a division of the Chersonian Institute

Category: Concerts (Page 1 of 11)

Little Bites

Little Bites (2024) - IMDbSpeaking of Little Bites, here is a post to catch up on bits and bites of the Cher news we’re behind on.

Lawsuits

Cher and her son, Elijah Allman, have come to an agreement via mediation and Cher has dropped her conservatorship lawsuit. More info:

Cher won her royalties lawsuit against Mary Bono. More info:

Chaz Bono Appearances

Chaz Bono recently spoke in Rochester, New York, at a sobriety event and also discussed his family’s history of addiction and mental health struggles.

Chaz Bono’s new movie Little Bites also premieres this Friday, October 9. Not in my town but the step-and-repeat wall indicates the movie might be coming to streaming on Shudder. I will be able to watch it there.

Watch the Trailer

It looks scary! Reviews have so far been mixed but it has a 70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The premiere was held in Los Angeles on October 3. Cher is listed as Executive Producer on the film and attended.

You might recognize this jacket from the late 1980s People Magazine picture in New York City. One of my favorite Cher pictures.

Ted Lasso and Cher

Ted Lasso (TV Series 2020–2023) - IMDbThere are few good things I have to say about this shitty, heartbreaking year. But one of them is the time I’ve spent watching an amazing show called Ted Lasso. My family has been prodding me to watch this show for a while now but I didn’t have AppleTV.  The show has a strong foundation of kindness and perseverance and goes against the grain of decades of Machiavellian TV plots. We have been so bombarded with fictional and reality characters showing us all the ways we can be assholes, it’s refreshing to see something that shows us all the ways to not be assholes…and still maintain dramatic interest, as if assholery is the only thing that could.

The show is well-written and full of inspiring sayings like “aint nothing to it but to do it.”

Anyway, it’s was a happy thing that Cher makes a few of the show’s references in Season 2, episodes 7 and 9.

Episode 7 opens with the song “I Got You Babe” played in its entirety to show all is not blissful in the relationship between Roy Kent and Keely Jones.

In Episode 9, “Bones & Honey,” we follow the character Beard through an episode-long adventure not unlike the movie Nobody mashed up with Martin Scorsese’s After Hours. Beard proposes taking some Richmond football fans to the ellusive club Bones & Honey to sneak in as nonmembers. One of the characters is doubtful, saying “even Cher couldn’t get in! Do you believe they did that to Cher?” complete with pitch voice.

Later when Beard does get them in, the characters are amazed, saying “You did what Cher couldn’t do!”

It was interesting to get the show’s read on the cultural meaning of Cher as a person who is normally cool enough to get in anywhere. Like the coolest of the cool.

Sammy Hagar

While I was in Boston, my oldest brother Andrew told me about driving from Champaign/Urbana to St. Louis with a bunch of his frat mates to see Sammy Haggar play a 1983 show at the Checkerdome for an MTV special. Recently I had to make an unplanned visit to Cleveland where my other brother Randy admitted he was also at that show.

I watched the concert on a bootleg recently and was struck by all the big stage props in it, the crane rigging Sammy Hagar climbs up and hangs off of like a monkey, the hot rod Hagar jumps on. It’s a fun show.

But these pieces of staging aren’t that different from Cher’s big shoe and lava lamps, just people designing shows for the last row of their arenas. Instead of dancers hanging from cranes, Hagar just did it himself.

He was just designing a more masculine show and so no one ever accused him of putting a car up on stage to detract from his music or due to his lack of talent.

Funny that.

Cher Show on the Road

New dates have been released for the traveling version of the Broadway Cher Show. I will be seeing one of these in 2025.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony

It appears Cher will perform. Ozzy will not. My Ozzy-loving friend Julie has talked me into attending the ceremony. We’ll be going with my brother Randy (of the aforementioned Sammy Hagar show which is ironic because Sammy Hagar is also attending). It seems Dua Lipa is slated to do the Cher tribute. This is a bit disappointing. I was hoping some older, establishment person would do the honors. But in many ways Cher is all about the future, not the past. But these legend tributes seem to always come from younger artists like Gwen Stefani (except when Steven Tyler did it or, recently, Meryl Streep).

The show will air on Disney+ which is just about the most unrock-and-roll channel imaginable (except that The Mayhem are on Disney+).

Last week the Hall of Fame released a tweet about Cher which was a closer look type thing. They mentioned her “distinctive voice”, “captivating stage presence” (which is way short of the real fact that she always steals focus), her “avant-garde fashion sense” (which is way short of calling out her huge rock-fashion influence), that she is a “generational force” (short for saying we didn’t think she would last this long), her “tenacious talent,” (which sounds great but what does that even mean?), and her “musical versatility” as showcased in the tweet with a short video on…”Believe”). What? “Believe” is important but it is hardly a showcase on her versatility. They should have referenced instead samples of her dance, rock, folk, pop, country, rap, r&b, torch, showtunes, opera, gospel and new wave music. Is that the best they could do?

I am going to this with a bit of skepticism that the Hall of Fame really appreciates Cher yet. This could just be the long-standing chip I have on my shoulder. But I just hope, if nothing else, we get a snapshot of Cher with Sammy Hagar out of this. I could usefully troll some brothers with that.

Sonny & Cher Live in 1972

So last week Cher scholar Michael sent me an essay that somebody published which was basically a strategy paper for the later-day variety show of Sonny & Cher. Not a paper from 1978. A paper from 2024. Which is shocking in itself, as Cher scholar Michael pointed out.

There were a few issues with the brief paper, including no specific examples, certain factual inaccuracies around the timing of Nelsen ratings, a lack of understanding the show’s then-significance on women, a seeming lack of correctly reading the second variety show’s tone and themes of humor and, most interesting, the suggestion that writers of the second show should play off Cher’s singlehood, an idea which exposed the possibility that the paper’s author had not seen Cher’s interim solo show on CBS or knew about her new marriage to Gregg Allman and subsequent pregnancy during the second show.

But then again, this is deep-fan knowledge these days. Even people who saw the show on live TV have all but forgotten those scandalous details, although they were public enough at the time to make jokes about on the show. I chalk this up to the gravitational force of Sonny & Cher. What rockstar romance could compete?

But seriously, I am always surprised that the general public does not know about Cher’s second marriage to Gregg Allman or that she has a second son. It reminds me of my own surprise upon learning that Elizabeth Taylor had any children. It’s like if you don’t hear from a celebrity’s offspring either doing very well or very poorly or writing a tell-all book about their childhoods, they don’t seem to exist in the somewhat-fictional star-o-sphere.

But anyway, the paper did have a gem. It included an image of this 1972 Sonny and Cher concert review. Scholar-score! I’m going to type out the full review here because it illustrates how big Sonny & Cher were in 1972 and how different the assessment was then of Cher’s talent. For some reason, she was less of a target when she was married and more of a target when she was a solo artist. We should think on that for a bit.

Sonny, Cher Pack Arena by Mike Kalina
from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 16, 1972

A capacity Civic Arena crowd last night was treated to a lion’s “Cher” of music as Mr. and Mrs. Bono—also known as Sonny & Cher—performed in a concert in which the distaff side of singing team radiated throughout.

Sonny and Cher opened their act with “All I Ever Need Is You” and proceeded to do most of the hits that made them famous including “The Beat Goes On,” “I Got You Babe,” and “A Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done.”

Sonny’s only solo was “You Better Sit Down Kids” which originally was a hit when Cher recorded it in the late 60s. Among the numbers Cher soloed on were “Gypsys Tramps and Thieves” and “The Way of Love.”

In all her numbers, Cher showed off her surprisingly powerful voice which also can convey great warmth and feeling. Other numbers were the Nilsson hit “Without You,” “Rainy Day Feeling,” “United We Stand” and “the Carole King tune, “You’ve Got a Friend.”

Although Cher is clearly the stronger of the two vocally, she never overly-dominated the performance as a good wife shouldn’t. [Oh boy.] Both projected warmth to the audience in not only their numbers but also in their brief chats with the crowd before the songs.The couple interspersed their numbers with comedy patter, much in the same vein as the routines they do on television. I think a lot of the jokes that they did, all of which I had heard them do before, took up a little too much time, which could more judiciously have been spent singing.

[A recent comic was discussing this situation on a TikTok reel the perishability of jokes in contrast to the robustness of older songs in a music set. There’s a pressure to produce new jokes in comedy, alternatively to play old songs in pop and rock shows. I could see how this might put pressure on an act that does both, like the Smothers Brothers or Flight of the Conchords or Sonny & Cher.]

Two songs they weren’t able to fit into the show were “Living in a House Divided” and “When You Say Love” both of which are big sellers now.

[I am surprised those songs were big enough hits to warrant a note about a review missing them; but it’s also interesting to see that Sonny & Cher weren’t pushing their hits on the record shelves.]

The crowd was estimated at 14,200, a record for the Arena which previously had been held by the recent show here by the Rolling Stones.

[Ok, let’s mention that again for those watching from any Halls of Fames: Sonny & Cher broke the arena record set by the Rolling Stones in Pittsburgh. in 1972.]

Sonny and Cher previously had appeared at the Arena in 1966 but their popularity was not nearly as great as it is today. In a pre-concert interview they both agreed that they owed a lot of their current fame to their television program. Also, they said that their act today has more of a general appeal than it did when they played the Arena the last time when their records were the only thing they had going for them.

Backstage the superstar couple was very pleasant with reporters and gave a rather candid interview which touched on the high—and low—points of their career. They also posed for photos and signed autographs not as though it was a chore, as many stars give the impression, but as if they enjoyed it.

Opening the show was bright young comedian David Brenner, who is familiar to viewers of the Johnny Carson show. Brenner said that several years ago his career was given a big shot in the arm by an engagement at the Civic Arena which opened up a lot of doors to future concert dates.

“I owe a lot to this place,” he said.

Just eight years later People magazine will note “Cher’s shallow talents,” a comment the likes of which we would see throughout the next few decades for her shows and records. In fact, I don’t think she ever received a good review from Entertainment Weekly ever. This 1972 review also illustrates why Cher may have wanted to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as Sonny & Cher and not just as a solo act because we often forget that this duo did break some records, too.

Here is another set of two reviews from March 1972 in Fort Wayne, Indiana (with photos) and a photo snippet from September of 1972 where Steve Martin opened for them in Memphis:

Cher Space and Time

While I was working nightshift last week, to stay awake I made a list of scenes, movements and styles Cher has been involved with over the decades. This is kind of a piggy-back to the music legitimacy article I did last week and thinking about prior categories I might have missed. But also thinking beyond music. Here it is:

– Part of the mid-1960s Southern California Pop scene with the Mamas and the Papas, the Byrds, the Beach Boys, the Turtles and the Association

– A member of Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studios circle

– Records made with The Wrecking Crew

– One of the first records made at Muscle Shoals Recording Studio

– A top participant in the Golden Age of Variety Television

– Worked with comedy-television icon, producer George Schlatter and his slate of shows

– First Met Gala fashion Icon

– A Vogue cover girl in the Richard Avedon era

– The Crown Jewel of Bob Mackie

– A hot ticket in Old Las Vegas in the late 1970s (the Sinatra/Barely-Post-Elvis Vegas)

–  Part of the Studio 54 scene

– A late-allowed MTV participant but made MTV history with a pretty tame video that was banned from daytime MTV (while in her 40s!)

– Acted under the iconic auteur directors of the 1960s and 1970s: Robert Altman, Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, Peter Yates, Norman Jewison and Franco Zeffirelli

– Infomercial Queen
Can I just say I still love the infomercials and I may be the only one. In a recent bio-drama, I heard the statement made that Cher had fought so hard for acting respectability and then blew it with these. But did she fight so hard for respectability?  I thought that was what the whole thumbing her nose at the Academy with the 1986 dress was about. Why wouldn’t she thumb her nose at them again with infomercials? Unless you only thumb your nose as an outsider? I am totally fine with Cher going off-script with these postmodern delights.

– Auto-tune ground zero (while in her 50s!)

– Spearheading the big circus live show before subsequent fierce divas followed suit (while in her 50s and 60s!)

–  Newly sainted and recurring Icon Award recipient (while in her 70s!)

 

In the bio-drama mentioned above Josiah Howard can be seen talking about how long Cher has been famous and how she has become part of everybody’s cultural memory because, “we remember it all.” She has become time itself.

Rock and Roll Royalties and Royalty

Rock and Roll Royalties

Cher has won her battle over Sonny & Cher song royalties with Sonny’s widow, Mary Bono. The court ruled that the “terminations rights” section of the Copyright Act does not trump a divorce agreement, which gave Cher 50% of the royalties on Sonny &Cher songs. Mary Bono and her family of heirs still maintain the other 50% of Sonny’s royalties.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the “isn’t Cher rich enough” thing. I think here is where it is important to remember that of all the wealth Sonny & Cher accumulated from 1964-1975, Cher received nothing. In fact, the contracts were written so much in Sonny’s favor that, at the divorce, Cher was forced to pay Sonny millions in “lost future earnings” due to their act breaking up. So for all Cher’s work for ten years, she walked away with their house and primary custody of Chastity, which she ended up sharing with Sonny anyway because, as she said at the time, she wasn’t about to take Chastity’s father away from her.

And although Cher didn’t write the songs, her participation in them made them hits and this divorce settlement can be seen as a reparation of that great abuse of contracts a man made against his own wife.

Rock and Roll Royalty

Paul Grein has written a great article called “12 Reasons Cher Belongs in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” which was published last December during the Christmas album bruhaha and I completely missed it. To be honest, I got kind of tired of these rock-and-roll hall of fame crusades. And since this article was written, (maybe because this was written), Cher was finally included to the 2024 induction list.

And really this isn’t about a hall of fame. This is about Cher’s legitimacy and credibility in music. That’s what I’ve always been blathering on about. Cher fans are always concerned about her credibility in ways other fans of other artists (working in more respected genres) are not. So I really appreciate this article and I would like to talk about its points because they are the very markers of coolness and legitimacy in rock music.

Grein already points out that the HoF itself has broadened into many sub-genres, like R&B, rap, country. “If ABBA, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston and Dolly Parton are in, what’s the rationale for leaving Cher out?” And here I’d like us to keep focus on the “keeping out” from the idea of legitimacy and credibility every time Grein mentions the HoF, because that is just what a hall of fame sanctions, a pre-existing status of credibility and legitimacy.

Grein pretty much follows the trail of rock legitimacy I’ve been tracking over the last umpteen years. What makes a person worthy of respect in music: is it record sales, is it concert tickets, is it loyal fans (or should we say the more male-coded aficionados?), is it years aboard the show biz, is it good critical reviews, is it influence, is it innovation, is it a stance or posture, did she help define an era or genre?

And…

Yes, She Helped Define an Era or Genre

Sonny & Cher helped define the mid-60s folk-rock and pop-rock era. Grein notes that Sonny wrote three “fine songs” with “I Got You Babe,” “Baby Don’t Go” and “The Beat Goes On.” I would add “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” to that list and call them strong songs of that era. Grein concedes that S&C were more pop-sounding than The Byrds (or the Mamas and the Papas, I would add), but that “their sound and look” helped define that era.

I would add that any thought of the summer of 1965 necessarily includes Cher singing “I Got You Babe.”

As a subset of this, Cher “was one of the first artists to have a big hit with a Bob Dylan song.” Her version (at #15) trounced the Byrds version at #40). Cher’s hit Bob Dylan song even preceded Dylan’s own first hit by a week (“Like a Rolling Stone”).

Yes, She Defines Rock and Roll Attitude

Grein says Cher has proven to be a risk taker. She gave up a lucrative Vegas career to become an actress. He says the HoF’s focus seems to be a youthful “rule-breaking attitude and spirit.” Grein says Cher telling the HoF to go fuck themselves on National TV was “a pretty rock and roll thing to do.” Grein also notes that, like Willie Nelson, “Cher exhibited an IDGAF attitude long before anyone had coined that acronym.”

Grein calls Cher’s Oscar dress of 1986 “one of the greatest sight-gags in Oscar history.” It was also a f*ck-you to the Academy for their snobbery around her performance outfits, boyfriends and prior status as a music and television star.

Cher: not afraid to say F*ck You.

Yes, She Has Many Hit Records Spanning a Record-Breaking Period of Time

All while multi-talking. “One month before she won the Oscar,” Grein says, “she had a top 10 hit with the rock ballad ‘ Found Someone.’ The very week she won the Oscar, she entered the Hot 100 with the follow-up hit, ‘We All Sleep Alone,’ co-written by Rock Hall members Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora.”

Her albums, Grein says, span53 years from Sonny & Cher’s Look at Us in 1965 to her Christmas album of 2023. Her No. 1 singles on Billboard Hot 100 span 34 years from “I Got You Babe” in 1965 to “Believe” in 1999.  Grein also points out that her Grammy for “Believe” spanned 34 years after Sonny & Cher were nominated for best new artist.

Yes, She Has Killed It In Concert Tours

“Cher was among the first female artist to undertake a massively successful solo tour.” She has headlined “seven major concert tours” including her farewell tour which “was one of the top 10 highest-grossing  tours of that decade….For the first half of the decade, it was second only to The Rolling Stones’ Licks Tour in total grosses.” At that time it was “the most successful tour ever undertaken by a female headliner. The 236-date tour finally ended in 2005 after having played to more than 3.5 million fans and earning more than $250 million.”

The TV special of that tour earned Cher a Primetime Emmy, joining “an impressive array of women who have won in that category for one-woman concert specials” including Liza Minnelli, Barbra Streisand and Adele.

Yes, She Has Had and Impactful Influence

Grein also talks about the artists Cher either paved the way for or artists who cite her as an influence: Madonna (the aesthetics of shock), Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Taylor Swift (there’s a Cher quote on the wall that begins the great song, “You Need to Calm Down.“), Cyndi Lauper, Little Big Town, Adam Lambert, P!nk. Tracy Chapman and Chrissie Hynde (who re-recorded “I Got You Babe”) have cited Cher in interviews as well.

Grein quotes Shon Faye to say, “If Madonna and Lady Gaga and Kylie [Minogue] and Cyndi Lauper were playing football, Cher would be the stadium they played on, and the sun that shone down on them.”

Yes, Cher Has Had the Harshest, Meanest Critics but Some Great Critics, Too

As I wrote in 2020, Cher escaped bad reviews from famously harsh reviewers Lester Bangs and John Mendelsohn (who some claimed would have given God a bad review).

Lester Bangs reviewing All I Ever Need Is You in 1972:

John & Yoko. Grace & Paul. Paul & Linda. Sonny & Cher had the formula down years before any of those melodious romances hit the stage and were a hell of a lot more appealing too., although that may not be particularly significant—the same thing could be said for Louis Prima and Keely Smith. And let us not forget Paul and Paula. The reason that Sonny & Cher are so much nicer to think about than the aforementioned crew of dilettantes, barterers and their wives is that Sonny & Cher don’t put on the same kind of airs.  How you feel about them at this point pretty much depends on how you feel about showbiz in general. If you think that Johnny Carson is a honk and the Copa just a hangout for alcoholics, if you cannot abide the sigh of black ties and/or tiaras between you and your artist-heroes, then you probably don’t like Sonny & Cher; I have seen reviews of their recent albums by earnest 17-year old rock critics lambasting the devoted duo entirely in terms of “us” versus “them.” And at the recent MCA convention in Burbank, when Sonny & Cher played a long, slick supperclub set climaxing with their eight-minute histrionic orgy on “Hey Jude,” I observed people all around me set their faces in that grimace they never pulled out for bluejeaned mediocrities. And those that thought themselves too hip for this schmaltz would make remarks later about the “tastelessness” of it. Why? Because Cher tells Sonny she’s not gonna ball him after the show, and drops innuendos about the size of his dong? Well, I’ll settle for Sonny & Cher being just blue enough for them poor old farts and fraus in the belly of the beast, because I like slick supperclub music, I like glittery Las Vegas-style entertainment without one iota of artistic aspiration. I’ll even put on a tie. Maybe I’m just getting old but I would rather see Sonny & Cher with a bourbon and water in front of me anytime than squat sweating in another concert hall while another rock group runs through amplified oatmeal highlights from the last big album it took them eight months of overdubs to produce.

John Mendelsohn reviewing Sonny & Cher Live in 1972:

Granted that they’ve gone through some heavy changes since they practically single-handedly insinuated folk-rock into the American musical consciousness, 

….what Sonny & Cher’s detractors always fail to mention is that the couple have matured into such sensitive interpreters that they can transform even the most over familiar material into searingly soulful expressions, as witness Cher’s fiery treatment of “Danny Boy.” Truly Cher has developed into one of our most inspiring ladies of song, capable of evoking emotions that not even a Nancy Sinatra or Marcia Strassman can deal with without some evidence of strain..

Grein lists some other great Cher reviews I had never seen before. like Rob Sheffield from Rolling Stone in 2019:

…there are no other careers remotely like hers, [particularly] in the history of pop music” and he referred to Cher as “the one-woman embodiment of the whole gaudy story of pop music.”

James Reed from The Boston Globe in 2014:

Along with David Bowie, she is one of the original chameleons in pop music, constantly in flux and challenging our perceptions of her.”

Joe Lynch in Billboard from 2017:

It seems odd to say anyone as famous as Cher is under-appreciated: the woman has five No. 1 singles on the Billboard Hot 100, an Oscar for best actress and has remained a household name for half a century. even so, Cher’s impact as a musical force is unfairly disregarded or minimized…Years before David Bowie toyed with gender-bending, Cher brought her deep contralto voice to the top of the Billboard Hot 100…

James Dunn in Rolling Stone in 1996:

Cher is the coolest woman who ever stood in shoes. Why? Because her motto is, ‘I don’t give a shit what you think, I’m going to wear this multicolored wig.”

Alec Mapa in The Advocate from 2003:

Cher embodies an unapologetic freedom and fearlessness that some of us can only aspire to.

It just occurred to me all of the above are men. Some of the womens in rock criticism need to say something methinks. Besides me.

As Grein points out, right now the HoF is 25% women. If there are only 25% of women in rock music right now, that would be a fair amount. How many women are there in rock music since the dawn of rock and roll? Someone else please do the math.

Yes, She Is An Innovator

Like or despise auto-tune, it had a huge impact on Rap music. She also innovated many rock and roll “looks” including popularizing bell bottoms, long straight hair (she had girls using irons on their hair!) and inspiring the term “Giving Cher” for innovating the biggest kind of iconic attitude.

In fact, in fashion Cher is both an influencer and an innovator. With Bob Mackie, she invented the scene-stealing red-carpet look. Grein says that her Met Gala dress from 1974 is still being imitated “40 years later.”

And Bonus Yes, She Loyally Supports the Cause

Grein also says she “brought a rock sensibility to prime-time” television all through the 1970s variety series solos numbers and guest spots. This, he feels, (as does Cher scholar Robrt Pela), was Cher’s “biggest hurdle to being taken seriously…the smash success” of those shows. The shows “gave airtime to a lot of rock artists.” He mentions this includes Linda Ronstadt, Ike & Tina Turner, David Bowie (in his U.S. television debut), The Jackson 5 and Patti Labelle (among many others: The Spinners, The Supremes, Fanny, early Rick Springfield and Elton John). The shows also showcased original rock and roll artists in tribute shows, including Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis,

And most of all, Cher has been loyal to Sonny, (even after he tricked her out of a decade of earnings). Years of fake-snipping aside, years of mutual-real-snipping aside. Cher time and time again has given Sonny his due (as well as fair criticism, most recently calling him truthfully, “a mixed bag.”) She has tried to support their legacy together, despite the lack of respect he continues to receive (disrespect even), and there is not a thing more rock and roll than that.

Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion

I was very fortunate to be able able to attend the premiere showing of the documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion in Los Angeles on May 13 with my friends Julie and Dave. When Julie sent me the email about the lineup of the after-movie discussion panel, I thought this is my dream panel! It’s got Cher, to begin with, and Bob Mackie and Carol Burnett (who, if I had a life to live over again…I would try to be a Carol Burnett) and Ru Paul (who is one of my previously claimed spirit animals!). Pink! was not advertised to attend (see below) but showed up as a nice surprise.

Here are some news reports on the red carpet of the event:

…and some press shots of the red carpet. Cher arrived in the “We All Sleep Alone” outfit from the 1999 Believe Tour (without the pirate hat and with a new cool sash belt). She didn’t keep this outfit on for the Q&A. This was just the red-carpet-fit.

The movie began with director Matthew Miele talking about Bob Mackie’s optimism, his spectacle and glamour and how all the real stars wore Back Mackie.  I don’t remember who said it but someone added that the biggest stars wore Mackie because he “made them look like the superstars they were.”

The movie made the differentiation between other fashion houses and what Bob Mackie does, which is performance clothing. Mackie does not design for the spring line, haute couture or everyday wear. He builds a character for performers and outfits. He “picks up on somebody’s essence” in order to help them “project who they are in [performing] moments.” He does it for live shows; he did it when creating costumes for skits on variety shows, solo numbers or for characters in musicals and movies.

Law Roach commented that “every superhero has a costume” and many of the contributors talked about the psychology of the outfit and the confidence that arises when you wear certain clothes.

Carol Burnett first came to Bob Mackie through admiration of the Mitzi Gaynor, “Let’s Go” outfit. Gaynor herself talked about that outfit’s “brilliant construction.” How it moved.

Miele said something interesting that I feel matches my own experience, that your taste for beauty is formed in your childhood and early adolescence. He said his love of visual beauty came from variety shows like Cher’s shows. RuPaul quips, “Let’s face it…Cher!” He called her a gorgeous creature. The documentary talked about Mackie and Cher being family at this point and how they “are both shy but express themselves as larger than life.”

Mackie himself noted Cher’s charisma, how he was fascinated with her from the beginning and how she inhabits clothes like jeans, with a casual flair. Cher said Macke could create “what my personality feels like.”

Vicky Lawrence noted that during Cher’s big number, all the Carol Burnett show cast would run over through the ladies bathroom at CBS (the big studio doors were closed) to see what Cher was wearing. Cher said her life changed when Bob came into it. They pushed each other.

You can see how this confidence-through-clothing might have changed Cher in the early 1970s, along with the storylines of empowered women in the writing of the variety show skits, how those two things could be of-a-piece.

They talked about Cher’s 58th Academy Awards gown. Mackie noted that Cher was playing “down and dirty characters” at that time and “people hadn’t seen her dress up in a while.” They talked about how that outfit was assembled between the two of them, Mackie and Cher. Mackie admits people were horrified [by the outfit], “That’s not fashion!” But Cher insists “He makes art. Costuming is art.”

Mackie was often called, a bit disparagingly the “King of Camp” for his “ta da,” his humor and razzle dazzle. Bernadette Peters notes that many haute couture designers have been forced to admit, “we’ve been stealing from you for years.” The head of CFDA (Council of Fashion Designers of America) also admitted, “fashion is snobby” and Mackie was seen as “a showman,” as not having the appropriate level of taste. Reviews have changed, however, because “Time tells the truth.”

The movie covers Mackie’s inspirations, his early work with Judy Garland, his connection to the Marilyn Monroe birthday dress, his love of “costumes that appeal to you emotionally.” While the progresses, we see how Cher’s blue ABBA dress was drawn and assembled at the helm of an Armenian woman named Elizabeth (who’s last name I did not catch). Elizabeth gets a lot of screen time and Mackie calls her his hero. She says, “He’s the only one.” She doesn’t intend to offend all her other designers she works with “but they know,” she says. She means Mackie does it old-school, hand-beaded and sewn, no factories. His is detail oriented and precise. The director prompts Elizabeth to say all the women behind the beautiful outfits…” and she answers, “are Armenian.” (This includes the women who sew the dresses and, of course, the woman who wears them so famously.

By the way, seeing the Cher and Tina duets on the big screen was fabulous. It was fabulous! Seeing the documentary in a theater is worth it for that alone.

George Schlatter says these women were not just singers, actors and dancers. “These women are events. Cher, Judy, Carol.”

Mackie, Burnett figured, made 17,000 costumes for The Carol Burnett Show over 11 years, an average of 65 per week. She remarked about how versatile he was, how he helped shaped the characters and comedy, the best example being the Gone with the Wind skit’s big moment.

Here and in other recent interviews, Burnett has been talking about the Miss Wiggins outfit. Here is another example of Mackie’s genius. Burnett says Tim Conway originally designed the character of Miss Wiggins as a dotty old lady. Mackie insisted the show had been doing too many of those old ladies lately and he designed a ditzy blonde secretary outfit instead. Burnett complained that her butt wasn’t big enough to fill out the skirt and Mackie instructed her to stick her butt back into the skirt. Burnett says the character came to her at that moment when she had to learn to walk with her butt projecting back into the skirt.

To me this is brilliant because the design was basically broken. Mackie designed an outfit that didn’t fit, all to create a character. It’s amazing and it reminds me of the fruits of failure, how many amazing things can happen when wrong turns are taken. Seeking perfection sometimes is misguided.

They movie ends with a discussion of Cher’s infamous “Turn Back Time” video outfit, alternatively called “vulgar” (by Mackie), and disparagingly called a duct-tape outfit and basically a seat belt.

I’ve read a few books about Mackie, including Unmistakable Mackie: The Fashion and the Fantasy of Bob Mackie by Frank DeCarlo and The Art of Bob Mackie by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross, (which Burnett and Cher both contributed forwards and afterwards to). But this documentary, five years in the making, digs deeper into Mackie’s childhood, his relationship with his parents, his relationship with his ex-wife, his coming out and the tragic loss of his son. We also meet his grandchildren. This is a much more personal account of his life.

There’s no trailer out yet but here’s an extended clip of part of Cher’s interview from the movie.

After the movie, it was time for the Q&A. A big one it would be, too. Cher was very charming when she came out and seemed very happy to be there.

The lineup included, starting from the left, Joe McFate, Mackie’s longtime Director of Design, Ru Paul,  Carol Burnett, Bob Mackie, Cher Pink! and the director, Matthew Miele. The moderator to the far right is Dave Karger.

Cher talked about “trying to build a character like Edith Bunker” using Lucille Ball hair and a leopard leotard. This turned out to the Laverne character. She said Mackie “helped you make your character complete.”

RuPaul talked about Mackie’s “hutzpah” and that he is the “benchmark in splash.” Pink! said if she was wearing Bob Mackie, “I’m gonna win!”

Asked what the common denominator of all the women on the panel, Mackie said they were all open to looking terrible and that they were comfortable in his clothes. They could “pull it off.” Mackie called Carol Burnett “the quickest changer I’ve ever met.”

Cher referenced the First Nine Months Are The Hardest special as her first time meeting Mackie but he corrected her to say that it was the Sonny & Cher appearance on the Carol Burnett show. Probably this 1967 one. Cher defended herself by joking, “Well, in my world where I live…”

Mackie said at the time he was expecting a “hulking goth girl” from what he saw of Cher on music TV shows like Hullabaloo. Cher appeared instead to him “like Audrey Hepburn on vacation. This is gonna be better than I thought.”

Miele emphasizes that Bob Mackie draws all the patterns. There’s no factory and that what he does is a dying art.

Cher talks about how grateful she is to be living her childhood dream like what Bob Mackie describes in the documentary and that at five years of age she was singing into a hairbrush. [How high tech. I was singing into a jump rope.]

Pink! talked about the wear and tear performance outfits take and how they need to accommodate the wireless mic packs that are very hard to hide, how at the end of shows she’s out there picking up beads from the stage.

Carol Burnett, Cher and Bob Mackie seemed genuinely mutual fans of each other. Ru Paul was pretty low key, not talking much. Pink! seemed thrilled to be there.

There is no word yet on release date. It looks like no distribution deal has been reached yet.

Compilation of some Cher moments.

Continuing On With the Cher Specials

So the Christmas album, huh? That was fun!

The bad thing about Christmas albums is that they have a short shelf life for hits and appearances. They end abruptly at the end of the year.

So anyway, where were we?

We were cataloging Cher’s TV appearances that’s where we were, specifically the TV and concert specials.

I’ve been looking forward to doing the early 1980s specials, Cher in Concert from Monte Carlo (1981) and Celebration at Caesars (1983). They are so under-appreciated and yet so unobtrusively crucial in the  timeline of Cher’s slow transformation into becoming a rock singer by the mid-to-late 1980s.

The shows were so important, I kind of procrastinated starting these summaries. I had pages and pages of notes!

Here we go with the rougher but still deliciously ambitious Monte Carlo show!

Cher Christmas Reviews & Upcoming Appearances

It’s way past time to catch up on how Cher’s new album has been doing.

Remixes

Before we start, the digital remixes for “DJ Play a Christmas Song” were just released. Check your local streaming service. Some remixes I like even better than the “canonical” song, and I think I can only say that about two prior remixes. Although I acknowledge the fun aspect of remixes, (which is a very unfun way of saying it), remixes kind of confuse me in a scholarship sense: what’s the canonical version if remixes fare better than the album versions in sales or on the charts?

And anything that stars with a pounding beat for three minutes will send me to bed with a headache. But happily, this is not the case with these remixes.

Good Reviews

So let’s start with the fans. Ones I’ve heard from have been playing the album nonstop. Starting with Google reviews, I couldn’t find anything less than a five-star. The Amazon reviews are spread out between the two editions Amazon is selling.

Amazon 1 or 2 stars complain that their CD cases were cracked. I bought some extra copies for gifts and the majority of mine from Amazon US were cracked as well. None of my Amazon UK cases were cracked. But some fans were complaining that their CDs were cracked too! Boo Amazon US.

One four-star review said the album lacks the sparkle of a typical Cher album and they wanted more dance songs. Another four-star review wanted the songs to be more traditional. This speaks to the variety of Cher fans and how many subgroups want different things.

Some other four-star examples:

“So it’s arrived ,after year’s of rumours Cher’s Christmas album has finally landed. Overall its a good affair with stompers Dj play a christmas song and Angels in the snow ,Drop top sleigh ride withTyga could have been awful but is a winner, couple of ballads which fit in well.Home feat Michael Buble is almost the same version he recorded with Blake Shelton ,should have done Baby it’s cold out side instead or maybe that’s to woke or snowflakey for these days. Dissapointing mastering or production ,not sure which it is but the sound is very basie and not clear at all which for me spoils the whole album. That said Put the dec’s up have a drink and put this Cher-mazing album on ! ,”

Or this funny four-star:

Good CD except for 2 tracks which are awful

There are more cracked CD complaints.

Some of the five-star reviews:

“refreshingly different, in top form, Cher puts her stamp on Xmas, “Favorite Christmas CD of All Time”

Two fans disagreed over one song:

“I love “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” with Tyga! It’s has a great upbeat and is just plain fun.”

Another fan disagrees:

“Track #7 “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” with Tyga is the stand out bad track simply the rap ruins the song. The song starts great and fits perfectly, then Tyga puts the spoil on the song with rap. Wish there was a [Tyga] rap free version of the song.”

And this hilarious five-star review:

“JUNK the album is a piece of junk..cher should leave christmas ALONE

Or this review speaking to the variety:

“This is the best album Cher has ever recorded! The perfect mix of 60’s nostalgia, dance, rock and ballads.”

Other headlines used words like fabulous, quality, wonderful, loved it!

The overall Amazon rating is 86% at five-star (at this time). But these are most likely big fans. Dancing Queen also has a five-star rating at 85% (and I don’t remember such enthusiasm for that album) so this could just mean Cher fans like Cher stuff and they’re motivated to give Amazon reviews. Not that there’s  anything wrong with that and I use those reviews all the time when picking out books for authors I’m less familiar with.

But next I put it to Mr. Cher Scholar. Mr. Cher Scholar is not a Cher fan, per se. He’s also very much entirely not a Christmas song fan. So this album posed particular problems for him potentially. But he lives with a Christmas song / Cher fan who made him listen to the album four times on a recent road trip (I gave him 48-hour breaks in between). But his opinion was already contaminated by my complaints about the album’s one bad online review so he defended the album as “fun.”

But let’s be honest. Mr. Cher Scholar is Mr. Cher Scholar for a reason. He’s no dummy. So we need to go searching for other reviews. But where do you even go to find album reviews these days?

The Harvard Crimson gave the most detailed review and called it a “strong showing from an industry legend.”

“While holiday albums are a dime a dozen, Cher gives her own take on the saturated genre by combining mid-twentieth century doo-wop and early 2000s dance-pop with beloved…classics.”

“Christmas is at its best when Cher leans into one of two genres: big band ballads of the 50s and 60s and dance-pop tracks reminiscent of her 1988 hit ‘Believe.’”

The reviewer likes the high notes and vocal runs of Darlene Love and Cher and thinks “Angels in the Snow is a strong track” (although the reviewer considers the song a love song which I don’t because of the strong backup by Cyndi Lauper).

“One experimental, yet highly successful track that deviates from these genres is ‘Drop Top Sleigh Ride’ with Tyga. Proceeds with a bass and 808-heavy instrumental. Tyga’s highly suggestive verse. “These rap elements would be astonishing on any Christmas album, let alone one by Cher. Still, the track is surprisingly festive and cohesive, as the jingle bells and Cher’s silken vocals soften its more unconventional parts.”

The rap song comes up again and again as a touchstone in reviews. We’ll talk about this song more at the end.

The reviewer didn’t like the  duet with Bublé, but for no other reason than it’s too slow. Slow and sad Christmas songs have long been my favorite type of Christmas song and last week The Guardian agreed with me.

The reviewer talks about the “uplifting anthems” on the album but then doesn’t like the most anthem-y ones:

“Some songs display too much holiday: ‘This Will Be Our Year’ and ‘Christmas Aint Christmas Without You’ (mistakenly listed as “Christmas Won’t Be Christmas Without You) for those songs’ ”pine-scented mediocrity.”

It’s interesting our bad review below will single out “This Will Be Our Year” as  the only “charming” track on the album.

Herald&Review says, “There isn’t much Cher hasn’t done in her career. A Christmas album is new territory, though…The secret, of course, was to lean into the incredible eclecticism of her career, all while avoiding the sleepy, saccharine pitfalls of a ‘Silent Night’-heavy holiday release.”

They go on to say, “Alexander Edwards, Cher’s romantic partner and a credited producer on the project, is best friends with Tyga, who helped make the most unexpected and delightful collaboration happen.”

Yes: “most unexpected and delightful” – keep that in mind for later on.

This review also had some interview elements.

“She was asked to do a special, she says. ‘They said, ‘Well, we can do it in England.’ I said, ‘We can do it on the moon, but I’m not doing it,'” she says, not until an [acting strike] agreement is reached.’”

Yup, I support that. Maybe we can get a special next year once the strike is, hopefully, resolved. Because that would still be awesome.

Allmusic gave the album3 1/2 stars and said it was a “nice balance an upbeat contemporary energy with the storied Motown sound of the original recordings..”

Digital Journal’s review was almost too positive. They liked just about everything with no clear indication as to why. The most specific they ever got was to say that on “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” Cher and Darlene Love “both showcase their powerhouse crystalline vocals, to the point where it is hard to differentiate where Cher picked up and where Darlene Love left off.” They also say “Angels in the Snow “would be a good sing-a-long and they end the review with “Mariah Carey ought to watch out… With this new collection, it is evident that there is a new ‘Christmas Queen’ in town.”

Well, not quite.

Retro Pop was the only review, fan or online to talk about the “riotous rendition of “Put A Little Holiday In Your Heart” and called “’DJ Play A Christmas Song’ a “genius opener that sets the scene for an album where Cher throws out the Christmas album rulebook and places the focus on having a good time.”

They go on to say, “the Motown-inspired ‘Christmas Ain’t Christmas Without You’ and hip-hop leaning ‘Drop Top Sleigh Ride’ (feat Tyga) add to her musical toy box.”

However, “there’s the occasional misstep; a reworked ‘Home’ with Michael Bublé is less a winter warmer and more an ill-judged vehicle to shoehorn him into the set – and clocking in as the longest track on the album between two feelgood originals, something of a vibe-killer – while ‘Santa Baby’ is a little out of place on an album that largely avoids the obvious holiday staples.”

That’s kinda true on both counts.

But, the review says, “come closing number, a cover of The Zombies’ ‘This Will Be Our Year,’ however, those shortcomings are forgiven and the overall effect is one of joy and warmth that has you reaching for a snowball and soaking up the holiday cheer….Overwhelmingly festive and quintessentially Cher – there’s a new Queen Of Christmas in town!”

Okay, let’s drop the Queen of Christmas thing. This is one album, people.

Bad Reviews

I have to say if you want to be a Cher fan who reads positive reviews about her all the time, you’ll have to be a fan of her movie career because she gets about 100% positive accolades for her acting performances, even in movies where she’s clearly playing a version of herself. Film people love her.

Music people, not so much. The music reviews historically have been very disdainful reviews. Not just bad reviews, but vitriolic. Like pre-trolling, offensive ad hominem reviews. They’re usually personal attacks and this goes back to the beginning of her career. But something changed in the last 10 or so years where these trashy reviews suddenly stopped, like overnight.

But sometimes you still  see one and you have to think about what it is about Cher herself they do not like. And you can tell it gets personal because attacks on what she represents will slip in there. Oftentimes, it’s political. They don’t like her politics.  So whenever I read a bad review, I try to separate legitimate points, (because even Cher herself will criticize her vocal performances as being far from perfect), from reviews with subterranean agendas.

On an album like this, reviewers could focus on her vocal changes or the sentimental Christmas genre they just don’t like, on production matters.

Slant Magazine put out not one bad review but two pieces trashing not only the album but the song “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” particularly and we’ll end this conversation talking about that song.

The author of both articles is a self-described fashionista and cool-finder. Which, of itself, does not make her a bad critic. But cool-finders and fashionistas tend not to like Cher because her fashion is of-its-own-path and the only people who find her cool are other cool people, like Nile Rodgers, for example. There’s surface cool and foundational cool and the ones who gravitate to the prior don’t like the later.

But let’s look at her points individually: “A Holiday Album We Didn’t Know We Didn’t Need

The reviewer talks about the “long-dated dance-pop of [Taylor and Cher’s] late-’90 smash ‘Believe’” and how “the sleigh goes off the rails” with the “paint-by-the-numbers” DJ single, ” its “gratuitous Auto-Tune” (she likes the word gratuitous) “and half-step key change.” She complains there are too many songwriters, a common lament for Cher’s dance music songs and says “Santa Baby” is “vampy-to-the-point-of-campy” and that’s kinda true but fully in the pocket of a Cher thing if you knew her history at all. In fact, to invoke the words “vamp” and “camp” in a review of Cher without any acknowledgement of irony says a lot about the age of the reviewer and their cultural literacy.

She says, “but that most “cringe-inducing” is the “trap-adjacent ”Drop Top Sleigh Ride.’” She calls the song “a crime against the holiday spirit” and dislikes the “embarrassing wordplay.”

So here’s my question: if she found the toned-down sexual elements of the Cher song uncomfortable, what does she think about the entire genre? Because she is the only reviewer to repeatedly label the song “trap-adjacent” vs rap.  I looked up bios and Wikipedia pages for both Tyga and Alexander Edwards and a page on the top trap artists and they were not listed as trap artists.

According to Wikipedia, “Trap is a subgenre of hip hop music that originated in the Southern United States in the 1990s. The genre gets its name from the Atlanta slang term “trap house”, a house used exclusively to sell drugs.”

Both Tyga and Edwards are from California, not Atlanta. I’m not sure how these are trap artists.

In any case, the reviewer even hates the album title (but what Christmas album ever had a good title?)

She only liked “This Year Will Be Our Year” and went on to highlight its hipster credibility.

In another article, “The 15 Worst Christmas Songs of All Time” the same reviewer starts with even more snark beginning with “apologies in advance” (a total hipster adage). The list included, judging by the Facebook comments defending them, some fan favorites. All the comments I could find about the Cher’s song on their Facebook post were defending the song. Some examples:

The reviewer alo attacks Dan Fogelberg’s “Old Lang Syne” for its “gratuitous details” but aren’t the details of the scene in that song the whole effect? She hates that effect! She attacks the usual novelty songs for being novelty songs.

The Rap Song

So….anyway. There’s something significant about a white woman (who gives a lot of good reviews to Taylor Swift) placing a laser focus on the one rap song over multiple reviews. Which is not to say a white, female, pro-Swiftie can’t make sentient points about rap, but this review seems to be sticking out like a sore thumb. It feels like a dog whistle. Especially when so many other fans and online reviews single out the song as a good showing.

As I was driving to Cleveland a few weeks ago I was tooling some response jokes  to this review, like this one:

“This reviewer needs to pull that piece of coal Santa gave her last year out of her ass.”

Or “Isn’t if funny that on this album Cher asked us to ‘put a little Christmas in our heart’ but the reviewer couldn’t find it.”

Anyway, those were my jokes. Once I got back I realized this bad review was a very significant review. Because after trying to figure out what so offended this reviewer about the song,  I have come to believe this is the most important song on the album. And a crucial song at this juncture of Cher’s recording career.

I believe there is a direct through line from Sonny’s love of gospel and R&B to this very song. And there’s a direct connection between this song and “Believe.”

Rap music has always incorporated technology in subversive ways. The white rock response to this just illustrates that subversiveness, like this other ironic Cher intersection involving Gregg Allman. “When asked what he thought about rap music, Gregg Allman said rap was “short for crap.”

So it’s politically significant that Cher included a song from her boyfriend, who happens to be a rap producer who then called on his best friend, Tyga, to sing on the Cher song.

And it’s also significant that Cher recorded “Believe” which is known as the Cher-effect, a technology that she stubbornly continues to use, a technology establishment rockers dislike but that the rap community has wholeheartedly embraced,  a fact proven not only in the rap songs themselves that went on to use the technology but with the famous story of Jay-Z approaching Cher at the Met Gala one year to tell her “thank you” for spearheading its use. (In one story I read it was the former Mr. Kim Kardashian who said thank you). In any case, rappers understood auto tune’s potential as part of their ongoing use of technology. And since then, Cher has been seen as much more popular in the rap community.

Therefore, the song makes perfect sense on this album and can be read as Cher’s merging musically and officially into the community she is already a part of.

The first essay in The Cambridge Companion to Pop and Rock (I’m only two essays in) is called “Plugged In: Technology and Popular Music” by Paul Théberge and it covers a lot of this ground:

“Any discussion of the role of technology in popular music should begin with the simple premise: without electronic technology, poplar music in the twenty-first century is unthinkable.”

He talks about pop technology from instruments to recording, performing and playback. Technology is a baseline and has a long history of being a “catalyst for musical change” as does using technologies in ways for which the technologies were not intended, much of music’s technology having been historically developed for other industries like for example the microphone being developed by the telephone industry.

There have been “conflicts in musical aesthetics and values have accompanied virtually every development in music” and that “different uses of technology reflect different…cultural priorities.”

Théberge talks about microphones and amplifiers that fueled the new crooner of the 1940s and how those were once controversial technologies which have now been naturalized. He says it is a lie that pop and rock music can ever really be ‘unplugged’ and how this is more of an ideology than a possibility.

The impact of the microphone alone “was both subtle and profound: for example, the string bass could be heard clearly, for the first time,  in jazz recordings and the instrument quickly replaced the tuba…” Crooning was instantly “regarded by early critics as effeminate and their singing style and both technically and, by extension, emotionally ‘dishonest.”

The microphone.

Théberge  talks about how crooners would develop a singing technique better suited to the microphone and how Bing Crosby’s “low register was particularly enhanced by the microphone though the physical phenomenon known as the ‘proximity effect.’”

Singers sing, Théberge says, “first and foremost to the microphone and every microphone has it’s own characteristics and colours the sound in subtle, yet unmistakable ways.”

This is a fact fans have noticed in the Michael Buble duet where the sounds of their respective microphones possibly doesn’t meld well in the final result.

Théberge says our experience of the ‘grain’ or ‘warmth’ or ‘presence’  of a singers voice is always mediated by the microphone.

Then, Théberge shows, we begot magnetic recording and putting mics on other instruments. Then engineers “gradually took over much of the responsibility for achieving musical balances” and then multi-track studios and then guitar pickups and then rock amplification and feedback and distortion and then computers and computer software.

“The loudness or rock or the booming bass of hip hop are sounds that can only be produced and experienced through technological means.”

Théberge talks about early technology effects that started out as novelty effects but have since become normalized: the echo effect in Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog,” late 1960s “flanging” on many psychedelic rock recordings, (created by manipulating the speed of tape recorders), and the multitrack tape recorder “which makes of song recording a compositional process and is thus central to the creation of popular music at the most fundamental level.”

Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole used multitrack recording to isolate their vocals from their orchestras. Overdubbing was used by Les Paul and Marty Ford and “a single vocalist performing multiple harmony parts [was] a technique pushed to its limits by artists such as Joni Mitchell…through overdubbing.” Phil Spector and Stevie Wonder also using overdubbing for various purposes.

And then mixing “ a complex and specialized tasks” used by Giorgio Moroder and other disco producers continuing on to dance remixes and DJ mashups and rap songs.

And then MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) which led to synthesizers, samplers, drum machines, sequencers, home computers, software simulation. “The technical reproduction is not without its social consequences. The technologies of rock and pop music production have long been a male-dominated terrain, and this has been as true for the most basic of rock technologies, the electric guitar, as it Is for the wider range of electronic technologies associated with stage and studio.”

“Musical instruments are often the centre of controversy in pop and rock because their use is so intimately tied with musicians’ notions of personal expression….even Bob Dylan’s adoption of the electric guitar…was looked up with derision.”

Théberge then addresses rap and the Roland TR-808 drum machine (see above in The Harvard Crimson review of “Drop Top Sleigh Ride”) that became “the instrument of choice among many  hip hop, house and music producers….for the ability to detune the bass drum, creating a sound akin to a low-frequency hum, and the necessity of building rhythm patterns in a precise grid-like framework, have been cited as influences on the musical style of these genres”

“…scratching and the art of the DJ, ” digital samplers, tape loops going back to the Moody Blues and King Crimson,

Electronic pop is criticized “by the rock press for being ‘cold’ and ‘inhuman.’ but that digital effects “appear in a surprising number of genres.”

He ends by saying, “technology must be understood as both an enabling and a constraining factor, that acts in complex and contradictory ways in music production, distribution and consumption….Technology acts to disrupt both music performance and recording practices but the business of music itself,…mediating the ever-shifting power relations.”

Théberge adds this article in is his notes: “An insightful case study of the uses of technology in the production of rap music can be found in “Soul sonic forces: technology , orality, and black cultural practice in rap music” by Tricia Rose” (1994)

It’s worth a full read but let’s just excerpt the salient parts of that piece. Tricia Rose talks about common criticisms of rap: it’s too simple and repetitive, it’s not creative or musical, its just noise. She takes the structures of rap, (the volume, looped drum beats and bass frequencies), back to earlier black cultural traditions and explains rap’s social and emotional power for black communities. She also outlines the differences between Western classical music structures and African-derived structures.

Since we’re talking about technology here, I just want to say Rose makes a very detailed case for repetition and how new technologies enable that repetition in rap, “this advanced technology has not bee straight-forwardly adopted: it has been significantly revised in ways that are in keeping with long-standing black cultural priorities, particularly samplers….[which have raised] complex questions regarding fair use of musical property and the boundaries of ownership of musical phrases.”

That we already know. But Rose then explains how sampling is “critically linked to black poetic traditions and the oral forms that underwrite them….intertextuality, boasting, toasting, and signifying in rap’s lyrical style and organization. Rap’s oral articulations are heavily informed by technological processes….in the way orally based approaches to narrative are embedded in the use of the technology itself….these black techno-interventions [me: of which auto tune is now one] are often dismissed as nonmusical effects or rendered invisible.”

“The arrangement and selection of sounds rap musicians have invented via samples, turntables, tape machines, and sound systems are at once deconstructive (in that they actually take apart recorded musical compositions) and recuperative (because they recontextualize these elements creating new meanings for cultural sounds that have been relegated to commercial wastebins)….These revisions do not take place in a cultural and political vacuum, they are played out on a cultural and commercial terrain that embraces black cultural products and simultaneously denies their complexity and coherence. This denial is partly fueled by a mainstream cultural adherence to the traditional paradigms of Western classical music as the highest legitimate standard for musical creation, a standard that at this point should seem, at best, only marginally relevant in the contemporary popular music realm (a space all but overrun by Afrodiasporic sounds and multicultural hybrids of them).”

“Advances in technology have facilitated an increase in the scope of break beat deconstruction and reconstruction and have made complex uses of repetition more accessible.”

Rose talks abut the bass line, the loop, the rupture of the pattern and “the cut,” where she establishes a ground zero in the music of James Brown and goes on to say, “….music embodies assumptions regarding social power, hierarchy, pleasure and worldview.”

“Although rap music is shaped by and articulated through advanced reproduction equipment, it’s stylistic priorities are not merely by-products of such equipment.”

(An important sentence and the same is absolutely true for “Believe.”)

And here’s the thing:

“If rap can be so overwhelmingly mischaracterized, then what other musical and cultural practices have collapsed into the logic of industrial repetition, labeled examples of “cult” like obedience. [Theodor] Adorno’s massive misreading of the jazz break, beside betraying a severe case of black cultural illiteracy, is another obvious example of the pitfalls or reading musical structures in the popular realm as by-products of industrial forces.”

“Retaining black cultural priorities [and feminist ones, I would argue] is an active an often resistive process that has involved manipulating established recording policies, mixing techniques, lyrical construction and the definition of music itself.”

Rose also states that “Rap lyrics are a critical part of a rapper’s identity, strongly suggesting the importance of authorship and individuality in rap music. Yet, sampling as it is used by rap artists indicates the importance of collective identities and group histories.”

And again when we criticize a cadre of writers on a Cher song, or a producer’s advanced involvement in a Cher song, we’re fighting this same idea of a collective cultural project.

“Rap musicians’ technological in(ter)ventions are not ends in and of themselves, they are means to cultural ends.”

If Cher doing Rap offends you, that’s on you. She has a direct connection to rap although she heretofore never crooned a syllable of it. The majority of the reviews and comments state that it hasn’t offended many listeners. I have no doubt there are sinister areas of the internet that are trashing Cher for her involvement with rap and for her attachment to Alexander Edwards and black culture. But the song is not offending the rap artists I’m pretty sure, which is an interesting phenomenon itself in an era of calling out cultural appropriation.

What is Cher doing differently, (other than dating a rap producer)? What cultural work did “Believe” perform? Controversy always illustrates something.

Rap has been using technology in music in empowering and subversive ways. Cher, as a music outsider, has given rap another tool. And in return, rap artists have helped Cher record a rap song….for Christmas even. It’s pretty amazing.

There are some fine points being made here about how communities merge and how one song can culminate after 25 years of influence on a genre of music.

Appearances & Interviews

I’m not about to watch all the Hallmark Christmas movies this season but Cher songs have made there way into many of them: https://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas/cher-and-countdown-to-christmas

Chehttps://www.hallmarkchannel.com/christmas/cher-and-countdown-to-christmasr and Countdown to Christmas (All Season Long)

  • “DJ Play A Christmas Song” can be heard in “The Santa Summit” starring Hunter King and Benjamin Hollingsworth.
  • In “A Merry Scottish Christmas” starring Lacey Chabert and Scott Wolf, listen to the original song “Home” performed by Cher and Michael Bublé!
  • In “Christmas on Cherry Lane” you can catch the classic Christmas song, “Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)” performed by Cher and Darlene Love.
  • In “Holiday Road” listen for Cher’s performance of the joyful song “Run Rudolph Run.”
  • Finally, don’t miss the unforgettable song “Angels in the Snow” by Cher in the original Christmas movie “Friends & Family Christmas.”

22 November – I Heart Radio Special
https://www.iheart.com/live/holiday-season-radio-9608/?autoplay=true&pr=false&fbclid=IwAR0AK5Bxcrg28Tcqc2XcbHqhAjVILlRYI6c1bMD1A2eGnaw_1VhxcUE6L_E

https://wnci.iheart.com/calendar/content/2023-11-22-iheartradio-holiday-special-cher-elton-john-meghan-trainor-more/

23 November – Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade starting on NBC at 8:30 am (all U.S. time zones)

https://www.macys.com/s/parade/lineup/?lineupaccordion=Performers&lid=parade_primarycta-lineupperformers

The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon NBC 11:35e/10:35c
https://www.nbc.com/nbc-insider/how-to-watch-cher-on-the-tonight-show-starring-jimmy-fallon

29 November – Christmas at Rockefeller Center with Darlene Love

https://people.com/christmas-in-rockefeller-center-performers-cher-keke-palmer-barry-manilow-8401862

Barry Manilow is another listed guest. I love the rare times those two coincide in a cultural product.


1 December – at Odeon de Luxe, Cher in Conversation

https://www.nme.com/news/music/cher-announces-live-london-in-person-interview-event-3537716

This event is also offering a Cher Christmas magazine in combo with the LP or cassette tape but order fast (you have until Nov 23)

https://shop.thisisdig.com/gb/dig/artists/cher/?ref=direct

1 December – Cher on Graham Norton Show

https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/reality-tv/a45824179/graham-norton-show-julia-roberts-tom-hanks/

 

 

Keep up with the news on further Christmas-related appearances and chart info: https://twitter.com/TCherUniverse

 

Programs for The Cher Show

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)

New Cher Channel Videos

I'll be visiting my parents and brother's family in Cleveland next week. When I get back, I'll have a lot more smell-test results on the Cher Decades perfumes and will be posting those when I get back. In the meantime…

Mainman2Main Man

Cher recently posted the official video for her 1988 single, the Desmond Child song "Main Man." Cher performed this on the MTV Video Music Awards that year but the song failed to Mainman1chart. The home-video feel of it was due to being shot at her Benedict Canyon Egyptian compound (soon to be sold to Eddie Murphy).

The hair is less big and the outfits less blingy and coincidentally this song will make an appearance in my 2022 NaPoWriMo project this April.

As in all the other videos of this era, Robert Camilletti makes an appearance; but instead of the fictional-music-video role he normally played, this video seems to be saying this is a glimpse into their much quieter real life together.

Elijah also makes a brief appearance in footage from the aforementioned Video Music Awards performance.

This has always been one of my favorite songs from Cher's Geffen Record/Power-Ballad era.

Looking for Love/When Will I Be Loved

Cher also released two more Celebration at Caesars clips, Johnny Lee's "Looking for Love," from the very popular 1980 movie Urban Cowboy, combined in a medley with Linda Rondstadt's "When Will I Be Loved," a song Cher sings from atop a mechanical bull.

These performances are illustrative of what I think is so special about this show. Since I was about 11 or 12, I've seen this concert many, many, many times and I believe it's a key show in her live-show timeline. Many fans had mostly only seen Cher on television up to the early 1980s, variety show episodes and some experimental TV specials up to this point. Not all fans had had the opportunity to see Cher perform live on the road or in one of her Las Vegas shows. So this was a different kind of TV special, a sustained concert. And Cher was turning a new leaf as a musical performer. The seeds of this show grew out of her Take Me Home tour which was her first tour without Sonny. Her demeanor is remarkably different from the torch singer on the 1970s TV shows.

She is confident, makes eye contact with the audience and the camera, her body language is full of bravado and she moves with a kind of ease that will make an impression on all the fans watching her. It's the ingredient of swagger everyone will take for granted by the end of the 1980s.

Looking4love3 Looking4love3 When1

 

 

 

Looking4love2
These performances are very sexual. Cher is looking awesome in a cowboy hat and sporting her own turquoise jewelry.  (And dancing with her at one point is Damita Jo Freeman, who allegedly taught Michael Jackson how to moonwalk, see pic at right). Cher's interaction with the male dancers is very physical. Cher lightly teases the hip-gyrating dancing cowboys and there's plenty of affectionate touching.

When2In "When Will I Be Loved," she romps with sometimes two cowboys. And there's an interlude on the mechanical bull with one of those cowboys which is very, very suggestive, their rhythmic movements indicating sex and exclamations of ecstasy, all providing some ironic distance from the lyrics of the song, ostensibly lamenting Cher's sad love experiences (lied to, put down, pushed 'round). It's a real "woe-is-me, wink-wink" performance.

When3 When3 When3

 

Look at all those cowboys!

When6

Cher Once Did Needlepoint; Now She Valiantly Defends the United States Post Office

Cher Works to Save the Post Office

Excuse my title up there. I really didn't know how to tie all these disparate stories together.

First off, fans have been delighted to see Cher fighting for the U.S. post office in recent protests, phone calls and Twitter pics.

Cherpo3

Cherpo1Cherpo2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope if she starts volunteering for the post office, Bob Mackie designs her some "sensible shoes."

Cher and Needlepoint 

Months ago someone was requested photos of celebrity needlepointers like Dinah Shore and Rosey Grier. I found as many as I could but one photo I remembered proved elusive to locate. Then Cher scholar Drew asked me a question and I went searching for the answer to that but instead found the missing needlepoint pic. Maybe someday I'll locate the answer to Drew's question while I'm looking for something else. 

Anyway, Cher once did lots of needlpoint. She did so much she joked, "Then I took up needlepoint—my God, I needlepointed everything. I could have made a needlepoint stove!"

Cher needlepoints on airplanes:

20200815_10501820200418_173755 20200815_105018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cher needlepoints circa 1978/9.

20200418_173755

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also captured an image of Sonny pretending to needlepoint in episode #49 of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour:

Needlept

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are some needlepoints of Cher:

Sandcneedles Sandcneedles

 

 

 

 

 

Time Time

 

 

 

 

The Time Magazine pillow belonged to Bob Mackie and sold for $448 on Julien's Acutions.

You can buy the Moonstruck needlepoint pattern on Etsy with a companion Nicholas Cage!

What is a Silkwood Shower?

For the Chersonian Institute, I was filing old magazines and found something interesting. Remember when Entertainment Weekly did a Bullseye pieceon the last page? Do they still do that? Anyway, one I found had a disparaging arrow regarding a rumor that Bret Michaels and Miley Cyrus’ mom were dating. ET says the rumor has sent them “running for a Silkwood shower.” Ok, that's a big rude. And I wondered if that was like…a saying. Apparently it is. Urban Dictionary has a listing for it with this example:

“I had to take a Silkwood shower when I got home from that party since I smelled like an ash tray cooked on an open flame BBQ grill covered in hot sauce.”

So "snap out of it, Moonstruck eggs and the Jack speech are not the only iconic references from a Cher movie.

Here are some shots of a Silkwood shower. It's a pretty serious and scary thing and Meryl rocks it (as did Sudie Bond earlier in the movie). 

Silkwood2 Silkwood2 Silkwood2

 

 

 

1999showCher Concert Reviews

Concert reviews have changed. I've learned this lesson over the last year from various sources from current reviewers and from the deceased reviewers. Is this overwhelming evidence of capitalism taking over PR? Probably. Which is no such a great thing. Buyer beware, there are no objective reviews in the land of corporate conglomeration. 

So it’s good to look back at a positive review and interview from 1999 (when bad reviews still existed) and this one was by T’cha Dunlevy at the Montreal Gazette is one of those. She was 30 when she reviewed the Believe-era concert and said she

“regularly feels aversion to refuse-to-die ‘60s rock acts. I had no convulsions of revulsion at the Camp Queen’s coup. Maybe it’s her synthetic, timeless beauty or her go-with-the-flow versatility, but Cher has somehow kept her proverbial cool over her three-and-a-half decades in the spotlight…a repetoir of personae, including pop-ditty princess, serious actor, 'I’m-in-love-with-a-man-half-my-age' bachelorette, reactionary mother of a lesbian [remember this was 1999] and, in her 50s. back to the top of the pops without coming off like a circus side-show act.”

“…'How many fingers and toes have you got?’ she asks, queried about whether she’s ever thought of giving up. ‘(It happens) all the time. It’s frustrating. I’m a very mercurial, emotional person, more childish sometimes than grownup. I’m not very calculating. But it’s the only think I know how to do and really love.’”

The end of the interview also notes that both Cyndi Lauper and Wild Orchid were opening for Cher at the time, the same Wild Orchid that produced Stacy Ferguson a.k.a. Fergie Duhamel a.k.a Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas. 

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