Celebrity Book Club podcast:
So here are two young girls who do reviews of celebrity books. I was keenly interested to get their take on Cher, as young people who have no Cher-life references beyond “Believe.” But I had to stop listening to the full episode after they had to explain who Elvis was. “He was a singer. You might know him from Lisa Marie and Priscilla Presley’s books.”

They thought too much of the book was about childhood and family. But honestly, they don’t have any references for much that happens in Part ONe. They only know “Believe” and one of them vaguely knew “I Got You Babe.” They said they struggled with the lack of biography on the back flap as well. This goes to show you that even for Cher, time marches on and subsequent new humans have little idea of who you are and what you’ve done.

Reviews posted on the book’s Amazon page that I could not find myself online:

“Her wit and candour shine through as she shares stories of love, loss, and resilience. For fans and newcomers alike, the memoir is a vivid reminder of Cher’s enduring influence and the fearless spirit that make her a timeless queen of the industry.” — Glamour

“A must read.” — Stylist (UK)

“Full of unforgettable memories and insights.” — Cosmopolitan (UK)

A compilation of reviews: https://bookmarks.reviews/reviews/cher-the-memoir-part-one/

It’s interesting to me how many reviewers use the word grit. It’s an unusual word for them all to coalesce around. Was this is the press material delivered with the book? Or is there just something gritty about the book?

Charts

The book made it to the top of the New York Times bestsellers list and on Amazon (where it’s #2 this week).

As of now the Amazon customer reviews are 4.6 out of 5 (of 1,243 global ratings) and the Goodreads score is 4.39 out of five (

Selected Interviews

Every paper or online site seemed to have some Cher-related excerpt or angle from this book in November and December of 2024. It was a typical Cher media frenzy and yet unlike anything since the mid-1970s.

New York Times interview, “Cher Can, and Does, Turn Back Time” by Elizabeth Egan:
“Even in the annals of single-name celebrities–Cher is in the stratosphere of the one percent…she’s been a household name for decades…a soundtrack for multiple generations, whether via vinyl, eight-track, cassette tape, compact disc or Spotify…a gutsy account of tenacity and perseverance….a cultural history packed with strong opinions, boldface names and head-spinning throwbacks…Cher’s voice reverberates with the grit and depth that made her famous…”

This publication actually caught a rare interview with Cher’s sister, Georganne Bartylak, (a witness who I hope one day also weighs in with her side of the Cher story) and it’s her quote that ends the interview very movingly: “She recalled the day when Cher moved in with Bono. ‘I was only 11 and I was crying my eyes out because she was my only sister and we’d been through everything together,’ Bartylak said. ‘I had a big stuffed pumpkin and on it, Cher wrote, “One day you will be proud of me.”

Bartylak added, ‘I was already proud.'”

The Times:
(will Hodgkinson)
We get a little trip through Cher’s Malibu house and her air of “unmoving calm [it must be the Buddha statues]…ageless as having transcended concepts of time and space.”

Incredibly this interview took place the day before the U.S. election and Cher says, “Id rather slit my wrists, but he’s going to win. It’s hard to understand why.” How did she know? What intel did she have that even door-to-door campaigners didn’t have?

Hodgkinson says he “practically inhaled [the book]” and found himself “in the unusual position of recommending Cher’s own book to her, because it’s a riot: a revelatory, self-deprecating tale…”

“It’s about not stopping,” says Cher. “I was a loose cannon. It took Sonny to see the potential. He was the planner.”

She also elaborates on why she might be a gay icon: “We’re both outsiders, and they’re always there for me no matter if I’m failing, succeeding…They’re funny, outgoing and not afraid to show emotion.”

“You have to remember, nobody looked like me in showbusiness. I didn’t fit in. I had to make my own position.”

She talks about her difficult relationship with directors Peter Bogdanovich and Frank Oz and defends herself as being easy to work with in other films. “Ask everybody…I know when to listen.”

Hodgkinson thinks he can confirm Alexander Edwards is not living in the house, ” I can’t see any men’s clothes lying about in the bedroom.” He compliments Cher’s 1969 album 3614 Jackson Highway as ” a superb example of soulful funky rock, but it bombed.”

Cher says, “I’m not a great singer. I just do what I do.” She’s never done a whole album of songs she’s been happy with.

She talks about Chaz’s transitioning process, that “three months later they were doing it and not telling me…I felt upset and left out.” She also felt UCLA was using the situation as a press opportunity.

She also talks about Elijah and Gregg Allman. “I told him I was sick and tired of him going in and out of rehab and his answer was, ‘But I keep going.’ It was a little bit eye-opening for me. He was trying.”

Hodgkinson detects “some kind of sadness deep within Cher. She’s not your typical sunny Californian superstar. No questions are off limits. There is nobody monitoring our hour and a half conversation, no suggestion that she is trying to protect or manage a personal brand. She just is, with the resignation that brings. You could call it a form of serenity.”

People:
(Daniela Avila)

Entertainment Weekly:
(Maureen Lee Lenker)
Cher talks about how at the end of writing days she would be really tired. It was exasperating and tiring, but not cathartic or healing. The funny parts kept her going. And how the break of the two books came before her acting career because that was “the beginning of a new life for me.” She hints that Part Two has as many highs and lows. “You can’t be an artist and not go through hard times….sometimes it was fabulous and sometimes it was heartbreaking.”

Oprah Daily:
(Charley Burlock)
“Icons are not born; they are built…[the book gives] insight into how she built and rebuilt herself.” Cher talks about working on the book five to seven hours a day. “There are some things that are just nobody’s business, but there are not a lot. I went way past my comfort zone. Way past.”

“People have gotten so much wrong—especially about Sonny and my relationship. I mean, I did my best, like I really tried so hard to make people try to understand it because it doesn’t play well. We were friends, way after we were divorced….I just didn’t hold a grudge…not really.”

Burlock asks her about her confidence in her style…how she didn’t let criticism of her clothes and outfits get to her. She says “because it was stupid and because it had no meaning to me. I mean, my clothes were beautiful. People are still trying to do the naked dress.”

He asks her to elaborate on why she wasn’t interested in drugs and she says, “Can I tell you something? You’re the only one who has gotten it so far: I wasn’t interested….I didn’t want to do cocaine because when someone was doing cocaine they just talked to you endlessly about boring things. If they were doing downers, you would want to go to sleep along with them….I was just like which one of those things is fun?”

And why the lyrics of the Diane Warren song “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me” are so important to her: “I don’t usually quit. I have to be crawling on the ground–and even then, I’ll crawl on the ground and keep going. Because it’s just who I am.”

Burlock: “Well, it’s gotten you pretty far.

Cher: That’s true.

Sonny and Leisure Music: The Importance of Music to Conceptual Mental Synthesis

December 11, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher not only listens to music at home now, but she now records music there too.

I just did a blog post about how my Cher and poetry blogs tie together. This is another blog topic I didn’t quite know which blog to post on. It’s related to Cher but also about the creative process and mental synthesis.

Last night I finally got to the point in Cher’s new memoir where she mentions that Sonny didn’t allow her to listen to music in the house. She says “He wouldn’t even let me listen to music” (196). It’s at the half way point. I knew it was coming. I’ve seen all the interviews. But I wanted to read it for myself before I made it my first post about this book.

First, let me say it’s hard for me not to think about the book as a writer as much as a Cher fan, having thought a lot about the best way to tell the Cher story to a wide audience.

Fans might want a lot of things, but non-fans have a lower tolerance for too much detail or Wikipedia facts as Cher calls them.

And it’s important to remember what the book is trying to do and who the intended audience is. I believe the intention is to reveal insights about the main character to the population at large.

And to that rubric I think, like Mary Poppins, the book is pretty much perfect. I’ll go into it all more later, but it’s hitting all the notes. Some of the factual errors are maybe driving some scholars a bit crazy, but I think the reviews have been pretty unanimously the best of her career. Which isn’t surprising really, that her life story would be giving her the best reviews. Cher is really bigger as a character than any media she travels on.

And I really wanted to blog about recent events in date order: the Spotify playlist, the Victoria’s Secret show, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Memoir but I think now we’ll have to do it backwards. The memoir is just so big and seemingly impactful. Every media publication known to man is looking for an angle story on Cher right now. House & Garden is even weighing in.

At 78, Cher is as hot as she ever was. Which is just incredible when you remember all those lean years of fandom.

So why is it taking me so long to finish this damn book? For one, I’m reading pretty slow and taking notes. Scholars are nerds, after all. I’m also reading other books although I’ve done some drastic paring down to accommodate the Cher book. But I also have book club books on deadlines and the new Murakami book I’ve been dying to read. I’m exactly halfway through that one as well.

So Mr. Cher Scholar says I read more than anyone he’s ever met. Which I don’t think is true, really. Book reviewers, for example, spend a lot more of their day reading than I do. I read maybe an hour in the morning and 1-3 hours at night. I mean I also watch some TV every day or so too.

But I think what he might have been driving at was that I read a lot of books at the same time. Sometimes like ten books at a time, I’m embarrassed to say. I picked up this habit in college when I was taking multiple classes and sometimes a miracle would happen when something I was reading in one class sparked off something I was reading in another class and that’s how I came to write a whole essay on one paragraph of William Faulkner’s Light in August as seen through the lens of a Plato theory about pre-knowledge. Maybe my scheme wasn’t entirely accurate in hindsight but it was a good mental exercise and I felt pretty brilliant about it at the time.

Yesterday I had cause to look up what this type of thinking might be called as it relates to music. I’m not good at thinking about music and I think this is why musical mashups appeal to me. How does someone hear one song and then another song and then think they could find an avenue to meld the two together into a collage. It’s a way of thinking I have no access to. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t but it’s that spark of the idea and then the sewing together that intrigues me, these conceptual combinations we use for everything from inventing new food recipes to creating basic metaphors. How to show like to like and different to like, how to bring disparate things together somehow into a new thing.

Here’s an example of what I’m talking about in joke format.

This comic I saw today is a mashup of Door Dash culture and the myth of babies being delivered by stork. Unless you have a lot of unrelated material floating around in your head, you probably can’t make these connections.

I would even guess the bulk of jokes are created by bringing two unrelated ideas together.

Which brings us back to music and Cher.

I read a lot more than some people maybe, but it is nothing, nothing, nothing compared to the amount of music I listen to every day. Like 6-8 hours of music (a day). I listen to music at work, while I’m cooking, while I’m cleaning, while I’m driving, while I’m decorating for the holidays (which I am not doing this Cher-treeless year).

It seems to me a kind of torture to insist that someone you live with not to listen to music in their own house. Cher is talking about the days before earphones were common. Maybe superstars like Sonny and Cher already had headphones. I keep trying to figure out what Sonny was worried about: was it undue influence working on Cher, his musical prodigy? Was he worried about subconscious plagiarism seeping into his own songwriting? Or was he just annoyed by her musical choices?

None of that matters though because listening to music is a human need in my opinion. I can’t imaging living without it. I wouldn’t do it.

Atul Gawande talks about decline of living standards in his book Being Mortal and what animal sense you could possibly lose that would make your life not as worth living. I definitely think not being able to eat solid food would be on my list. But what about loss of hearing? Loss of sight? I don’t do well with audio books and podcasts because I keep drifting off in my imagination and can’t find my way back to the spot I fell out.

Would I rather give up books or music? Ugh. Unpleasant decisions. I just can’t get there.

But back to my earlier point about mashups: Music is a way of thinking. Very different from reading. But those two things talk to each other, just like anything else: knitting, plotting against ground squirrels, surrendering to ground squirrels and building them a hutch.

I don’t really want to give up anything because they all feed together like hungry squirrels.

Not being allowed to listen to music. Inconceivable! In some ways, Sonny was a genius at being outrageous.

Kiss and Tells and Legacy Building

October 9, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher: The Memoir, Part One Audiobook by Cher - 9780008355388 | Rakuten Kobo India “Why should one’s art then be an achievement? Why not more an adventure?”
— Poet Robert Duncan

We’re all waiting to see how much of Cher’s autobiography is a kiss and tell. She has said time and again that she never wanted to do that sort of memoir and was disappointed that Sonny did so with his.

But why should that keep one from telling their life story? Is that all a life is about? Sex and gossip? What about all the other struggles, joys and actualizations of the self?

Reading Ann Powers’ book on Joni Mitchell, it was interesting to see the point at which Joni Mitchell switched from making new music to legacy-building. This took the form of accepting tributes and re-releasing music in various ways.

Cher doesn’t seem interested at all in legacy building. I think she said as much in an interview last year. But this is part of what any memoir or compilation album or tribute speech or liner note is doing. Because after you’re gone, people will turn to these as points of reference. And sometimes this is because “the great work” itself becomes unavailable or gets misinterpreted as it loses the context of its time.

Legacy building happens differently for politicians and poets and painters and rock stars and actors. But there seems to me different ways you can go with legacy building as an artist:

A relationship tell-all, (not the same as a sex tell-all), especially if you had a life-changing one, like Cher with Sonny. Surely there’s something in certain relationships that were inspiring or in some cases character building. Katharine Hepburn handles this with class and honesty when she talks about Spencer Tracy in her autobiography Me.
Stories of the ridiculous and transcendent things that happened to you. And usually these things happen with people around you who you loved or hated and they experienced these same things too right along side you and so are part of your story. These events are also part of their stories.
The change agents of your life. What or who sent you off at a 90 or 180-degree directions? What were the twists and turns in your before-then otherwise linear plot. These can be situations as often as people.
Your creative problem-solving. All of us have had to do this. It reminds me of poet Frank O’Hara’s obsession with the process of painting and poetry and determining the difference. How does your brain works to solve problems of your work? What tools did you use to work things out?

In any case, no one can top Sonny’s kiss-and-tell by a sexist rockstar (well, rockstar to some degree…in some minds…in my 7-year old mind). Sonny dropped the mic on this kind of tell-all, in my humble opinion.

He started a sexual relationship with underage girl (who became Cher) and then wrote a whole book to complain about it. It makes Gregg Allman’s crass comments about his “hot” sex with Cher and other women (“they have two purposes: to make the bed and make it in the bed”) seem downright gentlemanly in comparison.

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 5

July 16, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

What a picture this week! Cher is wearing some future-Cher-signature hoop earrings. She was literally before her own time, not just everybody else’s time. This is also classic 60s-Cher with the thick eyeliner and the neutral lips, the thick bangs. She looks slightly miffed, like kids are writing to her via 16 Magazine and they are not telling her how old they were. (Can you believe it?)

This also marks the last solo effort of this column. From now on, Sonny will weigh in on questions, too. Maybe his new movie-mogul schedule has freed up. Who knows. The bottom line is Cher only got through three of them by herself.

If your young life is full of problems, there’s no need for you to suffer alone. In fact, there’s no need for you to suffer at all. Cher wants to help you—right here in the pages of 16!

Dear Cher, Do you think it is wrong for a girl to try and make herself look like another girl? For instance, I think you are beautiful and I model my hair, clothes and looks after you. Who would I try to look like? I flip for John Lennon. Worried, Niagara Falls, Ont.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Worried, Since you didn’t say how old you are, it is hard to give you advice. You 16-ers must remember to state your age when you writer to me—as that does make a difference. If you are 14 or younger, I think it is quite a good thing to choose another girl whom you admire to model yourself after. However, as you get older, you should start discovering yourself. You should—sooner or later—get your own style. That’s like letting the real you emerge. Everybody starts by copying, but in the end they must come to themselves. I agree with you that John Lennon is quite flippy.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

From Canada. She’s getting international letters now! I think this is a very good response, except for the scoldy you-16-ers part…and the part about John Lennon being flippy. I don’t agree with them on that one and the comment itself seems aside from the question. Just a non-sequitur. Maybe it was a hey, girl-to-girl thing, look at that hottie John Lennon. Wink-wink, nudge-nudge.

Truth be told, I don’t find any of the Beatles “flippy” or handsome and I know this will piss off millions of Boomer ladies by saying that. I have always struggled with the mandatory exercise of “picking my Beatle” and I have defaulted to Paul just because he and his wife Linda sided with the animals and Linda had a line of TV-dinners taste-tested in St. Louis. The dinners didn’t ever “go” but it was back when there were no vegetarian TV dinners in grocery stores and, incidentally, they were very tasty and so I also have her cookbook. You could argue I’m more of a Linda McCartney fan. But I do like the Beatles themselves. It’s more of a problem of picking a cute one. (And Cher Scholar’s gonna drop some catty bits here). I contend that there is a fatal flaw in each of the Beatle faces. I had these thoughts watching the excellent Get Back documentary. For Ringo, yes, unfortunately it is the nose. For Paul, it’s those droopy eyes that most Boomer girls did indeed flip for. George Harrison has the most classically handsome face, but I can’t get past those teeth. For John Lennon, the eyes, nose and teeth are fine. It’s his mouth.

That all is needlessly (and maybe inappropriately) said because quantifying beauty is very subjective and cultural. For example. I love Cher’s older crooked teeth. I don’t like George Harrison’s crooked teeth. Probably sentimentality plays into our evaluations more than we like to admit. I have no sentimental attachment to the Beatles so I can nit-pick away. Maybe if I was an older person, I would have joined my peers and “flipped.” As it was, I was born later and flipped (and floundered) for people in my 1980s-teen-era instead. (However, I did not pick a Duran Duran member either. Sigh. Okay, maybe it’s me.)

And how are all these I-want-to-look-like-you Cher questions coming through the slush pile anyway? Is that the bulk of the mail coming in? Are they choosing only questions that discuss Cher beauty or Cher hair? Which is an interesting marketing strategy to pick only those questions that made Cher look good (but look at me being all conspiracy theory right now).

I am fascinated by these changing age borderlines in the 16 Magazine responses. Like was some teen-psychologist being consulted? Age 14 seems like the fulcrum of many changes in one’s life. Boys getting more sensible with girls, girls coming into their “real you-ness.” The real Eunice, as it were. How can I get to my real Eunice?

I actually love the idea that you begin to discover your own look by copying others and then making small tweaks away from that copy, so many tweaks that eventually you won’t recognize the source. I would love to hear (or read) about Cher’s childhood models, what and from whom she copied to finally define her Cherness, her Eunice. And I think this practice applies to probably everything we do as creative people or thinkers. We model other things until we understand the thing fair enough to try out tweaks for ourselves. There’s some great quote out there about artists who become great because they fail at trying to be someone else.

I was 15 or 16 when the Cher movie Mask came out. But since I was a slow kid, let’s just say I had the maturity of a 14-year old and that’s being generous. Watching the movie in the theaters I remember thinking Cher looked so great and that of all the eras of Cher, this look seemed somewhat copy-able for a girl from Missouri. You know, a sprinkle of hillbilly in there? Her 1960s-hippy chic look: eh. The glamourous TV star look: not do-able. Biker chick: possibly. Looking back it seems folly but I did try it out. And the form it took was to copy her character’s white undershirts and ribbon/shoestring necklaces. The shirts didn’t work immediately. But I did wear those shoestring necklaces all through my Sophomore year until I decided, you know, I’m not really a choker-necklace person.

Dear Cher, I have very dark, coarse hair on my forearms and on my face. Do you have any suggestion as to how I could get rid of this unwanted hair? Hairy, Ft. Collins, Col.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Hairy, YOU FORGOT TO GIVE YOUR AGE!! If you are under 16, I advise you to try to ignore this excess hair for the time being. It may just be a passing thing and soon gradually begin to disappear. But if you are over 16, it is probably going to be a permanent problem, and you should speak to your family doctor about recommending a good electrolysist. There are people who scientifically remove hairs permanently—one at a time. Do not use “hair removing” creams and plasters on your body or face, as it is very dangerous.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

First of all, THE YELLING!! Maybe 16 Magazine needs a form kids can fill out to send in with their letter. That would eliminate all the forgetting to tell Cher what age you are. I now feel compelled by these stern reprimands to give my age when I have a question for anyone. “I’m 55!” That’s got to be the boundary of some kind of life cycle change, right? Wait a minute. Maybe Cher should start an AARP advice column right now! “Dear Cher, I’m 55 and not yet having hot flashes like all my friends? Am I a freak of nature. I feel so left out. What should I do?”

And I notice the age boundary has moved to 16 in this case. I hope there’s a chart somewhere of all these teen thresholds. Or is 16 just the age when girls can start going through draconian beauty practices? Boys can get drafted into the military at 18; girls can start electrolysis at 16?

There is some intense social pressure to be hairless, oddly. As a race, human animals are turning into hairless cats. I personally like hair on people, cats and dogs. And I know some very beautiful girls with hairy arms. In the third grade, a girl named Laura moved to our neighborhood from somewhere in the south. She sat next to me and we became friends for a year. All the boys went nuts. She was very pretty and had a southern accent. And hairy arms. The boys did not care. She was the most popular girl that year.

It’s interesting that this response differentiates between removing hair scientifically as opposed to what? Magically? I think they mean these snake-oil type remedies. You know, the whole skin care industry basically. I have a love-hate relationship with skin care products and I wrote about this extensively in Cher Zine 3, “Cher and Your Skin (The Infomercials).”

Hair removal has come along way (err, scientifically) since the 1960s. Just look at this Wikipedia page with its hilarious drawings of human hair and old-tyme ads for hair removal. There is now sugaring, threading, drugs, laser, IPL, diode epilation.

One thing is for certain, people care an awful lot about their hair. It’s a very serious business. Do I have too much? Not enough? One good thing about hair is that you can play with it.

Dear Cher, My father is in the Army and we lived in Europe for five years until about five months ago. Before I left, all of my friends told me they would write to me. I have written to them all and given them my new address, and not a single one has responded. What is wrong with me—or with them? Now that I have gone, have they forgotten me? Depressed, Ft. Ord. Calif.

Cher’s Response:

Dear Depressed, Nothing is wrong with you or them—except that you are all human beings acting in a very human way. You remembered to write and [were] anxious to hear from them. In fact, it was probably easier for you to spend a lot of time writing to your old friends, rather than make new ones. They, however, still have each other, and are not lonely—though I am sure they miss you and speak of you often (and also feel guilty about not writing). But you should also remember that writing a letter is hard for your former friends, as they are all caught up in the busy life they share. That doesn’t mean they think ill of you. Don’t be such a pessimist. Go out and get some new buddies and start all over. When you remember the past, think only of the good things and—if you feel so inclined—if you feel so inclined—just drop your old friends a happy little picture postcard from time to time,. You’ll make out all right—you’ll see.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Europeans!

I was a big nerd and also in French class so I had a lot of international pen pans in high school. The two pals who petered out first were the boy from Germany and the boy from France. I really don’t think this is because they were Europeans. I think this is because (can we all agree?) they were boys. My best pen pals were from New Mexico (Maureen I had as a pen pal the longest, through my twenties, and yet have never met her, even though I lived in the small city of Santa Fe for three years where she was from and probably still living), the French-Canadian (who wrote to me in French and I returned letters to her in English) and the girl from the Philippines (who wrote to me until the Marcos were deposed and then I never heard from her again). So it’s situational is what I’m saying.

I guess I’m pretty hot-headed because I didn’t spend much time making additional attempts after one went unanswered. So for this question I went to one of my bffs, Julie, to get advice. She has a remarkable reputation among our group for doing something we call “never forcing a falling out.” You know, sometimes you get fed up with a friend and you “force a falling out.” You instigate trouble to cull that friend from your herd. This may be a catty girl thing to do but we would often find Julie in a situation where “forcing a falling out” would seem beneficial and we would recommend she do it and she would never do it. Admirable really. So I told her this scenario and she texted me back: “I wouldn’t send more than two unanswered letters unless this was a really long-time relationship, then maybe three or four. And I would probably try calling if it was a long-term relationship before accepting being ghosted.” We then discussed the word ghosting and me using it here in this anachronistic scenario and we decided it was a very useful term. Because ghosting was happening long before “ghosted” was a word. To be clear, ghosting is not nice. To force a falling out is, although still dysfunctional, somewhat nicer. At least the victim has closure.

I do like the idea of converting to postcards as a way to touch base without the pressure of a response. “Remember me? I’m in America now doing obnoxious American things! Thbbbbffttt!” Then again, I can see where that wouldn’t help things much.

There’s probably not much hope in this sort of situation and I see Cher now giving me the stern Cher-stare and saying, “Cher Scholar, don’t be such a pessimist!”

Dear Cher, I have fat thighs. I am not tall, so it really shows on me. I am 14 years old. [Thank God she said how old she was!] What should I do? Out Of Shape, Bossier City, La.

Cher’s Response:

Be glad you are 14—for that means that some of this weight is still “baby fat” and it will slowly disappear in the next couple of years. However, I think you should practice rolling around on the floor. [Is this code for sex?] What you do is recline on the floor propped up by your arms with your elbows straight. Point your toes and stiffen your leg muscles. Now slowing roll over to the right as far as you can. Hold it for a moment, and then slowly roll all the way back to your left. Repeat this 25 times a day, and within two weeks your measurements will be on the way down.

Cher Scholar’s Response:

Roll around on the floor?? There’s not a better, more “scientific” name for this exercise? Ok, I’m gonna try it. Hold on a minute…

Okay I don’t think I did this right because it seemed more of a workout for my arms than my thighs, which were also chubby as kid. I have a distinct memory of being in my Wonder Woman swimsuit down at our neighborhood pool where Lillian, Diana and I would yell “Laugh at Me,” (after Sonny’s solo opus, no kidding and no idea why), and then jumping into the pool and grabbing at each other underwater and then Lillian coming up to tell me she found my legs chubby. And I wasn’t mad about it but I do remember being a bit irritated, thinking “Oh great, now I have to worry about my legs.”

Those chubby legs turned into tween-anorexic skinny legs (you saw that coming) and then I had a decade in my late-teens and twenties with normal legs and now we’re back to elderly chubby legs again.

I just did a google search that made me feel a bit fat- shamey: “best workout for fat thighs.” I got the usual suspects: lunges, squats, dead lifts with weights and jumping jacks (which are hard on your knees…just ask Jane Fonda).

Cher obviously couldn’t have thrown this out in the mid-1960s but there will come a time in the 1990s when Cher would turn into somewhat of a fitness guru. So we have quite a suite of workouts, guides and encouragements to suggest now.

Cher’s VHS A New Attitude, a step workout, was released in 1991. Body Confidence was released in 1992 with weight band exercises and a hot dance. When these came out, I just watched them while eating ice cream. I was thin then and the devil may care. Years ago I actually bought a step and tried the workouts. They were good and hard. The most distracting thing about them is the fact Cher is really overdressed in them. And that is kind of a turn off somehow. She does honestly struggle through her own workouts sometimes and that is refreshing. But to show up dressed for singing “Turn Back Time” is not motivating for those of us who do not have Turn-Back-Time-fits or care to.

In 1991, Cher also came out with a nutrition and fitness book, co-authored by nutritionist Robert Haas (who wrote Eat to Win), not to be confused with the poet Robert Hass (who wrote “The Nineteenth Century as a Song“).

Cher also did a series of commercials for Jack LaLanne gyms from 1984 to 1989. You can get some inspiration for your fat thighs here by listening to some memorable Cher epigrams about sweating:

“Even your ankles got fat“
“I’m not a nun. We all know that.”
“I don’t work out every day for nothing“
“Not making the bed“
“The Beat Goes On“
“What would you rather have? fat or muscle?“
“If it came in a bottle“ Judy Tenuta had a joke about this commercial: “You can’t get this body in a bottle…unless you push real hard!”

Kiss-and-Tell Autobiographies

June 24, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I was using an online bootleg of Sonny & Me; Cher Remembers to finish documenting what was in that TV special and I discovered at the end of the bootleg were some Entertainment Tonight segments from 1998 tagged on, including interviews of Cher on the set of the movie Tea with Mussolini responding to news about Mary Bono helping mount a TV movie about Sonny & Cher based on Sonny’s 1991 kiss-and-tell biography. It was around this time when Mary Bono started to come across as not-a-friend-of-Cher, this biopic news coming after Sonny’s funeral bruhaha died down.

It wasn’t the first gossip of tension there. It was rumored Cher took issue with some of the things Mary Bono had been revealing around Sonny’s late-life struggles with prescription drugs. Cher, like a regular Italian mafioso, was rumored to want to keep such news in the family.

I don’t know where to put this TV movie, to be honest, for various reasons. The origin of it, Sonny’s book, like Sonny himself was “a mixed bag” (as Cher has said recently). There were some good behind-the-music stuff in the book, but then he goes and talks about his sex life with Cher. Icky but we’ll get to that in a minute.

The movie didn’t crawl into bed with the sex storyline which was good. Although I have to admit I do have a fascination with “the Sonny & Cher Bedroom” but only up to stories about them having sex. For me, Sonny & Cher were more like my fantasy parents. And who wants to go there with their real or fantasy parents? I prefer the quaint stories of Cher reading a book all night in the master bathroom or her wanting to keep the TV on all night to sleep, bedroom stories which sounds interesting in a sort of innocent, albeit still groovy, way. The bedroom seems symbolic for Cher as the core of the house. She has for decades held court in her bedrooms over interviews and Sonny & Cher even captured their bedroom on their last album cover.

The biggest problem I have with the movie, which is the problem I have with any Sonny & Cher re-enactment, is that it is always hella-boring. And Sonny & Cher were anything but boring characters. It all just proves how completely inimitable they both are, Sonny too. Not to mention that the re-enactments keep portraying Sonny incorrectly, like a happy-go-lucky, trod-upon, luckless, aw-shucks fellow. And that is so far off-the mark when you consider the portrayal of anyone who has ever described Sonny: his family, his friends, his colleagues, his ex-wives. It’s not even an accurate on-stage read of Sonny. And you can tell this if you just pay attention. What we continue to get are just cliched readings of Sonny, dismissive shallow looks. And it is so annoying, a disservice to both Sonny and Cher.

I also don’t know where to place the movie in the Cher-o-sphere. It’s not a TV special but it is a legitimate moment of Cher history (for good or bad). It’s not a TV appearance. A network movie has been made depicting her life. So which bucket does it live in?

I do have Sonny’s book listed on by Book page. It’s Sonny’s documented point-of-view. You can’t fully dismiss it.

Cher Universe just published an MTV Rockline interview from the early 1990s which includes Cher response to Sonny’s book when it came out. Cher maintains in the interview that she did very much want to refute much of what Sonny said in his book but decided she didn’t want to kiss-and-tell. She wasn’t going to respond in kind.

To be fair, Sonny did some great things for Cher and he did some horrible things to Cher. His evaluation of their career are valuable. But his tales of their private sex life comes across as seedy and self-serving. And since we have to go there, (like walking in on your fantasy parents having sex), I feel I have to dance around what he said. And I just want to say that when you’re considering healthy sex between two people, it stands to reason that a 16-year old in a relationship with a 27-year old might be a different sexual relationship than a twenty-something TV star will have with a rock star of approximately the same age, or a forty-something rock/movie star will have with a younger man or whatever the combinations are. Different relationships have their own energy systems.

And why are we even talking about this? Because Sonny’s comments weren’t meant to be anything but tales out of school, the jackpot gossip of “What was it like to sleep with Cher?” (at best) or designed to continue to make Cher feel bad in a public space (at worst), like a punishment for a separate success that had occurred without him. In any case, not a loving or paternal move.

Cher didn’t respond in-kind and I think that says a lot about her character. After Sonny died, she became even more protective. Since then, for years she said she wouldn’t tell her story until “everybody has died.” Well, everyone has pretty much died and she still seems to be struggling with it. She still doesn’t want to throw anyone under the bus, I think she has recently said.

Telling your story is important, but it’s tricky, no doubt. What greater purpose can your stories serve? Fans are interested in details and things we might not know, how things came to be. What were the disappointments and joys we don’t know about.

On the borderlines, maybe it would be good to stick to feelings. We truly own our feelings, after all.

On a micro-level people deal with this every day: how much should I tell my friends and family? Sharing stories creates intimacy between people. But how much intimacy do you want? Whatever the case, we all own the story of our own lives.

Maybe it’s like talking to a therapist. You’ll get nowhere in self-discovery unless you try to be as fair to all parties involved as you can be. Maybe that’s a good rubric for public stories as well. A balance in all blame and kudos; humility in all stories.

Cher is Cookin’

September 20, 2023 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Christmas is Coming Early This Year!

A lot has happened in the last few weeks. Cher set a release date of October 20 for her Christmas album and unveiled a series of covers. And those covers seem to just keep coming. I suppose everyone has to draw their own line on how many different covers they need of Cher’s Christmas album.

On October 28 I’m starting a road trip to get to a family reunion in Cleveland. I should have my copies by then because guess what’s going in every family swag bag! Whoo-hoo! (They’re all also getting pistachio wine from Las Cruses.)

Anyway, Cher has been keeping quiet on the track listing of Christmas songs and regarding names of any duet partners, but in all the kerfuffle of the pre-order announcements, Amazon’s special-cover (my clear favorite of the three, by the way) was leaked with the little sticker on it. So now we know: Stevie Wonder, Darlene Love, Michael Bublé, Tyga and Cyndi Lauper.

I actually keep those little stickers from my Cher albums and CDs. I once drove a friend to Las Vegas from LA and this person opened my CD case for Heart of Stone, the sticker fell out, we lost it and I’m still upset about it.

Last week on social media, we saw pictures and clips of Cher’s house all decked out with Christmas trees and poinsettias and Cher was sitting with Darlene Love.

This duet is pretty awesome for a few reasons. For one, Cher and Darlene Love are longtime friends. When Darlene Love was in financial trouble, Cher hired her for one of her concert tours.

Also, they both sang on the famous Phil Spector Christmas album back in 1963 (Darlene Love soloing and Cher as part of the backup crew) so they have Christmas history together.

And finally because Darlene Love has done some of my favorite Christmas songs, her Home Alone song and the fun one she did with Ronnie Spector.

Apparently the new clip is for an upcoming episode of The View but it seems too early to be shooting appearances for future talk shows. But maybe Cher will start promoting the album in October. Would it be hard to whip up a Christmas TV special like Mariah Carey does? Easy, right?

Darlene Love and Cher through the years:

We know the song “Silent Night” won’t be on the album. Cher has said that about a million times. She also likely won’t redo anything she’s already done (my 2021 breakdown of Cher Christmas moments).

To find all the formats and covers: https://cher.lnk.to/Christmas

Recent Interviews & News

A really good recent interview was in the Hollywood Reporter. They call her “the world’s most recognizable mononym.”

On Music and Movies:

The most common quote she gets from strangers is still, “Snap out of it.” She still gets that “over and over!”

Last week, people were reporting Cher’s name has shown up under the IMDb.com entry for a film called Hail Mary, a football movie staring Jennifer Aniston. Her character name is Roxy Fields. I’m getting a football franchise owner vibe on that.

We found out Cher just sold her music catalog to Irving Azoff. “Well, everybody’s doing it. (Laughs.) I get to keep everything from Believe on, so I’m fine with it.”

In captions on the article we find out October marks the 25th anniversary of “Believe” and April the 35th anniversary of Moonstruck.

About auto-tune, Cher says she had a hard time with the song and producer Mark Taylor kept asking her to sing the verses better until she finally said, “If you want it better, get somebody else” and stormed out. This is artistically preferrable to walking out over a broken manicured nail as would have happed in 1972.

She says, “the record company didn’t want to do it. They said, ‘You can’t tell who it is.’ I went, ‘Yes, I know, that’s the beauty of the whole thing!”

Let’s just sit with that for a minute. Imagine having a voice so identifiable that you feel disappearing from it to be beautiful. Just think about that for a minute.

On Elephants, Ukraine:

Cher is still working to save Billy, the LA Zoo elephant (and the elephant that started her captive animal advocacy). It’s so shocking that the zoo has been confronted with so many recommendations and that 40 other U.S. zoos are phasing out elephants but they refuse to budge. Cher says it took five years of legal work to save Kaavan from Islamabad. And Billy is still showing psychological distress so she’s not giving up on him. She’s asking people in Los Angeles to “bombard the [LA] city council” because “the citizens of LA essentially own the zoo but don’t have the authority to influence the decision making.”

She talks about saving six lions, a panther and a tiger from Ukraine right before the war broke out. “We left the bear, so we had to sneak back in with a big pickup truck and get him out during the war.”

On the war itself, she says, “We’re helping them fight the war so that Russia doesn’t go in and take all the NATO countries. I don’t think a lot of people in Congress understand or realize that, but [the Ukrainians] are doing us a service.”

She also talks about her first dog, Pansy, and her beloved cat Mr. Big who she rescued while on tour at a two-day stop in Detroit.

On Twitter:

She laments the changes on Twitter, the disabled Tweetbot that was helping her dyslexia. “I went to Threads, so I’m on both now. I used to love going on Twitter.”

Me too, Cher. Me too. I’m using Facebook now but there are many more ramifications. I even have much better feedback on Facebook but that’s not the point. I miss talking to strangers.

On Cherlato:

During the Hollywood Reporter interview the Cherlato truck was at the Taylor Swift concert. Cher says they have many flavors but the truck can only support about five at a time. Her favorite is chocolate. “I’m pedestrian,” she says. “When I saw the [edible] gold cones, I almost lost it. I wanted to wear them as earrings.”

On Her Life Stories:

The interviewer, Mikey O’Connell, asks her if she’s still amazed that a news story transpires whenever she leaves her house (my paraphrase). Cher talks about bad periods in her career, periods that would make anyone else give up. “I didn’t quit,” she says.

When asked about performers she likes, she refuses to use her position to single out anyone “because there are so many great people right now. When you single out one of them, it just diminishes everyone else that’s working.”

That’s a good answer.

She’s starting over with her bio-pic. That doesn’t sound good. I hope she’s not been firing a succession of directors. But in any case, she says “we’re going to have to wait [for after the strikes]. I’m not going to go against my people.”

She keeps saying “my people.” I don’t think she means that in the royal sense, but like in “my squad.”

Her autobiography is still not done. The big problem with these projects, she says, is how long her life has been and how hard it is to squish it down into a story. That is a challenge.

Her House:

She finally explained why she’s been trying to sell her beautiful Malibu house. “You can’t be flexible in this house — as much as I love it.” I think this means it stifles her decorating creativity.

Someone did a little article solely about Cher’s Malibu entryway: https://www.homesandgardens.com/celebrity-style/cher-entryway

There was also a Good Morning Britain interview where we find out that Mama Mia doesn’t even have a script yet. And Cher is not committed to it. On this interview she claims she’s never had duets on her albums. That might sound odd when she had a Peter Cetera duet on Heart of Stone and all of those with Gregg Allman and Sonny duets. I think she means she hasn’t made it a habit on every album or hasn’t done The Duets Album, like Tony Bennett.

Cher’s Tuna Pasta Salad

In other Cher cooking news, way back my sister-in-law Susan sent me an article online about Rock-and-Roll recipes that included Cher’s tuna pasta salad and wanted to know if it was any good. So I dug out my Cooking with Cher cookbook and found the same recipe there and made it.

So this was back when the fad was to make everything fat free. People aren’t doing this anymore. Michael Pollan has said in his book In Defense of Food that the fat-free craze just made us fatter. And we need some fats as it turns out.

The recipe tasted….well fat free.

I still hope we’ll get a Sonny cookbook someday and a maybe new more-fat-ful Cher cookbook.

Cher….and Other Fantasies

I’ve finished reviewing the final TV Special from the 1970s. It took a long time, was often hard to describe and this one had a lot of context:

https://www.cherscholar.com/cherand-other-fantasies/

Programs for The Cher Show

June 14, 2023 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I keep hearing rumors that the US traveling-version of the Broadway musical The Cher Show is set to launch. Fall 2023 is the latest story. But the show’s own site still lists the old start date of Fall 2021!

The Broadway version of the show opened on December 3, 2018 with Stephanie J. Block, Teal Wicks and Miraela Diamond as the three Chers, and when I went to see it in January of 2019, the programs weren’t available yet. Which seemed incredible since any fan would want a program to a Broadway show, at minimum.

And then I forgot about it. So it was a long time, (maybe even after the show closed), that I ordered my copy from the online store.

When the traveling UK show started up in 2022, their program was ready right away and I mailed away for a few of their show’s artifacts.

These programs are very different. The shows were different. Different cast, sets and costumes. And I think their programs reflect those differences.

The Broadway program has a beautiful design, the three stylized Cher drawings, very colorful incarnations. There’s a emoji-strewn message from Cher inside. The program is maybe a little too much like a Cher concert program; it has the mandatory two-page collage of her record album covers. Always impressive to see, but not entirely germane in this book. There are shots of the cast, with quotes and song titles to situate them in the show. There’s a big centerpiece, fold-out of the Bob Mackie costumes. On the one hand, this almost puts too much emphasis on the clothes, (Mackie here calls the costumes “get-ups”), but in light of the dead, old critics view in the 1970s that Cher was “just a clothes hanger,” this doubling-down feels alright.

There are lists of Cher’s hits and awards, Bob Mackie sketches for the show, (little art pieces themselves). One-hundred costumes were created for the show, including a recreation of the hole-fit which Mackie always calls Swiss Cheese. Mackie retells the story of meeting Cher and what a young “sprite” she was back then. How daring she has always been.

There are some great shots of the sets. But one of the best things about this programs is the list of accolades about Cher.

TV producer Flody Suarez talks about germinating the idea 17 years prior. (Didn’t the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour producers Chris Bearde and Allan Blye once try to mount a Sonny & Cher musical back in the 1980s or 90s?)

Suarez went to New York and met people who knew people on Broadway who got the show hooked up with stage producer Jeffrey Seller and Rick Elice of another successful jukebox musical Jersey Boys. He says Rick Elice demanded great performers and nice people. With Cher involved, it was easier to get Bob Mackie involved.

And what about Cher? Suarez talks about her power, her vulnerability, tenacity, kindness and originality.

In Rick Elice’s notes, he talks about a visit from Cher in the summer of 2015 when his life was at its lowest ebb due to the death of his long-time partner, how Cher helped him through it. He talked about Cher as “a minister” who is “attentive to people.” Someone who is kind, thoughtful, fun, generous, surprising, full of variety.

The choreographer Christopher Gattelli talks about Cher as an inspiration, her confidence, strength and resilience. He sees her as a kick-ass singer and actress and a goddess warrior.

Music supervisor Daryl Waters talks about hearing “Gypsies Tramps and Thieves” as a young music nerd and dissecting it. He calls Cher caring, funny, poignant, irreverent.

(These are some good words.)

Director Jason Moore talks about trying to create an old variety show set and how they tried to pick the songs that would tell Cher’s life in less than six hours. He felt the theme of the show was about facing fears in order to grow and be stronger. Oh, and glitter. Glitter with intimacy and authenticity, how they tried to embody Cher’s essence without impersonation.

He sees Cher as “a beautifully complex woman, larger than life and a deeply authentic human being, spectacular, extravagant, intimate and emotional.”

Set designers Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis talk about wanting an over-the-top look of glamour (because we want to see Cher big and strong) but also intimate sets (because we want to see her up-close and vulnerable). Cher has covered so many years and so many mediums, they said. She’s “fierce.” They wanted to use mirrors to highlight the multiple Chers, sometimes struggling through the fragmentation of the world. They needed flexibility with the lighting and they didn’t want to upstage the “get-ups.” They call the show a “kaleidoscopic ride through a psychological closet.”

Lighting designer Kevin Adams talks about bringing together a contrast between the dark-haired Cher and the big bright spectacle.

It often seemed the US show struggled to show Cher’s legitimacy (or a jukebox musical’s legitimacy for that matter). The UK show never seemed to face such a struggle, more willing did their press seem to just just let go and have some Cher-fun. This might be because the UK show traveled and the US show was ensconced in the Great White Way.

As I’m working on a Katharine Hepburn project at the moment, I can’t help but be reminded of the differences between her Broadway and London Shakespeare reviews similarly. You’d think if anyone would be overly serious about Shakespeare…except the US critics couldn’t get over Hepburn’s New England accent doing Shakespeare and the London critics couldn’t care less. They loved seeing Hepburn do Shakespeare.

So it was much more pleasant to watch the UK show publicity unfold. And I love the Broadway Chers but casting people of color was brilliant. (The three UK Chers were Millie O’Connel, Danielle Steers and Debbie Kurup.)

Their program has ads in the front and back advertising jukebox musicals about The Osmonds, Tina Turner, an unfortunate musicalization of Pretty Woman, and the choreographer Oti Mabuse’s own show. This program goes more into the biography of Cher (because maybe they’re not as familiar with it?) which calls Cher a “rock and roll survivor…a prize fighter.” The bio goes into Sonny’s unfaithfulness and how he absconded with all their money . It states Cher’s freedom cost her over a million dollars.

There’s a page of movie highlights where Cher talks about being a bumper car (“I won’t stop.) This program also talks about Cher’s iconic impact on LGBTQ, her struggles with alienation, mistreatment and marginalization. They talk about her sass and style, how she tells it like it is, her survival. They point out her role as a lesbian in the movie Silkwood, her relationship to her son Chaz and how she supported drag queens back to her 1979 show that brought the art of drag into the mainstream, the influence of her style on people like Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus.

There’s a page of celebrities praising Cher: Gwen Stefani (who credits Cher for making us strong and true to ourselves), Beyonce, Sarah Paulson, Christina Aguilera and Rob Halford, whose comments are the best and most specific. He says she has the “most beautiful voice…beautiful, beautiful texture in her voice.”

The production notes in this version talk about the show’s color palette, how Rick Elice made a visit to Cher’s own closet to generate ideas about the story, (and being in the closet is such a wonderful metaphor here). Set designer Tom Rogers talk about wanting to avoid making the show “a soulless presentation of her songs.”

What’s great about this program is the 4 pages of behind-the-scenes rehearsals, it gives list of acts and numbers, longer credit pages (like a Playbill), all the actors and dancers, everyone’s Tweet handle, 5 pages of the creative bios and 1 page of production credits.

Although I love the design of the Broadway program, it’s very slim in information and beyond words, doesn’t take you behind the curtain. It feels bare bones compared to the thicker, more outgoing UK program.

I’m looking forward to what the traveling US show programs will look like. Fingers crossed that even happens.

Information about both shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cher_Show_(musical)

Cher Mags, Shows, Movies, Music, TV, Fashion, Merch

November 28, 2017 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

What a Cher year it's been, starting all the way back in January with "Prayers for this World." It's a bit overwhelming and I can't believe I haven't blogged since Halloween! My own Fall has been crazy with three sets of house guests and the production of a new political poster for the my art action group ArtBrawl (we decided on a name last summer). We also recently launched a Facebook page that has been tracking our goings-on. Two weeks ago we started screen printing.

For Cher this seems like a critical mass era where she’s producing a plethora of new things, all while older work is getting re-evaluated constantly (her fashion, songs and movies).

Tributes

Bob's Burgers did a tribute to Cher on their Halloween episode. Technically Linda is dressed as a "Cher-iff," a sheriff dressed like Cher (or Cher with a badge).

Linda explains her costume as having “handcuffs, a badge and a body that just refused to age!” She also wears a diminutive cowboy hat. “OH, I LOVE her!” she says and then says to Bob, “Snap out of it! From the movie!”

Linda stays in her Cherfit for the whole episode. The outfit is basically the Turn Back Time V-fit with extra Linda coverage, darker stockings and the leather jacket and Cher’s own latter-day boots. I appreciate that the cartoonists put Cher in the original Turn Back Time V-fit and not the concert version hole-fit that everyone now associates with the song.

Some clips:

– Linda explaining the costume
– The family trick-or-treating

While searching for show clips I also came across this story about Ellen wearing the hole-fit version a few years ago. They're very different outfits and now when Bob Mackie talks about designing the Turn Back Time outfit I have no idea which outfit he's talking about.

Magazines

Closer magazine came out with a Cher tribute issue in November which is pretty good. Some new pictures and stories inside. There have also been some new online articles about Cher like these on motherhood and retirement.

Cher scholar Tyler also located this Travel Girl article on Cher: http://travelgirlinc.com/cher-glamorous-gorgeous-still-going-strong/

Charity & Social Causes (Twitter)

Cher has been busy with social and charity causes. She's working with Ben Stiller and others to get supplies to Puerto Rico:

Cher also took part in an auction for veterans on Veteran's Day.

And (thanks to Tyler again) here's a found clip of Cher's interview at the One Young World Conference where she launches Free the Wild and talks about how she's been working with Bob Geldof's manager to launch the animal rescue charity. She talks about her fake fur and a few rescued elephants. She also says the song "Walls" was from "Believe" producer Mark Taylor.

In the Twittersphere, Papermag has also offered "A close reading of Cher and Rihanna’s Twitter Exchange"

Cher Shows

Las Vegas: There's Las Vegas and then there's the original Las Vegas. I went to them both in the last few months. The older one is actually in New Mexico, an old west town rougher than Tombstone. Mr. Cher Scholar got his masters in archaeology there a few years back (which is why we live in New Mexico now). We took Mr. Cher Scholar's brother to The Plaza Hotel there to do some ghost hunting. Mr. Cher Scholar's brother even has ghost hunting gear. There also happened to be a Halloween party there that night.

A few weeks later we went to the other Las Vegas where I finally saw the November 11th Classic Cher show. Our seats were not as close as the cancelled show seats we had in spring, but they ended up being better seats than I thought. Cher opened her monologue with "You've probably planned a long time for this." Tell me about it! I was shell shocked the whole weekend worried about a cancellation. Sigh. Sometimes I think I just want it too much. Cher talked about mid-era Sonny & Cher days working show rooms and living in Motel 6 like motels with Cher attempting to cook their diners in the rooms.

It was a great show. I particularly liked the new graphics for "Walking in Memphis" and "The Shoop Shoop Song."

I really loved the faux Cher Vegas sign. So retro and fun!

News about the show:

Las Vegas Sun article about best shows in town.
Cher also recently released tickets for 2018 spring dates.
An interview with Cher’s lady bass player Eva Gardner, daughter of Kim Gardner (thanks Tyler for this too!). Gardner says she doesn't usually experience sexism from her peers, but an older generation of men who are not used to seeing women playing and would rather talk about her legs than her craft.

Broadway Show

There's a page for the Chicago shows of The Cher Show. It would be nice to see a bit more of the performers involved and a better logo. An article from Junkee on the show which captures a lot of her tweets related to it.

Cher Music

"Ooga Boo" is now for sale and when you buy through smile.amazon.com, money goes to charity.

Cher did an interview for the BBC ostensibly about her new song "Walls" but the interview is kind of fluffy and truncated before we get to discussing the song.

Music History

Cher scholar Robrt found this 2016 commercial that uses Cher’s 1967 song “It All Adds Up Now.”

Cher scholar Tyler found this clip of Cher lip synching her way through "I Found Someone in chain-mail-fit"

Cher Movies

It was announced that Cher will play the part of Meryl Streep's mom (in flashback) in the sequel to the movie version of Mama Mia.

Movie History

A great article about Witches of Eastwick seen from 30 later.

Television History

My favorite Cher wig is the multi-bun. It's best seen on The Carol Burnett Show. Here's a clip of the sketch.

I heard news that the Get TV Cher shows were coming back. But there's no sign that they will air any new episodes. Last night they played the same Christmas show they aired last year. This run of shows has been mildly disappointing.

But we can console ourselves with this: Cher scholar Tyler located an opening segment of Laugh In with Sonny & Cher. See Sonny in his groovy scarf. And wow! Some Cher eyelashes there! Cher also gets on a bike. Here's another Laugh In segment with Cher and Tim Conway.

And the full episode of Sonny & Cher on The Glen Campbell Show.

And another tribute to Sonny & Cher on David Letterman 30 years ago!

Fashion Influence, Peripherals and Stuff

Ode to an Idol: https://www.image.ie/fashion/in-ode-of-an-idol-the-iconic-and-timeless-wardrobe-of-cher-88368

The New York Times ran a story about a republican mayoral candidate who happens to be a big Cher fan.

Cher is planning to release more Christmas merch on her site soon. See the products on her Twitter. It looks like the themes will be Chercophanie and Black Rose. You can still buy scarves, too!

Tons of Cher Scholarshiping

September 14, 2017 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Over the summer I did a bit of Cher scholarship and some awesome scholarship came to me.

Chart Masters

One of the most exciting things was this analytics data Cher scholar Aurélien sent me, this study conducted by the site Chart Masters. I love this nerdy stuff! Numbers have been crunched to combine physical sales, compilation and live album sales with digital sales to get a better understanding of a song or artist’s overall popularity. For longtime Cher fans, there aren’t many surprises in this report, but it's still fascinating nonetheless, especially the streaming aspect. Madonna fans in the comments took great umbrage with the new Cher moniker “goddess of pop” (was this a fan label or a press one, I never did know). This week my friend Ann suggested the title "the Nefertiti of Pop Music," but the article suggests possibly a more accurate alternative moniker: the “Godmother of All Divas.”

Something to keep in mind, these statistics don’t take into account Cher's popularity in movies, television programs or any other products and these diminutive sales might prove that Cher’s true popularity lies more in other products beyond music, which makes the longevity of her career making music (to date: 1964-2017) and the Billboard record breaking stats all the more mysterious.

Ranking of Top Albums

The first section lists the sales of albums, both physical and digital. I’ve re-ordered the list by top albums by total world sales. However, early 60s and 70s albums numbers were hindered by the fact that apparently few people invested in buying full albums (is this true?) and there weren’t many international sales. The deep catalog is also severely compromised by the fact that almost a decade of Cher’s output has never been officially released digitally (on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube).

Believe – 11,800,000
Heart of Stone – 6,000,000
Love Hurts – 3,500,000
Cher (1987) – 2,050,000
Burlesque Soundtrack – 1,375,000
Look at Us – 1,300,000 (the best of 60s albums)
Living Proof – 1,125,000 (said to be bomb because it landed next to Believe but it doesn’t seem awful, like other Cher bombs below)
Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves – 1,000,000 (strong comeback for the time)
It’s a Man’s World – 850,000
All I Ever Need Is You – 700,000
Half Breed – 600,000 (half of Gypsies)
Closer to the Truth – 600,000
Take Me Home – 550,000 (not as good as Half Breed)
All I Really Want to Do – 450,000 (second best of the 60s)

Ranking of Albums That Didn’t Do So Well

Foxy Lady – 375,000
The Sonny Side of Cher – 325,000
Dark Lady – 300,000 (I was surprised at this low ranking considering the album had a #1 hit attached to it; but maybe being in the middle of a highly publicized divorce with the sad end of a popular television show compromised its chances. But it’s nutty to me that Foxy Lady outperformed it.)
Cher (1966) – 250,000
With Love, Cher – 250,000
Wondrous World of S&C – 250,000
In Case You’re in Love – 250,000
Good Times Soundtrack – 150,000
Stars – 125,000 (sad results for three of Cher’s best albums, Stars, Backstage and 3614 Jackson Highway)
Backstage – 100,000
3614 Jackson Highway – 100,000
Bittersweet White Light — 100,000
Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer – 75,000
I’d Rather Believe in You – 75,000
Prisoner – 75,000
Cherished – 50,000
Two the Hard Way – 50,000
I Paralyze – 50,000

Single Rankings

The single “Believe” is a legitimate phenomenon and all the more so for Cher being 52 at the time.

Believe – 7,020,000
I Got You Babe – 2,870,000
Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves – 2,370,000
Half Breed – 1,850,000
If I Could Turn Back Time – 1,780,000
The Shoop Shoop Song – 1,710,000
Bang Bang – 1,570,000
Dark Lady 1,510,000
The Beat Goes On – 1,360,000
Baby Don’t Go – 1,300,000
All I Ever Need Is You – 1,290,000
Little Man—1,270,000 (I’m very surprised this song made the list; I always assumed it was a minor hit.)
Strong Enough – 1,170,000
A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done – 1,140,000
Just Like Jesse James – 1,010,000

Take Me Home doesn’t even make the list. Due to the funkiness of the disco era where they were counting 12-inch singles and chart rankings based on units shipped, the single was certified Gold and it charted #8 on the U.S. Billboard chart.

Other songs that charted in the U.S. but did not make the sales list: After All, Walking in Memphis, The Way of Love, You Better Sit Down Kids, I Found Someone, We All Sleep Alone, All I Really Want to Do, Love and Understanding, and Heart of Stone.

I found it interesting that even for streaming statistics on old catalog albums that have been released digitally, the blips that did occur in sales were usually for single releases, even non-successful singles, for instance a song like “Carousel Man.“ Sometimes music companies make strange choices for singles, (“Sing C’est La Vie” instead of “I Got You Babe” being a famous example of Sonny having to fight the ideas of Ahmet Ertegun at ATCO). You’d think streaming would even the playing field a bit, especially for young people who don’t have the cultural memory of what those unsuccessful single releases even were. According to MJD, this is because most users on Spotify rely on playlists, which just reinforce the "best" of an era.

Some of the charts also have misapplied orphan songs that really belong in another artist category, (Cher versus Sonny & Cher), are actually from soundtracks or live albums or may just be bootlegs.

The brutal summary is that Cher has a dead catalog compared to other artists Chart Masters has studied. I don’t know how she compares to other artists her age or other artists who began releasing material in the 1960s, (besides The Rolling Stones and the Beatles). But Chart Masters does list the records she has broken: longest span between two hits (she’s 8 years ahead of Michael Jackson), oldest artist to have a top Hot 100 song, “Believe” is also the most successful album from an artist over 50, and she’s one of the few artists to win an Oscar, Grammy, Emmy and a Golden Globe.

Cher in Music Guides (It's Never Pretty)

I posted this article a few months ago (http://www.ninjajournalist.com/entertainment/secrets-cher/) but I revisited it over the summer. I like the thematic dissections of Cherness and the article points out that the Burlesque soundtrack was nominated for Grammy. Really? It was and it also won the Gay and Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association Campy Film of the Year. It must have been a camp-free year. They also call out the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Good!

But the article doesn’t debunk the silly rib removal story, passes an impersonator photo off as Cher, in once place Cher is spelled “share,” and the article claims S&C sang harmonies. They really didn’t. In one place it says Cher excelled in school despite her dyslexia and then later states she always got Cs and D.

Most interestingly, the article quotes writer Nicholas E. Tawa to say Cher’s voice is “bold, deep, and with a spacious vibrato.” That sounded like a rare compliment so I looked up the attribution. In his book Supremely American: Popular Song in the 20th Century (2005) Tawa spends a paragraph on Cher. Here’s the excerpt from Google books.

One small paragraph full of so many common inaccuracies about Cher.

“During the seventies, too, a new kind of performer came into view – the chameleon, always ready to adapt his or her public personality and tailor a singing style to suit the prevalent fashion.”

This is both true and not true. Sonny, Cher's first producer, was a bona fide folk rock artist. He picked the material and he didn’t change in the 1970s. He just handed Cher over to producer Snuff Garrett and so her music style changed. Cher never endorsed adult contemporary and fared only adequately with it (aside from 3 #1 hits), considering how long she was assigned this style by producers). Cher critics are constantly having it both ways. Tawa sees Cher as an exploiter of styles and cynical chameleon (when actually she felt powerless at the time to choose her material). Tawa even admits further down that some artists are “steered hither and yon.” But he must not be thinking of Cher here.

Tawa calls Cher a “case in point” of someone “who gave careful consideration to advancing her career.” If you’re a real student of Cher, you know her career is not Madonna-esque. It was always a fly-by-the-seat music career with occasional attempts at steering, some of which worked, but most of which did not.

The Chart Master’s study above proves all this. As I said in my comments there: “Cher has never been a successful pop star in comparison (to Madonna) and yet she is consistently accused of being simultaneously too popular and calculated (by rock artists who never have pop hits) and not being popular and calculated enough (by fans of young pop hit-makers). This survey proves she is neither calculated nor popular. Which just makes her icon status all the more mysterious and remarkable.”

From Tawa, this is poor scholarship:

“In order to prove irresistible to her audiences, she had her nose and teeth straightened, her teeth capped, her breasts firmed up, and her body reshaped” and that this is why she succeeded.

First of all WTF does having your body reshaped even mean? That could simply mean twelve months at the gym. Secondly, Cher did have her nose and teeth done in her mid-40s, starting at her third decade of her career after the bulk of her music career was ostensibly over with. Those were fixes for her acting career, beyond the scope of this book on popular music. Other body amendments were allegedly made after pregnancies or in the 1990s and beyond. Tawa implies that she did all this as a young woman in order to make it in the music business. His chronology is completely off base but he plunges ahead with his conclusions.

When he lists her music styles, he includes 60s folk-rocker (true), pop-rock (true), wailed power ballads (is wail really the word one would use if Cher weren't a woman? Does Bon Jovi wail?), disco numbers (true, but why are disco songs always called “numbers”?), New Wave glitter rock queen in the early 80s (one album of New Wave that was as far as queen-dom as you could possibly get, see album's ranking above), punk (ah, no), an exponent of arena-rock (ok maybe), and in a later reincarnation tried hip hop (is this a reference to It’s a Man’s World?). He leaves out dance (or as some would say Eurotrash) and the biggest hit of her career.

The Poet Scholar

A while back I posted the text of a poem called “Cher” by Dorianne Laux, who does a lot of pop culture pieces. The poem made the rounds again on a fan site and I decided to give it a closer reading and research other comments about it. There are some factual errors in the poem. And I hate to a Nelly-Nit-Pick but…a poem is all about particulars so…

Cher's labeled as tall. I guess she was perceived as tall on television but in reality looks tiny.
Laux says “before the shaving knife/took her…before they shoved/pillows in her tits” –Cher has never had huge breast implants, only breasts lifts…and even if she has had some, they are not quite “pillows inserted.” That was a huge recurring joke on the television shows, how flat Cher was. She may be bustier now…but not at a pillow level.
In general the language is vague and presents a weak ending that doesn’t really say anything: “singing in a sloppy alto/the oldest, saddest songs.”

But there are some really great lines too:

“bony shoulders draped/with a curtain of dark hair”
“nonexistent butt…I wanted to wear a lantern/for a hat”
“throaty panache, her voice/of gravel and clover, the hokum/of her clothes….bullet-hole navel….her crooked/teeth, hit-and-miss beauty” – all this stuff is great, if sometimes backhanded.

The poem originally appeared in a book called The Book of Men in 2011 but Laux re-published it in a book with her husband called Duets (2017). Laux says,

"All the poems are about music and musicians. I love rock ’n’ roll and pop music so my poems feature Cher and Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger, and Paul Simon. And Joe loves jazz and the blues so his poems are about Bo Diddley and Lightnin’ Hopkins, Ray Charles and Monk, among others.

And here:

"I’ve written poems about some of the icons of my time (Cher, Mick Jagger, the Beatles), and I’ve written poems about the artist Manet and his subject, Olympia, a failed poem about Van Gogh’s room in Arles. Those are obvious influences. But I think other influences are subtler and more profound. The music of my time included the harmonic complexities of Joni Mitchell, Simon and Garfunkel, The Beatles, the rough-edged energy of the Rolling Stones and Janis Joplin, the lonely solo of Otis Redding singing “Dock of the Bay.” This is a music I try to bring to my poems and look for in the poems of others."

The Cher poem is singled out here:

In “Cher,” the entire poem is a list of descriptors both plain and precise. Only two verbs activate the poem—and it’s the same verb—“wanted.” The movement comes in the swivels, the mini voltas that spin the poem along its axis. And, of course, how fitting to write a catalogue poem about J.C. Penney’s. It is as if the form was made for such a poem.

And here is a quote saved from Laux's defunct blog:

"Laux wrote "Cher" after he husband Joe Millar gave her 10 words and told her to use them while saying something she'd wanted to say but hadn't. Laux took the chance to talk about her Cher envy."

So okay that makes sense. Cher envy. It doesn't even need to be based on reality. My bad.

How Does Cher Sound to a Classically Trained Musician?

And finally, my most favorite scholarshipping over the summer: a new interview and research project!

Musician Todd Grossman, a classically trained musician and teacher, took some time to discuss Cher and her oeuvre, her strengths and flaws all from a more professional perspective.
We talked about Cher’s 60s sound, ticks of self-consciousness, and an objective review on what’s still messy in her catalog and what was maybe overlooked.

Check it out!

The Idiom of The Beat Goes On

And now the research! I hear the phrase “the beat goes on” spoken as a common idiom constantly on the radio and I read it in print articles, attached to stories that have nothing to do with Sonny or Cher. And I started to wonder what people think this phrase means and how popular it might have become since 1967. I started a survey and found the phrase in lyric tributes, in Internet and scholarly articles and news stories, as book, album and movie titles, made into random images. Then I explored a possible etymology that predates Sonny’s lyric.

Check it out!

Category: Books (Page 1 of 3)

The I Will Always Love You Chapter

Press and Stuff for Cher The Memoir

Sonny and Leisure Music: The Importance of Music to Conceptual Mental Synthesis

Kiss and Tells and Legacy Building

Dear Sonny & Cher from 16 Magazine, Part 5

Kiss-and-Tell Autobiographies

Cher is Cookin’

Christmas is Coming Early This Year!

Recent Interviews & News

Cher’s Tuna Pasta Salad

Cher….and Other Fantasies

Programs for The Cher Show

Cher Mags, Shows, Movies, Music, TV, Fashion, Merch

Tributes

Magazines

Charity & Social Causes (Twitter)

Cher Shows

Cher Music

Cher Movies

Television History

Fashion Influence, Peripherals and Stuff

Tons of Cher Scholarshiping

Chart Masters

Cher in Music Guides (It's Never Pretty)

The Poet Scholar

How Does Cher Sound to a Classically Trained Musician?

The Idiom of The Beat Goes On

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