The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show (15 October 2024)
This whole new Cher season started with this fashion show in October of 2024. Cher sang two songs surrounded by models dancing on the runway. There was a big, fabulous ELVIS-like Cher sign in lights behind her that became a grid of lights as she sang. The amazing thing to me was that she still managed to steal focus from these amazingly beautiful women. At 78 years old.
She sang “Strong Enough” and “Believe.” She hasn’t performed “Strong Enough” live much outside of the days when it was a single during the Believe-era so this was nice surprise. Her voice sounds huskier but she still sounded great. She sang with dancers here who by the end of the song build her a gold pedestal. We see the models watching from backstage. Their faces!
Then when Cher sings “Believe” from the gold pedestal, the models come out. Even in bright red underthings with Dr. Seussian attachments that would seem a bit dangerous to navigate in amorous situations (my favorite was the gargantuan boa cape because it looks so soft), Cher still commands the stage. You can see the models singing along as they walk. The changeup at the end of the song. It’s all great.
Although normally fashion shows bore me to tears (aside from seeing what Cher wore to some of them), this was my favorite performances of this season.
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony (19 October 2024)
I wrote about this at length in another post. As a full, 5-hour concert, the event was fun. But Cher’s opening numbers, both “Believe” with Dua Lipa and “Turn Back Time” were both lackluster. Especially for an event that has often put on some showstoppers. The bar is set high. My party felt the show started with Cher to open with a fun sort of celebratory bang. But her set wasn’t even as fun and high energy as Kool and the Gang, who came on later. It wasn’t even as fun as the Victoria’s Secret performance days earlier. It also felt like Cher was struggling through “Turn Back Time.”
But hey, while I was researching this little blurb, I found an article that insisted Cher’s performance was full of “joy and defiance” so maybe it was just me.
SNL 50: Homecoming Concert Special (14 February 2025)
So I have cut down on my streaming channels and I do not have Peacock. I did not get to see this full concert. I only watched Cher’s parts and followed the viral commentary that followed it. So I have no idea where her song fell into the whole show.
Now this performance of “Turn Back Time” was a bit better sounding than the Hall of Fame version (but still a bit of a struggle) but what saved it was the return of her swagger and confidence.
What went viral, however, was all the attention paid to audience reactions, particularly Kevin Costner’s for some reason. His reaction was subdued but he looked like he was really enjoying it. Everyone was talking about Costner almost crushing on Cher for days after the show. And I thought it was kind of overkill because it reminded me of his appearance in Madonna’s documentary Truth or Dare. He was very enthusiastic about Madonna’s live show in that movie and Madonna infamously made fun of it. So we’ve seen Costner appreciating female pop stars. It doesn’t feel special or new. And are we picking on him at this point?
Now Leslie Jones screaming. And what about John Hamm handsomely appreciating Cher? And was that Keegan-Michael Key at the beginning? (I love him.)
Another shocking aspect of the night was the backstage photos of Cher with the rockstars Jack White and Eddie Vedder! And the fact that Jack White put the pictures up on his Instagram. Not expected! One of my friends even surmised it must have been AI, that’s how shocking it was.
And speaking of Costner, a few days after the concert, Cher appeared on the official SNL 50 Special. I tried to record this but muffed it and only taped the red carpet part of the show by mistake. This made me sad because everyone said how funny the show was. But thanks to the Internets I was able to see Cher’s part in the Audience Q&A skit run by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey.
Kevin Costner can be seen seated next to Cher but never smiling. So maybe that was awkward. Amy Poehler says, “Cher, you have a question…” and Cher says, “Uh no. I don’t. I got a lotta answers.” (This gets a smile out of Costner.)
This was followed by a Keith Richards question about a scarf he’s been missing from a 1988 SNL appearance that ends up on Zach Galifianakis’ head.
Cher has said she regretted not responding soon enough to have been involved in the concert organized to help survivors of January’s fires in Los Angeles. And maybe this is why she signed on to this NYC benefit concert.
Prior to the show, she visited the food bank God’s Love We Deliver.
Cher surprised everyone by not only doing songs she rarely sings on television (“Walking in Memphis”) but songs she hasn’t even done live in many years (“Song for the Lonely”). She always seems so tiny in male drag. Cher does a spoken introduction to “Song for the Lonely” and what the song means to her. She does better with this song than “Memphis.”
All songs show their videos behind her when she sings and Cher wears the outfit for the “Song for the Lonely” video. Dancers join her for this. I love the funky “Strong Enough” version between “Song for the Lonely” and “Believe.” She’s dressing down for this in a pink jacket over a sparkly top (that we can barely see) and black pants. A few more dancers, cuts to the audience dancing.
“Higher Ground” felt like a makeup moment for the Hall of Fame, too, since there was no group performance last year. Plus I love this song. Any version of it. Cher singing the group song next to Trey Anastasio from Phish also went a bit viral after the show because Anastasio looked like he was having such a good time.
Days later, he did a tribute to Cher by singing “I Got You Babe” when he launched his solo tour.
After the show were more amazing backstage photos with Cher’s crush Michael McDonald (although they didn’t interact much during the group song), Dave Stewart and guitarist Grace Bowers.
Rolling Stone had just come out with a 2024 list of their take on the 500 greatest popular songs and “Believe” had made this list. This was interesting to me for two reasons. One, it allowed me another thought-dive into “Believe” and also it reminded me of Cher’s appearances on previous RS lists and how arbitrary these lists are.
1988
Let’s go back in time. Back when I was in high school in St. Louis I had a subscription to Rolling Stone. The September 8, 1988, issue included a list of “100 Best Singles of the Last Twenty Five Years.” Around that time there had been a best albums issue already and my brother Randy (home from college) and I had had a friendly competition to see who had the most albums on the list. Very surprisingly, we tied. (Five years younger, I was fully prepared to lose.)
But anyway, on this 1988 list, which I recently dug out of the Chersonian Institute’s archives, there was one Cher song. Well, almost one song. It was really the Sonny Bono /Jack Nitzsche penned “Needles and Pins” which ranked at #64 between Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower.”
To put things in perspective, the #1 and #2 songs on this 1988 list were “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones and “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan. Which seems a bit to much rolling stone considering the name of the magazine.
The paragraph write-up about “Needles and Pins” talked about how the 1964 Searchers version had done something “formidable,” in that it “introduced the twelve-string sound, which would become a staple of American bands from The Byrds to Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.” Searchers guitarists McNally and Pender then talked about how this came to be by accident.
Sweet Little Band (2015, an I’m only including this muzak version because its part of a delightful collection called Ramones for Babies which if I had a baby, I would totally play this for them)
Kramer (2017 neo-prog/alt) (interesting and unique version)
(After listening to all of these, I need to listen to the inverse song, “Pins and Needles” by Kristina Train just to reset the machine between my ears.)
But nothing was said about the songwriters and plenty more could be said about Sonny’s “best friend” as Cher said in her Memoir of Jack Nitzsche who would go on to become the arranger for Phil Spector during the Wall of Sound era. Nitzsche is often given the most credit for his work on “River Deep Mountain High” with Ike and Tina Turner. He also worked with The Rolling Stones and did the choral arrangements for “You Can’t Always Get What You Want.” He would go on to write the scores for movies like Performance, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and The Exorcist and co-wrote “Up Where We Belong” for the movie An Officer and a Gentleman.
2004
But sadly, “Needles and Pins” wouldn’t stay on the next incarnations of RS lists. By 2004 there was an expanded list of 500 songs. And Sonny & Cher allegedly made that list where “I Got You Babe” ranked at #451. By this time, the top two songs had switched spots. “Like a Rolling Stone” by Bob Dylan was #1 and “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones was #2.
2021-2024
On the RS 2021 list, (which started from scratch and then was updated in 2024 with songs from 2021 to early 2024), “I Got You Babe” had fallen off but “Believe” had landed at #338. (I’m not sure if that position maintained between 2021 and 2024 because I haven’t seen the official RS 2021 list. The song may have been at #337 in 2021.)
So “Believe” remains the Cher song on the list. I would not die on the “Believe” hill, as I’ve often said, but “Believe” did introduce a technical trick that became very popular, I guess like the twelve-string in “Needles and Pins.” But that doesn’t mean it was a well-constructed, conceived or a well-written song. It’s value will be remembered in its production. But “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves” had production values that have also stood the test of time. And none of this even speaks to the metaphorical or literary values of a song. Among Sonny’s cowboy songs, for example. “Bang Bang” is certainly undervalued. Or songs that became part of the common lexicon, like “The Beat Goes On” or Diane Warren’s “Turn Back Time” which not only became a meme but has become a yearly meme for the end of daylight savings.
Or maybe it just comes down to votes not values. Where would we be without lists to argue about, I guess.
Music journalists Rob Sheffield (whose 2024 book Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop Music I just purchased to try to understand that whole phenom) and Brittany Spanos chose “Believe” as one of the 25 songs they would discuss on a podcast created for the 2024 list. And their 6 August 2024 discussion was not only thoughtful and fascinating, as it put thoughtful context around Cher’s entire career, but it also explained how the song “Believe” landed for kids in Great Britain.
I myself did not experience “Believe” as a kid or teen. I was 26 years old and living in Yonkers, New York, hearing the song while driving home from work at Yonkers Contracting and following the song’s weekly charting from my crappy apartment along the Hudson River. I remember being somewhat baffled after coming upon NPR discussing the song one day on my car radio. It was kind of cognitive dissonance for me. Why this song? So this podcast was interesting to me in that it explains how the song held meaning for an age group that wasn’t mine.
Sheffield and Spanos begin by calling the song “actually perfect…a perfect song,” one that represents the “whole, story, legacy and madness that is pop music.” Spanos says it’s also a song that is “part of the grand story of Cher” and she talks about the ups and downs of her career (big success, big flops and disappearances) and how over the last decade there has been “newfound appreciation” for Cher,” a “Cher revival.” Sheffield talks about the “synthi-ness of the chorus and vocal,” how “new and exciting” it was among other typically Cher-sounding Cher hits of the 1990s. (I think he means 1980s or maybe the late 1980s into the early 1990s, which was the span of her big Geffen-era hits). He said this was a “Cher-like” song on a whole new level.
Spanos talks about being at a friend’s house watching Spice World as a kid and the mother of her friend put on the DVD for what sounds like the live Farewell tour with the instruction to “pay attention to the wigs.” Spanos says that instruction changed her life. She starts talking about Cher’s history with Sonny. She mistakenly says Sonny was 32 when they met. (Sonny was born in 1935, Cher in 1946. Cher was 16 when they met, Sonny was 27.) Spanos talks about their early pop-folk hits. Sheffield comes in discussing their variety show, how kids would tune in to see which music artists would show that week to perform songs. He said it was a “weekly education in music. They were the DJs.” (This is overstating it a bit considering the musical acts were often people like Joey Heatherton and Merv Griffin.)
Spanos goes back to talk about the “country/rock covers” of Jackson Highway album and how critics panned it at the time but that it’s actually “a great album.” The digress to say Cher’s swampy “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” is one of the “greatest versions of a Bob Dylan song.” (They make a joke about “outsung, outsold” that I am on the outside of). Sheffield says Cher’s “Bob Dylan connection itself could take up three whole episodes.”
They then cover her solo TV work of the 1970s. Sheffield says Cher would “steal from everything” and she had “wide open taste.” They talk about the “astounding” performance with David Bowie on her solo TV show, the “insane medley,” one of the “freakiest things ever to air on network TV.” Sheffield then brings up the “insane” West Side Story performance from her 1978 TV special. Spanos also notes Cher as being “integral in bringing Tina Turner back” on TV for multiple appearances when she was trying to relaunch as a solo artist.
Spanos says Cher then stared a band called Black Roses. She says Black Roses three times incorrectly. (It’s Black Rose). They talk about Spanos’ love of the Broadway Cher musical, how she particularly liked the fictional duet between one of the Chers and Gregg Allman doing the Diane Warren song “Just Like Jesse James.” She did not like the actual duet album which they mistakenly mispronounce (as Howard Stern also did in his 2024 Cher interview) as All Man and Woman. The correct title is Allman and Woman. There is no space between All and Man. It’s literally Gregg Allman’s name, as in Gregg and his woman (oy vey) and not some kind of traditional declaration of gender roles. (This is like trying to differentiate between caveman version 1 and caveman version 2.)
Anyway, Spanos says she cried several times during the musical and they call Cher and Gregg, “an incredible couple.” And I think it is nice that a kind of revisionist kindness in reconsidering this union in a new light these days. Sheffield highly recommends Allman’s memoir, My Cross to Bear, and tells of a Cher story in it where Gregg Allman is trying to pick Cher up for their first date in a limo and Cher exclaims that she will not ride in a funeral car and so they take her Mercedes.
Spanos talks about how Cher is “an experimental person.” Sheffield agrees saying Cher would “do anything” and was “not bothered by genre,” be it disco, southern rock, glam rock, hard rock or a medley or West Side Story songs. He says “she is part of every story in pop music.” Spanos says Cher has been “proven right by history” and critics are looking back and re-evaluating her, seeing that her voice does indeed “sound great” singing in multiple styles. They talk about how every year people rediscover the West Side Story clip and how “insane and fun” it is to watch.
Sheffield goes into Cher’s 80s decade of movies, how “she did it the hard way,” how she had no celebrity inside track to movie roles, how Silkwood was not a Cher-type role and how many actresses saw playing lesbian roles as a “career killer move.” “It cannot be stressed” enough, Sheffield says, how “bold and unprecedented and unexpected and unremarked-upon at the time that was.” Spanos talks about the iconic, respected actors Cher co-starred with and how Cher “is holding her own” along side them. Sheffield calls her performance in Mask “astounding,” that she played a working-class biker mom, a character that was very “unglamourous, gritty and unsaintly.” Spanos says that in all Cher’s movie roles she was de-glamming, dressing down, playing an everywoman.” And at the same time, she was having hits like “Turn Back Time,” balancing her gritty acting roles with glam-Cher music moments, keep her acting career going while relaunching as a rock vocalist. Spanos talks about the the “Turn Back Time” video “onesie” outfit. Sheffield enthusiastically remembers “the entire U.S. Navy” on the war ship.
They then talk about the struggles of the 1990s and Cher’s battle with the Epstein-Barr Virus, how she was seen (again) as “past her prime.” There were the informercials and the Writing Camp album (Not Commercial) recorded in 1994 but not released until 2000. Spanos calls it an introspective “great album, one of the first Internet-only releases.” They talk about her reunions with Sonny and his death in 1998. Spanos recalls Cher’s “stunning” and “heartbroken” eulogy for Sonny and how the loss of someone so transformative might have affected her performance in “Believe.”
As they set up talking about “Believe,” they acknowledge that Cher was seen as “washed up” for the first time in her late teens! She’s now in her 50s. She was “not expected to be still going into her 30s.” The song becomes thematic of her resilience. Spanos calls it “one of the great dance songs of all time” and she explains how it arrived during the dance renaissance of the late 90s, the “euro dance club wave,” that the song was an “unexpected sound from a 50 year old.”
They talk about the popularity of what became known as Auto Tune, how the song was ahead by decades in its influence on rap artists like T-Pain and Kanye West. Sheffield clarifies that it is not a vocoder but pitch correction and Spanos talks about how the song is “one of the great hopeful, euphoric dance songs” and how “do you believe in life after love” is a “gutting line.” (Because how common it is to feel like life itself cannot go on after a great, failed love.) They talk about the song in the context of Cher’s 1990s “major health issues” and her “uncertain future,” losing Sonny, one of the great loves of her life…a great love.” Sheffield says the technology is not used to hide” or “to fix flaws,” that the technology “is flaunted” and that right around “the self-doubting part of the song” you get this “flutter” and “vocal pirouette,” that the song is “blatantly digital” and “robotic” in a way that “makes it sound more human.” Cher “expresses a part of the song by altering her voice.”
Spanos talks about how the producer Mark Taylor wanted to experiment with the pitch correction and Cher wasn’t afraid of it. They claim, as does Cher, that the song “changed pop music” and they remind us that the record won a Grammy. Spanos said the song also made people re-evaluate artists in their 50s, especially women, that hitting the age of 50 need not mean the end of one’s chart-making career. Spanos insists that “Cher only gets more popular every single year” and that she’s a “beloved figure in entertainment history.” She talks about Cher’s “remarkable Twitter account” and Sheffield thinks that Twitter “will only be remembered as part of Cher’s timeline.”
(I believe the Twitter/Cher thing is long past. Cher moved to posting social media content on Instagram years ago as her primary social media. Twitter, in the meantime, will probably be remembered more for its entanglement into the fascist politics of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.)
After a commercial break, the hosts introduce Rod Thomas (Bright Light Bright Light), a DJ, artist and producer. Spanos and Sheffield thank him and he says “it’s not exactly a hardship to talk about this lady or this song.” They ask him about his first experiences with Cher and he talks about how his parents were into the Beatles (he was born in 1982) and how Cher was a famous movie actress when he was growing up. He said the first time he paid attention to her as a music artist was on the album It’s a Man’s World. He talks about loving Junior Vasquez’s “One by One” remix but that it wasn’t a hit. He says he “ran out to buy” the “Believe” CD at Woolworth’s in his hometown of Neath, Wales. They joke that Cher was on her 4th or 5th life by that time. Thomas says, “Everyone in school was talking about it, the straight kids, the weird kids, the bullies, the popular kids. Everyone was playing it. You heard it everywhere.” He feels it was the fist time there was “an all-engulfing wave around an artist everyone knew.” It was a song everyone loved. He feels “Believe” is a “very British-centric sound” and he credits that to songwriter/producer Brian Higgins. He said the song really feels like “you’re in a British gay club.” He thinks the phenomenon was helped by the show Queer as Folk. People then were listening to “really gay music, like Gina G and The Spice Girls”. Very camp. And he believes the song was a legitimate “British gay anthem.”
Spanos says she likes to think about where music started and ended in the 1990s, from grunge to pop-punk to euro pop and House Music like “Believe.” Thomas says it was a time when “everyone was on the same page for a moment in British pop culture.” Whether you were straight or gay, whether you were in coffeehouses, clubs or a shopping center and how unusual that was, “especially for a heritage artist that traditionally younger kids wouldn’t gravitate to.”
They talk about the song being a #1 hit worldwide, a song Sheffield calls “immortal,” a song that you “instantly knew …was a timeless song. Thomas claims that Cher hates the song and how regrettable this is. He says there is a famous interview where she talks about hating how ubiquitous the song was at the time. I don’t remember this from any of the U.S. interviews. Thomas toured with Cher and might have seen a UK interview where she said this.
Thomas says that every time he works as a DJ, someone will request “Believe” and that it’s a “very mixed bag of gender, age and demographic.” “Everyone dances to this song. People melt in these ephemeral things and go feral.”
They ask Thomas where he was when he first danced to the song. He describes a British club called H2O that had three floors: a bar, a restaurant and a club at the top. He says you would hear the song playing on every single floor and that the upstairs club would play the song at least once or twice each night. He says the song represents “a specific sound and a specific moment in time.” He says Brian Higgins went on to do some great stuff but that this song “was a pivotal moment for him, for Cher, for British pop culture and for music.”
Thomas says the song “changed ageism” and put the focus on the song over the artist. Sheffield says Cher had “built her legend already” but that this song “invented a new Cher.” They then talk about Cher’s look around that time, her “wiggery.” How wonderful and cool it was. How her look was “trashy and fabulous…shimmery….” what Thomas calls “gaudy and tasteless but also fabulous and cool.” He also talks about how amazing her voice sounded on the record. “Her voice is perfect.” How the production was perfect and the genius of the technology. Of the Cher Effect, he says, “everyone was doing it in school” (imitating it) and how the song was at its peak for “many, many months.”
Sheffield talks about being at the punk show Mannequin Pussy recently and the venue was trying to “shoo everyone out” but “Believe” came on and then “no one would leave.” Thomas says, “that’s not even my favorite song on that record.” He talks about opening for Cher for nine shows across Europe and how he first saw her show in Brooklyn. He references the video montages and her other dance songs (“Strong Enough” and “All or Nothing”), but when “Believe” came up “you could feel the room lift,” how fans were there “from every conceivable living age bracket” and that this song brings them all together. He says, “it was amazing to watch it.”
So we have another marathon item to get through, from way back to last October. I’ve broken it up into parts to help us digest it.
I was able to attend the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction “ceremony”
last year, despite my ambivalence about it, because my friend Julie motivated me to go (and she’s a fun person to attend a concert with and she loves Ozzy Osbourne who was also being inducted). Also because the show happened to be in Cleveland (where I was spending a lot of time in 2024), and because it was a chance for me to see a concert with my brother, Randy, who lives in Cleveland.
The whole weekend turned out to be a lot of fun, but this still didn’t resolve my continuing ambivalence about the institution. We’ve discussed before the issues with the gatekeepers, the issues with halls of fame, the issues with institutionalizing rock music. But there’s also the issue of rock music itself.
A very telling incident happened when Julie and I were touring the Hall of Fame the day before the live show. We passed a group of young kids, mostly girls, (late grade school, early middle school?) at the Hall of Fame on a field trip with their Catholic School. This made my friend Julie, who spent a childhood in Catholic schools, very very annoyed. She kept telling me that back when she was a KISS-loving kid in Catholic school, the nuns kept telling them rock music was the music of the devil. Now it’s become a field trip for young Catholic kids, like going to see how Wonder Bread is made.
And I’ve been to the Hall of Fame twice now and when I was there most of the people visiting had gray hair. I do see some youthful strays wandering around respectfully but that’s not the majority. And I love rock music myself, but then I’m a happy-gray-haired too. I often find myself telling Millennials and younger friends who old rock groups are, like KISS. (Hell, last weekend I had to explain to them who Vincent Price was.) It’s not quite the music of the world’s youth any more. And that’s okay. It’s the natural order of things. If it wasn’t we’d all still be talking about how swell Rosemary Clooney and Bing Crosby still are.
I read an essay on poetry movements recently where the author observed that things written in resistance eventually become “the new national tradition.” Rock and roll is no longer the language of resistance; it has lost its currency of resistance. It’s now tradition. And the Hall of Fame just underlines that fact. Many of its practitioners and listeners have been taken into the grips of nostalgia, just like their parents before them. As they say, what goes around…. And nostalgia is pretty much antithetical to progress.
Which is why the genre has teetered conservative over the decades. It’s practitioners are no longer young rebels. It’s listeners are no longer young rebels. Rock and Roll is a genre that is over 70s years old. For that matter, at 50 years old, RAP music is also quite long in the tooth.
And who likes to admit their own culture has moved on? Nobody. I had a bit of an existential crisis myself the night David Letterman went off the air because soon I’ll be explaining to young people who he is. But that’s a fact of aging and having sex and babies being constantly born with prospects of future musical genres twinkling in the fresh little eyes. Welcome to the human race.
So if Cher had never been inducted into this basically nostalgic circle jerk, it wouldn’t have bothered me. If you can keep a career going longer than rock music itself, I don’t see that as a bad thing, all things considered.
Aim bigger, I say.
And to be clear, I am not trying to culturally disenfranchise old people in pursuit of the often-suffocating cult of youth. Virtuosity will always skew older. Wisdom will always skew older. This is simply a perspective check. Why did we set such narrow limits on the celebration of contemporary music in the first place? It was generational hubris.
But for all of that, I am going to now fan-girl on a few of these aging rock stars below. Including Cher.
The 2024 Inductee Insights Video
The Hall of Fame developed a short film series for each artist before the induction called “2024 Inductee Insights.” Cher’s six minute film includes the songs “Believe,” “Bang Bang,” “I Got You Babe,” “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves,” “Turn Back Time,” “I Found Someone” and “Woman’s World.”
It begins showing clips from Cher’s “Believe” video cut with her receiving awards, performing in music videos and on television performances and then, oddly, scenes from the movie Chastity. “The one and only Cher has used her distinctive voice, stage presence and avant garde fashion to achieve unprecedented success while blazing a trail for women artists. A woman who personifies feminine, creative freedom in a male dominated industry.”.
I would add that she blazed a trail for gay male artists, too. They delve into her biography, how she was born in El Centro, California, and grew up wanting to be an actress but got sidetracked working for Phil Spector. “During this time,” the video says, she met Sonny and they got married blah blah blah. I keep seeing this error in recent stories about Cher. As the Memoir confirms, Cher did not meet Sonny while working for Phil Spector. She already knew Sonny and Sonny brought her to the Spector sessions purposefully and strategically (gold star for Sonny there, pun intended). And the problem with the statement is that it implies Cher came to ideas about a music career on her own, before Sonny. She did not. The video also incorrectly claims she was an extra on the television show Ozzy and Harriet. She was not, but her mother, Georgia Holt, was.
The video claims Cher was obviously “the shining star of the pair” but her stage freight made them a duo. “I Got You Babe” was a “definitive musical moment for the early hippie counterculture.” They go into her solo hits, somewhat out of order, but okay. {The show a variety show clip of Cher singing “Gypsies” while talking about her life in the late 60s. (My poor soul right now.)
“In a society that idolized blonds” Cher became an idol for dark-haired girls. They saw themselves in her.”
Digression point: I guess that’s true in a way, but many of us did not exactly ever see ourselves in Cher because that was too much of a stretch. We were just happy to see some dark-haired lady being idolized on television. That’s not to say we didn’t see ourselves in other television characters. I recently started watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show again and in episode 4, we meet this girl named Sparkle (Pat Finley, the actress who played, in a much more serious way, the sister of Newhart on The Bob Newhart Show and also the wife of Becker on The Rockford Files). I grew up seeing myself as some kind of amalgamation of the annoying buttoned-up, toxic positivity of Sparkle and the milk-toast, squeamishly-waspy Mary Richards.
Digression to the digression: I used to hate the very sound of Tyler Moore’s voice when these shows first aired in the 1970s and as a namesake, her nebbishness horrified me. Is that what it meant to be a Mary? But one of the beautiful points of the show, which I would come to see as a young adult watching the show’s reruns on Nick at Nite in the 1990s, is that sometimes women who feel unassertive can find strategies to be very effective and assertive. Marge Gunderson, Frances McDormand’s character in the movie Fargo, is another wonderful example of this.
But anyway, I have always felt my person to be this unsatisfying Sparkle/Mary combination, not great identifiers, but accurate I have for a long time begrudgingly accepted. But Mr. Cher Scholar likes to tell me (often) that the way I see myself is pretty far off from how other people see me. So I told him my theory last night and asked him to weigh in: was I more or a Mary, a Sparkle, a Rhoda or a Phyllis? He thought about it for a second and said I was definitely a Rhoda. I’m too much of a wiseacre to be a Mary, he said. (I guess he has a point; Mary Richards would never say ‘nostalgic circle jerk.’) And I wasn’t a Sparkle or Phyllis. I was positive he was going to agree that I was an amalgamation of the milk-toast Mary and the toxically positive Sparkle. Rhoda is my favorite, for sure, but I never in a million years saw myself as a mile within the vicinity of Rhoda. But that was very good news…for me anyway, if not for him.
The next day I came back with three more ladies of the 1970s: Shirley Feeney (Cindy Williams from Laverne & Shirley, not too dramatically different from my high school experience), Rhoda or Emily Hartley (played by Suzanne Pleshette on The Bob Newhart Show). He changed the Rhoda to Emily Hartley, which is not bad news either. By the way, this game is much harder to play in reverse. Mr. Cher Scholar was a dead ringer for Rickey Schroder as a kid, but as an adult he’s mostly impossible to place.
But back to the Cher Insights video…it goes on to talk about Sonny & Cher’s “string of successful albums” and we see their album covers, one of which was very unsuccessful, Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer… and then they show the wrong cover for All I Ever Need Is You. The videos talks about the couple’s “chemistry onstage.”
They then turn to Cher’s focus on acting and her “acclaimed roles” in Silkwood, Mask and Moonstruck.
“But she always turned back to music.” So true.
They mention she has been active for “more than five decades” (the museum exhibit just says six) and that she has continually “reinvented her image and mastered multiple music styles” including the earthy folk pop of “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves”, (more narrative pop, really; “I Got You Babe” was the folk pop), the melodic disco of Take Me Home,” power ballads like “I Found Someone” (they show the music video clip of her slapping boyfriend Robert Camilletti here). “Cher’s versatility is ever present.”
They then come back to the “quintessential dance pop classic” of “Believe” which “pioneered auto tune as an artistic tool” and that this “worldwide hit” became an “enduring queer anthem.” This feels a bit reductive only because the song had major cross-over appeal (we’ll explore this more in an upcoming post about a podcast about the song.) The video talks about her being an ally of LGBTQIA+ and how she has influenced other trailblazing artists like Madonna, Beyonce and Lady Gaga. Why do they keep listing those same three? Were there any male artists they could have found? Any older female artists? (Zendaya and others will broaden this influence later in their induction commentary.)
“A tenacious performer who has triumphed over adversity and made comeback after comeback.”
The 2024 Inductee Program
The preface of the program talks about the Hall of Fame has reached its 39th year. Oy. Even the nostalgia tripping is old. Jan Werener is not even listed under former board members. John Sykes, now head of board, talks about the diverse list of inductees, how rock-and-roll is not a single sound (See? He has to play Twister here because the founding scope was too tiny.) He says of rock-and-roll, “It’s an attitude….a collusion of rhythm and blues gospel and country, but basically ‘life changing music.'” Life changing music could be anything.
The section on Cher was written by Annie Zaleski, who has a new Cher picture book coming out this year, I Got You Babe: A Celebration of Cher. Zaleski is a Cleveland-based writer and editor who has worked for NPR music, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, Salon, Billboard and Vulture, She did the 33 1/3 book on Duran Duran’s Rio album, a Taylor Swift book, Stories Behind the Songs and has done liner notes and illustrated bios of Lady Gaga, Harry Styles and Pink.
Cher section pics include Stars album back cover shot, the butterfly dress picture from her 1978 special promotion, the the famous Phil Spector, Darlene Love and Cher photo, a candid with her kids and Tatum O’Neal, a Jerry Wexler session shot from Jackson Highway and pictures of Cher with David Geffen, Labelle, Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Ray Charles, Elton John and Gregg Allman, a picture of Cher holding her Oscar and the hole fit from 1992.
There’s a breakout box called Selected Discography of her supposed important albums and here I take some umbrage. Stars is egregiously missing. Other albums that could have been included: Backstage as well as Man’s World. I understand why Believe is there. Because it has “Believe” on it. And I guess Heart of Stone is there because “Turn Back Time” is on that. And Jackson Highway definitely deserves to be there. (In Cher’s Memoirs, she even tells us Sonny thought that was her best album to that point which is an interesting compliment considering that was the first Cher album he didn’t produce.) But Black Rose? That should not be there. I appreciate that album in many ways, but it is not one of her important albums. It was a brave experiment that didn’t go anywhere. It was a mess in some ways. (Some reviewers lost their minds over it.) It’s far and away not better than Man’s World or Backstage.
But Zaleski does explain Cher’s cultural relevance very well. “Her singular voice has never lost its formidable power,” she says and she covers the musical points many other Cher historians miss, her time with Phil Spector and her inclusion on important records like “Be My Baby,” “You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling” and her work on the Spector Christmas album. She talks about Cher’s “big contra alto voice” and quotes Cher as saying, “My voice just cut through.” Zaleski repeats, “Cher’s voice has never lost its dominance or power…with her warbling vibrato and graceful sense of dynamics, Cher sounds effortless singing nearly every style of music.” Mic drop.
She then lists the types (and I love the adjectives she uses doing it):
Orchestrated torch songs
Roaring power ballads
Luxe disco
Blazing hard rock
Playful Broadway showstoppers
Slinky soul
High-energy electro
Melodramatic pop
“She also possesses a unique and recognizable vocal timbre, one that’s dusky and sultry, like exquisite black velvet, with a sumptuous low range and a soaring high one.” (I once compared her voice to syrup but velvet is good too.)
Zaleski calls Cher a generous philanthropist, an outspoken activist, a prolific emoji user, a queer icon and ally and “unabashedly herself at all times….honest, funny, vulnerable and real.” Fans, it doesn’t get better than that. We picked good.
“Cher isn’t afraid to be earnest, her vocal delivery often feels like a direct line to her soul” and she “doesn’t suffer fools gladly, doesn’t mince words.”
The essay covers her stand-out influences, Cinderella’s “A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” early musicals, early rock and roll, American Bandstand, seeing Elvis live and Ray Charles on TV. Then she goes into describing Cher’s iconic songs with the same delicious adjectives:
The rollicking garage-pop angst of “Ringo I Love You” (genius to illustrate the song’s grunginess.)
Those qualifiers!! She skims over 1971-74 and the narrative ballads which is unfortunate because that music produced three number 1 hits, plus many other top 30 hits and was arguably one of the peaks, if not the peakiest, in Cher’s popularity.)
She covers Cher’s television grind, long days of writing, rehearsals, meetings, and show tapings. Her “acrimonious divorce,” her 2 Golden Globes (3, the Memoirs reminded us), her 1977 Oscar, the Geffen label era music of “glossy production, blockbuster hooks” that “suited her powerhouse voice.”
Then there was the 1990s health issues and Sonny’s death ending the decade. But also “Believe.” At the time Zaleski reminds us, Cher was the oldest female to top the Billboard Hot 100.
She calls the ABBA covers album “buoyant” and says the electropop “DJ Play a Christmas Song” (which hit #1 in the Dance/Electronic Digital Sales category) is the song that put her over to the record breaking 7 decades of #1 hits. The only other artist to do it was the Rolling Stones (as you recall Cher’s quip on The Kelly Clarkson Show, “it took four of them to be one of me.”
Finally, the essay remarks on the full-circle duet with Darlene Love on Cher’s album Christmas, as a joyful and “brassy unison.”
In the back of the program were interesting paid-for congratulation pages to peruse, from record labels, publishers, lawyers and streaming services. Cher got a page from her managers, Roger Davis and Lindsay Scott. Warner Music Group’s page included Cher, Foreigner, Mary J. Blige, Kool and the Gang, MC5 and Dionne Warwick. ASCAP’s page had Cher, Mary J. Blige, Foreigner, Dave Matthews, Ozzy, Tribe, MC5, Peter Frampton, Kool and the Gang, Alexis Korner and John Mayall. The Hard Rock Casino thanks everybody, Spotify thanks everybody, there’s a mystery thank you in there too,
The main image shown all throughout the lobby of the Hall of Fame (click to enlarge) was the very cool picture of Cher in the 1980s incarnation of her Hole Fit. I love that this is the representative photo because, it shows Cher performing, sweating, rocking.
The year’s inductees always get their own little exhibit upstairs.
Left outfit: The violet and purple “All I Really Want to Do” fit, an amalgamation of the Farewell Tour outfit (vest) and the Here We Go Again tour outfit, credited to the Cher Collection, made by Bob Mackie. The credits mention the outfit was also worn by Teal Wicks in the Broadway Cher Show.
Display on the monitor below: A Sonny & Cher live show ticket with Brian Farnon and His Orchestra for a show on March 3, 4, 5 at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe, the South Shore Room and the tagline, “The World’s Greatest Entertainers Appear at Harrah’s.” There’s a Cher quote from a recent interview about how success is like a string of pearls, moments you string together and you’ve got a necklace.
Middle outfit: The “Take Me Home” Fit (red) credited to the Cher collection from the Farewell Tour, made by Bob Mackie.
Display on the monitor below: The Bob Mackie sketch for the dress. There’s Cher quote about a conversation she had with Barbra Streisand and how Cher wants to work as long as she is able to do it.
Right outfit: The Halloween mermaid outfit from the movie Mermaids, 1990, designed by Patty Spinale & Gail Baldoni, now owned by Gary Scarborough.
Display on the monitor below: The Mermaids movie poster. The text mentions Cher six decades-long music career and she’s “also an actress” who “first starred in 1976 play Come Back to the Five and Dime Jimmy Dean Off-Broadway. This is a big error. She was in the 1982 big-Broadway Robert Altman production at the Martin Beck Theater. The play was first published in 1976. The text also mentions her movies Silkwood, The Witches of Eastwick and Moonstruck.
In the middle of the exhibit there was a large electric sign of rotating copy about all the inductees and this had a very good paragraph about Cher (mimicking the insights video):
“Cher has used her distinctive voice, stage presence, and avant-garde fashion to achieve unprecedented success. A musician who personifies female creative freedom in a male-dominated industry, Cher is the only woman to have a Number One hit in each of the past seven decades . Cher’s breakthrough came from her work with then-husband Sonny Bono. Sonny & Cher’s 1965 hit “I Got You Babe” was a definitive musical moment for early hippie counterculture. Amid the pair’s success, Cher launched her solo career, scoring hits like “Bang Bang.” In 1971, The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour TV variety show helped establish Cher as a consummate entertainer and fashion icon. Cher continuously reinvented her style and mastered multiple musical genres. Equally adept at the folk pop of “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves,” the disco of “Take Me Home,” and [rock?] ballads like “I Found Someone.” Cher’s versatility is unmatched. Cher also became a star of the silver screen, winning the Academy Award for Best Actress in Moonstruck (1987). In 1998, Cher released the quintessential dance-pop classic “Believe,” pioneering the use of Auto-Tune as an artistic tool. A tenacious performer who has triumphed over adversity and made comeback after comeback, all while influencing trailblazing artists like Madonna, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga, Cher has earned her status as the Goddess of Pop.”
Below this description were in influences and legacies:
Influences: Bob Dylan, Darlene Love, Tina Turner
Legacies: Madonna, Beyonce, and Lady Gaga
Cher was placed at the left end, next to Jimmy Buffet in the U-shaped exabit and directly opposite Ozzy Osbourne. Those two are the bookends. This was not the order of the show in any way.
Studying the fan board again, Barry Manilow is still on there at #54. This makes me a bit crazy. I don’t even think Barry Manilow thinks he should be on this board. But he’s up there with 228 votes. You only need about 100 or to get up there on the fan board.
Elsewhere in the museum was an “In Memoriam” tribute to Dickey Betts of The Allman Brothers, (also married to Cher’s best friend Paulette, who was Paulette Betts for many years). The board said he was a 1995 guitarist inductee noted for his “Improvisational magic with the Allman Brothers…his double-barreled harmony and counterpoint” and that he shared lead guitar duties with Duane Allman until Duane died in 1971. He died in April 2024.
I also scanned the gift shop for Cher books (none yet). There was only one t-shirt, recycled from Cher’s own tour merch. There was a the promo pic of Cher from her 1978 TV special. The vinyl album bin did have Believe, the new greatest hits package and Dancing Queen. As a reminder, my first visit in 2023 only had only one Cher item: the first FunkoPop doll.
Julie bought the Foreigner t-shirt and we both liked what they did with it, creating a special Hall of Fame shirt with their career timeline on the back.
Induction Show Performance and Speech
We weren’t so far away but big monitors in front of us showed closeups. Julie had a sudden migraine headache and missed the show’s high energy opening. Cher’s “Believe” started to big cheers. Dua Lipa came out strutting in a black leather outfit, The song sounded much more bland coming out of Dua Lipa. But then Cher came out to help finish it. From the televised cut-aways you can see Keith Urban (who played in the Peter Frampton tribute) and Jelly Roll (who played in the Ozzy tribute) both seemed very excited to see Cher. Julia Roberts (who gave the Dave Matthews speech), too. And even Roger Daltry (Peter Frampton). Cher and DL hold hands at end in a very cool gesture of solidarity. Cher’s outfit is both crazy and restrained. Very black and over-lappy. At the end, Dua Lip yells, “Give it up for Cher.”
We were surprised that Cher opened the show. Usually the push her toward the end for ratings. But after hearing all the other performances, this seemed best.
Zendaya arrived to give the induction speech. I wasn’t expecting much. The prior speeches for Cher have been fair to bad. And I would agree with Howard Stern that I would have preferred someone already established in the HoF to induct Cher. But that said, Zendaya’s was great! Perfect even. She did the job that needed to be done. And her outfit was the best Cher fashion tribute of the night.
[By the way, my sister-in-law Susan kept track of the celebrity situation down on the floor and Zendaya stayed for much of the show and danced to all the performances almost until the very end. In her estimation, Zendaya was by far the biggest star at the event by far.]
Zendaya said there’s not one person “in this room, in this country, in pretty much the whole world who doesn’t know” Cher’s name. “It’s impossible to measure the influence Cher has had and continues to have on every one of us….her impact spans generations. Cher is a “constant inspiration and reference point,” not only with the dance-floor innovation of “Believe” but 27 other solo albums and an Oscar, but lessons in “living in the spotlight” and deftness in “keeping her sanity.” The audience gives some good cheers during the speech, during which the camera would pan to Cher waiting backstage.
Zendaya underscored this, “Come on, she does it all really, really fucking well.” And it wasn’t just “effortless charm and acting chops” and “stunning dresses” that got Cher into the Hall of Fame. “You need the musical goods and Cher has got the goods.” (Cheer.)
This is so great, that Zendaya made this case about Cher’s music credentials. She talked about Cher being the only solo artist with a #1 in each of the last seven decades, how she’s sold 140 million records worldwide, how Cher became an “instant sensation (with Sonny), shattering stereotypes about what a female artist is supposed to sound like,” creating something “new, innovative and distinctively her own,” how she navigated ” a multitude of genres, defined new ones and reinvented others” and has “stood test of time.” Zendaya quipped that there are “drag performers all over the world currently in a makeup chair” (this earned a laugh from Roger Daltry) “putting on their best Cher face.”
Zendaya spoke about Cher being a “brilliant and captivating performer, fearless in her presentation, an inspiration for every female artist who came after her” and is someone who “never acknowledged or accepted there things women were not supposed to do…she did exactly what she wanted,…This fierce woman is a hero, an artist and just about as authentically rock and roll as you can get” (thank you!), an advocate, an ally, and a person “paving the way for people to speak their truth” both “daring and open hearted.” She quotes Cher in saying, “you should never be inhibited by what people expect you do to.”
The video is about four and a half minutes and starts with Cher telling the Hall of Fame to fuck off. There are 60s pics of Sonny & Cher and how there was never going to be a duo. Cher saying she can’t do this by myself and Sonny saying Cher is a very good singer and he that was “desperately trying to make people aware of that.” Cher is shown in her Rona-Barrett Owlwood bedroom talking about being newly single and being not as dumb or weak as she thought she was.
P!nk says unequivocally “Cher is a fucking rock star…genre-less and brave…one of the most unique artists our world has seen.”
The video then plays “Dark Lady” and the irony here is that song like this might have kept Cher out of the HoF for this long,
Cyndi Lauper then says, “She’s always been rock. Even on her television show. She had all the rockers on.”
They show a short-haired Cher in a TV interview for Black Rose talking about how she wanted to be more rock and roll and they conflate that with images from the Geffen label era and the amazing 1979 Take Me Home tour hole-fit shot. This is very confusing.
Shania Twain then talks about watching Cher “go through all of these evolutions in her life, her fashion sense and herstage presence…she is the most diverse artist ever.”
They show a clip of Tina Turner talking about how they had the same type of careers, starting with their husband managers. Tina says, “she was an icon then and she has remained an icon.” [Thank you, Tina. Because she was iconic by 1975 already.]
They show Cher’s iconic “Turn Back Time” video image of her straddling the canon. (Later when I watched the show’s telecast with Mr. Cher Scholar, he quipped that he’s still waiting for that V.A. claim about some sailor who got blue balls or threw out his lower back while sliding down the deck toward Cher during the shooting of this video.)
P!NK talks about Cher’s voice, “this incredible masculine/feminine mix. You can’t mimic that.”
The song “Strong Enough” plays and Cher talks about performing, feeling energy from thousands of people, “It makes you feel about sixteen feet tall.”
Cyndi Lauper says that “Cher’s success is in her gumption,” how she made “Believe” after they wrote her off. (But for that matter she made “Gypsies” after they wrote her off and “I Found Someone.” She’s the most written-off singer in the history.)
Cher talks about being dropped from two record companies.(But there were so many labels.) Mark Taylor explains the Cher effect works.
P!NK says “I don’t know many people who can say that they put out 27 studio albums and have a hit in every decade.
They show a Vogue cover, the Time cover, a shot of Mask and the Oscar moments.
Zendaya finishes by saying “It’s about time everyone” and introduces Cher as “the coolest woman on the planet.”
Her performance of this song struggles a bit. It doesn’t feel smooth. She did better at the Victoria’s Secret event earlier in the week and will do better in 2025 for other events. Does that outfit have chaps? But she is very bouncy. Dionne Warwick and her son smiled along. She still owns the stage but she can’t belt out the notes, Jelly Roll and Keith Urban are seen participating again. Thank you guitar solo. Cher might agree because she touches him on the shoulder and he give her a big grin.
In a sea of older artists struggling to stand up, walk or walking without much oomph, my family group commented on how well Cher was moving for her age, how youthful she seemed compared to some of the other aging rock stars.
The speeches would trade off from the right side of the stage to the left. Unfortunately I was on the opposite side of the arena and had to watch Cher’s speech on the monitors.
Cher hugged Zendaya. Cher admitted the speech would be a crap shoot (and it was). We again got a lot of ums and a kind of ditzy-voice Cher uses in these speeches that doesn’t appear similarly in her televised interviews (which are all more concise and assured). Maybe it’s the anxiety. She started off with a joke that getting into the Hall of Fame was harder then getting divorced from two men.
And this sets the tone for the speech. Cher decided she was going to accept the honor as a solo artist and as a woman. She was going to focus on women’s strength and perseverance. She dismisses the men she worked with from the beginning of the speech. And although I was hoping Sonny would get a minute in the sun, I didn’t dislike this approach. I think for the time, especially as it turned out just weeks before the Trumpapocalyptic election, it was the right move. Cher has been solo for over 40 years longer than her work with Sonny (which lasted about 13-14 years professionally, 1964-1977, give or take a few reunions). Cher surely deserves this award on her own. Sonny does get his due slightly in the video, and more so in her Memoir and on the book show in appearances like on The Howard Stern Show interview where Stern said multiple times that Sonny deserved his own spot in the HoF and Cher agreed.
Cher accidentally started to say the “Hollywood” instead of “Rock and Roll” Hall of Fame. She thanked her “guardian” David Geffen for “writing a letter” that she credits for getting in. She told some stories about her life: seeing Cinderella as a four year old, wanting to be famous, having a crazy yet amazing mother who told her she was not the prettiest, smartest, most talented kid, but she was special. She talked about not doing well in school, the ups and downs of showbusiness, being “lower than a snake’s belly” at times, as her mom used to say. Cher says she never gave up. She got from her mom her perseverance. (The television coverage cuts to Mary J. Blige clapping.)
Cher says after she left Sonny she had a car and her clothes and that it took Francis Ford Coppola’s encouragement for her to move to New York to pursue acting more seriously. She mentions getting a play and then getting to work with Meryl Streep. Cher talks about being lucky, being dropped by 4 labels, that her #1 hits in seven decades surprises even her. On the telecast you can hear her clearly say, “I’m a good singer. I’m not a great singer. I’ll take good.”
I misunderstood this at the event. I heard her say “I’m a good singer” and then a commotion. In the bootleg clip below you can see what I mean. Her full comments are completely obscured. I thought she was defending herself, not being self deprecating. But I think her assessment is right. Some of us love her singing but she is a combination of many things (fashion, singing, attitude).
She says, “Believe changed the sound of music. It was an accident…Believe was kind of a bitch in the beginning.” She retells the story about the record company head complaining that “No one will know that it’s you. Yes, that’s the deal. That’s the great part.” She said it’s been a roller coaster life. But she implored us to “never give up. I’m talking to the women, okay….We keep striving. We keep going. And we keep building. And we are somebody.”
She thanked her family, Chaz, Elijah, her sister and brother-in-law, Slash and Alexander.
She walked off without her award and on the TV broadcast you can see Zendaya trailing after her with it. And then she was not seen again in the crowd or backstage photos. And there was no group song for this induction year, possibly due to some backstage squabbles. There were those Foreigner stories we started hearing the night before the show.
The show was broadcast live on the Disney channel which…I mean…let’s be honest…is not a good look for rebellion and resistance.
There were images that came out later of Cher talking with Mary J. Blige, posing with Dua Lipa and Zendaya and a video of her interacting with super-fan Flavor Flav.
Kool and the Gang
That was not the last Cher reference in the show however. Chuck D. came out next to induct Kool and the Gang, He referenced “the Roots” and I didn’t understand who they were. Later I found out that Questlove and the Roots are the house band for Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show and they were also the backing band for the HoF ceremony that night. Chuck D. continues, “I know a lotta rappers gotta thank, Cher, right? We gotta thank Cher“ and that gets cheers. He is referencing her auto-tune song “Believe.”
After Kool and the Gang played, my brother and I agreed this was a really fun part of the show. (He had one Kool and the Gang album as I recall.) I even liked “Celebration: which as a kid of the 1980s, I was fully prepared to never have to listen to again. They have plenty of great songs, “Too Hot” and I also like the end of the song “Ladies Night.” (And of course, Miss Ladd, which egregiously they did not play.)
Foreigner
Sammy Hagar did the induction for Foreigner. My oldest brother was the biggest Sammy Hagar fan, but they were both at the Checkerdome that night he recorded his MTV special there in 1983. My younger brother was the bigger Foreigner fan. So it was fun to see this induction with Randy. As I recall he once played me the song “Juke Box Hero” on our credenza-like phonograph and called it a masterpiece. Sammy Hagar later agreed as much.
Sammy Hagar started by taking a long time to tell what amounted to Cher joke.
He said musicians have been asking themselves what the criteria is for getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “What do you have to have done? There should be some rules.” Yes, this sounds logical. He goes on to speculate: should you need to have one hit song? Foreigner has had “nine mega hits in the top 100.” Do you need a gold record? Foreigner has sold 80 million records and has six top 10 albums. Or maybe you have to have been around long enough, longevity, still filling arenas and amphitheaters (he almost says arenas, Cher is still filling arenas but not stadiums. Metallica is still filling stadiums according to a traffic jam I was in last summer in Boston). Hagar continues, even though the tour doesn’t have the original members, that’s how good the songs were. Hagar said this as if it were a compliment; but it seems some fans and members of the band do not see it this way; see the Foreigner article above.]
Then Hagar said that backstage he was thinking maybe the band wasn’t glamourous or pretty enough. (Well imho, Lou Gramm was plenty pretty), but then Hagar said that “if that were the case, Cher would have been in the Hall of Fame about 10 times already, every time she reinvented herself. Welcome Cher. Congratulations.” (cut to members of Foreigner laughing.) “What was I thinking?” Then he goes on to explain why Foreigner deserved to be in the HoF.
I have to say I was probably more of a Lou Gramm fan. but I sure heard a lot of Foreigner in my house growing up and I know all the hits. I was especially a fan of his solo hit, “Midnight Blue,” and in high school would blast it from my car radio. I thought the interactions between Kelly Clarkson and Lou Gramm were very moving. Graham seemed very old and unsteady.
Demi Levato also did part of the Foreigner performance. Like Dua Lipa, I cannot get into Demi Levato either. There’s lots of leather bustiers and chains. Being a Cher fan I should be primed to like this. But it always feels like these women are trying too hard.
Then Roger Daltry arrives to induct Peter Frampton and this is how it should be. Underdog inductees should always inducted by an unquestionably accepted members. Franpton shouldn’t have ever have been an underdog but his teen idol status insured that he would be. I looked over at my brother when Roger Daltry came out and our eyes got big (later that night we had to explain to my Dad who he was and yes my almost 90-year-old parents stayed up to watch the whole show because we were there at it).
Before we left for the show, someone in the house (not me and I won’t say who it was) asked why Peter Frampton was even being inducted. Well, Roger Daltry told us why and it was a great speech. The induction video went on to put his guitar playing on the level with Jeff Beck. And then Peter Frampton did an amazing performance with friend Keith Urban, which impressed even the naysayer above. After his performance, Frampton was helped to the stage (due to his own health problems) and he gave what was maybe my second favorite speech of the night, full of humility and wisdom and the insistence that “Kindness is King.”
Jimmy Buffett
All of my party got up to use the bathroom at this point and to go get snacks. Not me. I did not move. They missed the Big Mama Thorton’s video and the beginning of the Jimmy Buffett’s tribute. Julie was the big Jimmy Buffet fan who initiated me into the two shows I went to and loved. But his tribute was a big letdown. The songs chosen by Kenny Chesney, James Taylor, Mac McAnally and Dave Matthews were all ballads at the exclusion of those festive party songs that were a staple of his live shows. And I love me some Buffet ballads. But the overall feeling of the tribute was of sadness. And it is truly sad that Jimmy Buffet is no longer with us; but I have never left a Jimmy Buffet show feeling sad. I did like how James Taylor explained Jimmy Buffet as a hero in a Greek myth.
Susanne de Passe
Motown’s Susanne de Passe talked forever and forever, ignoring the prompter’s many pleas for her to wrap it up. (We had a good vantage point from which to see the prompter) but she had one good piece of advice, “You have to make “no” your vitamin.”
A Trip Called Quest
The third Cher mention of the night happened when Dave Chapelle (and Randy is a huge Chapelle fan, too) was inducting A Tribe Called Quest. Fife Dawg’s father, Ward Taylor, introduced his family and ended by saying “Cher, I got you babe: and a wink. And then went on to say, “I am headed to San Jose but I don’t have a GPS. So Miss. Warwick, I need your help” and then he pointed both fingers at Dionne Warwick in the audience. She laughed. (She had returned to the audience after her induction which was nice but I haven’t much else to say about it.)
We all surmised that Cher was possibly flying home by then but she told Cher she stayed for the whole show.
It was fun to watch Flavor Flav dancing to the great menagerie of old school rappers during the Tribe tribute and I was excited to see Queen Latifa, probably the only rapper I ever got into.
Mary J. Blige
Mary J. Blige’s speech was my favorite. She talked about how, in order to sustain a career, you have to have humility, that life is full of peaks and valleys. How you have to move with grace. Trust the process of your journey. Share your wisdom and love and respect with all who cross your path. She said you don’t need to wait to be perfect. “You are worthy.” Her knowing chuckle was very, very charming. She emphatically thanked her fans.
The Dave Matthews Band
None of us were Dave Matthews fans but the majority of the crowd in that arena were, which is why they were saved for last. They had been a fan fav in the HoF polls for two years. And although I do love the playful and orgasmic sexiness of the song “Crash Into Me” (“I’m the king of the castle, you’re the dirty rascal…please crash into me”), they only played a snippet of that. Julia Roberts inducted them like a giddy fan. I couldn’t get into it.
Due to Julie’s migraine and the five-hour length of the show, we had skipped dinner and were all pretty hungry by 1 am. We went to Happy Dog, a hot-dog bar in Cleveland and had some booze and fancy, creative hot dogs.
I’m not going to rehash the whole new Cher book. It should be read fully to get the feel of the old tales and new revelations. I’m just going to give my overall opinion and point out a few interesting patterns and things.
Apparently there were three ghostwriters and an editor who make weeklong house calls to Malibu to hash out this thing out over four months. The first one produced a book of facts, the second one got Cher halfway into telling stories she didn’t really want to tell and the last one got her much farther along. Cher says a fourth edit would have been best. To me, this doesn’t sound like a failure of the ghostwriters, just the normal writing process, drafting and drafting, restarting and rejiggering until you get closer and closer until you finally give up and let it be what it is.
The project from the start was a difficult business, how to balance the obscure details fans want and with the big, over-told stories and basic life structure the nonfans need. I wouldn’t want to be the one to do it. Kudos to all the writers who brought this thing into existence, including Cher.
I think they did a fine balance myself. I do know some fans who are frustrated by the watered-down Cher storytelling style or the fact that information is missing. Of course there is a lot of missing information. I have my own list; you’ll see below. But I think those are understandable. Cher gets to decide. And the book ticks all the main boxes for me: it fleshes out her genealogy, covers her music experiences (some more than others), illustrates chosen life stories (much more than I thought we’d get, tbh), what it all felt like. Plus we got a great survey of Cher’s Los Angeles, where she lived and what she loves in L.A. This inspired me to make a map.
And hey, I’ve read all the Cher biographies and this one still felt new to me. It didn’t feel like a rehash of all the previous books. And it remains impressive that Cher had the clout to get a two volume memoir, something only world leaders usually get.
We got way more Sonny stories than I thought we would. As a Sonny & Cher fan this made me very happy. Sonny’s memoir is mostly about Cher and Cher’s volume one is mostly about Sonny. The Sonny story is pretty crucial. We did get much less about Gregg Allman than I thought we would and barely anything about Gene Simmons, and Les Dudek was like a sentence. But we got information on all the boyfriends in-between.
And here’s the thing: the Allman and Simmons eras are very well documented in hundreds of magazines, interview clips and news articles that tracked Cher’s every move during those relationship years and other biographies cover them as well. KISS books alone give copious coverage to the Gene Simmons-Cher relationship (for those third grade St. Louis boys mocking it so much). Allman Brothers Band books likewise give much more coverage of their relationship. And the fact is fewer mainstream readers care about those relationships. Cher’s childhood and genealogy is not covered anywhere and so that information gives us clues into her personality. So if we had to choose between one or the other: childhood should get the ink. And I’ve always maintained that your genealogy works its way up through you in powerful and sometimes unseen ways.
It reminds me of Carol Burnett’s prequel memoir about growing up in Hollywood and living with her grandmother, One More Time (1986). It had nothing about her life in show business, which we didn’t get until her second book came out, Time Together: Laughter and Reflection (2011) . In a sense, Burnett too managed her story over two books.
I feel the same way about the incorrect facts. I do wish there had been some fact-checking for a few things but those are all things we can easily verify elsewhere (which is why fact checking seems like such a no-brainer). For example, as we know very well from last year’s blog posts, Cher’s advice column was not in Tiger Beat. It was in 16 Magazine. Although fans pretend to be aggravated by those finds, I think they are fun to find on some level because it gamifies the book for fans.
And although it was only a sentence, I loved the part where she talked about her fans, that if they don’t like something she tries, they still like her as an artist and person. That’s so important to say because Cher fans are so different and yet so open. And at the end of the day they are fans of Cher and not an accumulation of Cher stuff. I do think some artists would rather just be appreciated for their production. Either they don’t feel much like a person or they don’t want a kind of personal attention or maybe they just want the cash.
But then again, Cher does care an awful lot about the cash, by her own admission. And the reason for that, we can now see, goes back to childhood experiences.
This book reminded me there were a few categories I forgot when I was listing what musical movements Cher was a part of. I mentioned she was a member of Phil Spector’s Gold Star Studios circle, 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) and was involved with The Wrecking Crew. But I forgot to mention she was an accidental part of the British Invasion. So weird but true.
And there were two scandals I would have liked to have heard Cher’s perspective on, both taking place during the Gregg Allman era: the Jenny Arness suicide and the Scooter drug trial. It’s hard to know how personal Cher wanted to get but she did give us much more information about the Average White Band/Ken Moss drug party. Cher was also quite candid about her fans (and the rest of America) criticizing her relationship with Gregg Allman and how she felt about it. That coupled with her fan appreciation sentence made me think about all the things fans have been through with Cher.
I made a list.
The drug film Sonny made and their sudden subsequent uncoolness.
The big style transition from the 60s to the 70s where a bunch of kiddos (enter moi) and old farts jumped on the Sonny & Cher bandwagon to the probable annoyance of existing 1960s fans.
Divorcing Sonny.
The hookup with Gregg Allman. (I missed all this because I was in the single digits and didn’t read the news).
Dating Gene Simmons and having to endure the whole hiding-in-a- hankey thing but also KISSness in general (and having to hear third grade boys disparage Cher as the Yoko Ono of KISS…and oh the sorrows I have seen!)
Black Rose sublimations of Cherness.
Epstein-Barr (would we ever see Cher again!?) and the infomercials (I am the oddball fan that loves those probably for the same reason I love Vincent Price on a cooking show).
The younger boyfriend mini-scandals.
The occasional verbal missteps that fire up a press but come and go.
Childhood
Although most reviewers wanted to discuss Cher’s experiences with her extraordinary mother, Georgia (and this book was just as much a biography of Georgia as about Cher), I thought Cher did a good job bringing John Sarkisian to life. He had always seemed like a flat villainous character before. I think one of the good things about this book is that it doesn’t try to villainize anybody. Interviews and press liked to draw out the shitty things Sonny did, but in the book people are drawn in their mysterious complexity: Cher’s birth father, her step-father, John Southall, Sonny, and even to a lesser extent Gregg Allman. It’s ironic that she describes Sarkisian as a spoiled youngest son because Cher’s mother was the most unspoiled child as there ever was. How did that even work?
It was also interesting to understand how Cher’s surnames evolved and when they were attached to her and how that affected her identity in odd ways. Pinky Sarkisian is forever etched into my imagination now. It has a lovely internal rhyme.
I appreciate the listing of movie and musical influences, both early and teenage. There were some obscure names in there (obscure now anyway) and it will be interesting to keep thinking about how Cher internalized those influences.
We knew nothing about her step-grandparents before and as it turns out they had a big influence on Cher’s idea of fashion in show business. The button box detail. (There were some great details to bring stories beyond sketches.)
A graphic detail Cher describes a childhood foot injury that she says gives her a “distinctive looping gait “(the Cher strut?) reminded me of the stage foot injury that happened somewhere during the Farewell tour and how much she depends on her feet.
When talking about her family, you got more of a sense of Cher’s feelings about things. This was what I think felt so compelling since she’s usually presenting as such a tough cookie. This especially goes for the very touching relationship between Cher and her sister, Georganne (or Gee). Those moments, in brief snippets, were very moving.
Over and over in this memoir cycle, Cher claimed the usage of “Babe” in “I Got You Babe” went back to her mother’s glam usage of the term. This differs from critics who liked to say Sonny was ripping of Bob Dylan’s 1964 “It Aint Me Babe.”
Cher also brought to life her time studying with Jeff Corey and her first jobs at Robinsons department store and even more detail about working at See’s Candies. And she sorts out all of Georgia’s husbands and lovers for us. That has always seemed sketchy and confusing before. And you can see how disruptive the constant moves become, the patterns that form between Georgia’s upwardly mobile times with her husbands (for the most part) leading to Cher’s glimpses of wealth in Beverly Hills and New York City, in contrast to severe poverty they experienced living in the Valley, where support systems of women took over. You can see these female support systems in Cher’s adult life entourage as well.
Cher’s early viral illnesses also tie into her later struggles with Epstein-Barr Syndrome and Chronic Fatigue.
Cher with Sonny’s parents and daughter, Christy.
Sonny
I believe that for decades Cher has been telling us the truth about Sonny but we just couldn’t hear it. She spells it out as much as possible here. I had no idea the infamous Melissa was gay. That puts quite a spin on Sonny’s ill-fated crush. Cher talks about Sonny’s beautiful hands again. “I just thought this guy was special. Everyone loved Sonny.” She doesn’t recount his childhood as all the other bios do (well enough). She does note that he was kicked out of LA’s Englewood High School for hiring a black band for prom. She sorts through his odd jobs, who his friends were (Sam Cooke, Jack Nitzche), what his music creds were up to that point. I love thinking about Little Richard pretending to hit on Sonny and eliciting an eye roll. Her opinion of their relationships with Phi Spector.
Cher mentions multiple times how Sonny was an avid photographer and took the photo of her standing against the wall at Gold Star Studios. I’m not quite sure which one she means. Which is why it would be good to get a book of Sonny’s photographs someday (maybe sprinkled with some recipes?). Cher says she admired way he “put everyone at ease.”
One of my favorite parts of the book was the listing of locations in Los Angeles, the clubs they went to, the restaurants, the record business hangouts, the houses where they lived. And this part has some of the best, almost unCher-like quips, like her story about how she came to be friends with Sonny and live with him, wrapping it up with “And that’s how I became the potty-mouthed sidekick to a man 11 years older than me who was in the middle of a divorce. I thought Sonny was the coolest person I’d ever met.”
She doesn’t shy away from discussing all the womens. Sonny would say when women came over, “That’s just Cher. I was just Cher.” And all those women’s attempts to wrestle Sonny into compliance or to wrestle money out of him. Apparently he was dating several women, and not just one who claimed she was pregnant and wanted abortion money. Cher claims one of these women used the money to get their teeth fixed. Cher also claims Sonny wasn’t really a catch. He had no money and drove a Chevy Monza (in a sentence, how we judge men by their status as indicated by their cars). Cher would sit in the bedroom watching TV or drawing during his escapades. It’s fascinating to think about.
Cher is also pretty honest about her own complicity in slowly losing her autonomy in this relationship, how early illnesses cemented their roles as a woman to be helped and the “macho Sicilian.” Cher says, “I came to feel that he was the kind of guy who’d be there if something bad happened. Before too long, I thought the sun rose and set on his Sicilian ass, even though I knew that I wasn’t his type.” There’s a lot going on in that passage.
“Before too long I began to hero worship my roommate. The feeling wasn’t mutual.”
Cher describes herself as a kid full of phobias and panic attacks and how she evolved from a tag-along to a love interest over time.
And Cher never did expect any high romance. (It was astounding to me how unromantic both of her legal weddings turned out to be.)
Another fascinating character in the book was Uncle Mikey, Georgia’s brother. He was also a very shadowy character in prior books. His highs and lows were fascinating, including the high’s of owning two L.A. nightclubs, The Purple Onion (important to Cher’s story as the first live performance she ever gave) and the Haunted House on Hollywood and Vine, which fans know from the Halloween promotional video where they tour the club and dance. From watching Rifftrax movies, I also recognized the club as the main setting for the movie The Girl in Gold Boots. Cher described it as a “kitschy, goth go-go bar.”
Cher talks about their dogs, Sonny’s aptitude for fatherhood, (very good, not surprising) and life with both his daughter Christy and also times when Georganne lived or traveled with them. Cher goes more into the Gold Star days than I thought she would. More than even the experiences recording her own albums. Cher doesn’t say much about times spent with Sonny’s family but that she liked his sister Betty. (Fran is the sister who wrote the book about their family’s legal battles, Bono vs. Bono. where family episodes with Cher can be found.)
Cher is faithfully honest about Sonny’s professional attributes (mostly his unwavering belief in Sonny & Cher) and his faults (he started to become controlling pretty early). She admits (similar to many other once controlled women), his perceived jealousy and attempts at controlling her “thrilled me because it meant he cared.”
You also come to appreciate how Sonny became Cher’s Dumbo’s feather.
And most of the Sonny section is about how long it took for her to understand that she could support herself both physically, financially and emotionally. She could live without this great love. She could deal with the business of show business herself (with help).
Cher says some of the happiest days of her life were these early years with Sonny when they were living together and working at Gold Star. She details the ups and downs of Sonny & Cher, from the days playing in bowling alleys, roller rinks and later in small nightclubs, who they opened for in the beginning (The Ronettes), who they headlined with (The Beach Boys, The Mamas and the Papas, The Righteous Brothers) and who they fell to the bottom of the bill with after their careers imploded (King Curtis and the Kingpins).
She tells of an early album of covers she did that was scrapped. Oy. All the fans wish we could hear those and other lost tracks. It sounds like “Yes Sir, That’s My Baby” was also a Sonny & Cher, Brian Wilson, Darlene Love, Jack Nietzsche, Jackie De Shannon song under Phil Spector with the moniker of Hale and the Hushabyes,
Without rancor, Cher talks about early players, Coleen and Bridgit, managers Charlie Greene and Brian Stone. Remember they did a tabloid tell-all about Cher in the 1980s that resulted in me sending Cher a fan letter about to Cher telling her how outrageous it was. Cher says those managers were “brilliant liars, committed, charming.” Although she doesn’t believe, for reasons she explains, that the London Hilton episode was pre-planned. she says the managers did spread a rumor that a Saudi Prince had asked if Cher was for sale. How that was supposed to drive record sales, I do not know. (She says the lyrics of Ma Rainey’s “See See Rider” were changed to add a reference to the London Hilton.)
We see the first meeting of Cher and The Rolling Stones. One particularly funny story is about how Mo Ostin accidentally signed Sonny & Cher twice. Cher claims Bob Dylan loved her version of “All I Really Want to Do.” Other accounts say he didn’t like it. The picture of Sonny & Cher with Dylan was taken with Sonny’s camera. Cher explains the difference in stories between later managers Joe DeCarlo and Denis Pregnolato. One helped Cher, one ratted her out. She explains Sonny’s nose job and how his nose was ultimately an illustration of his resilience and strategy.
Cher charts the rise of “this odd little song” that was “I Got You Babe” and how the time in England were more of her happiest days with Sonny, how he told people she was “the missing piece” and they went from being labeled freaks in America to becoming famous overnight in England and returning as a mis-identified part of the British Invasion, with all the hysteria that entailed. Cher says she didn’t know she’d be singing the song for the next fifty years [on and off].
Is it me or is the “Laugh at Me” Martoni’s Restaurant story missing from the book? It seemed such a foundational story about how they were treated by “the establishment.” I wonder why it was omitted. She does talk about the cover up story about the fake Tajuana wedding.
And that she’s known her interior designer Ron Wilson since the Encino house. And he has decorated 19 houses for her over six decades. She’s got her people who are loyal to her, another case in point.
She talked about the unrelenting work: gigs, recording sessions, interviews, TV appearances, no dinners, movies or vacations. Only shopping. But she was torn because all the work meant more time with Sonny. And she says she didn’t like it when TV shows treated them like a novelty act. Cher says she started to become a shadow.
She talks about her relationship with Richard Avadon, the champion of the unusual looking. “We weren’t beautiful in the traditional sense at all.” The squared-off nails pic was from the first session (later they would revisit her nails in another 1970s shoot). She says Avedon and his stylists “made me feel beautiful for the first time in my life.”
Cher talked about her first experience with then-reporter, future Mask director Peter Bogdanovich who reviewed a show they did for Princess Margaret and he said they “howled like coyotes” among other insulting things for his Saturday Evening Post profile.
Cher talks about being an abstainer, like Sonny, but not caring if everybody else imbibed (her mother and uncle did, not to mention Sonny’s prescription usage) so she wasn’t supportive of Sonny’s drug film and she said it hurt their career instantly. “Record sales dropped immediately and offers dwindled.”
Cher admits that “keeping us relevant was a lot of work” and it made Sonny moody. Cher gave him some journals [which Mary Bono sold in 1998 to People Magazine after Sonny’s death] and they often communicated through those pages although she didn’t see, until years later, the moving entry he made on his 33rd birthday.
Enter William Fredkin, who was friends with Sonny, and stories about the movies Sonny & Cher made. This started Sonny down a path of thinking he was a movie maker, getting caught sleeping with his secretary and his jealousy surrounding Stephen Whitaker (no kissing!), Cher’s befuddled co-star in Chastity. She said Harold Battiste read a book on scoring so he could do the movie score for Good Times. Cher also loved the cool jazz version of “I Got You Babe.” [Me too; I played it at my wedding]. Cher seems to have fond memories of making Good Times, which was filmed in their Encino home. She talks about their customized ’64 mustangs (which she looks at every time they come up for auction), how she didn’t believe Sonny would ever get the movie made and once he got the funding she felt like “oh shit.” She was on the birth control pill and felt chubby during the filming, having gained 15 pounds. She both loved and felt sorry for George Saunders and he was surprised at her classic movie knowledge. She talks about the elephant Margie. Chastity was a shoestring affair with a 15-person crew. Cher doesn’t name him by name but says the director was a real person who had only done commercials before. They wore their own clothes. Cher admits she could have been offended by the portrait that was inspired by both Cher and her old friend Melissa.
Sonny had many more movie plans, a “Beat Goes On” musical and an animated film. The films were flops, each for different reasons, and this depressed Sonny. The firing of Greene and Stone sounds unpleasant. Cher says she liked Led Zepplin and wanted to change with the times but Sonny was 33 and was determining their direction. She talks about her miscarriages and the funny diagnosis of “an angry uterus.”
Cher took Sonny’s cheating, when she walked in on it, pretty hard. Sonny, like a true narcissist, blamed her for the situation in various conflicting arguments. She said she was “overloaded with sadness” and came to understand her mother had been hearing stories for a while. [But then oddly Georgia often chose Sonny’s side in later years.] Cher lightly goes into conflicts with her mother but it’s vague what the fallings outs were over. Later Cher admits everybody knew about Sonny’s affairs but her.
In the midst of these new relationship issues, Sonny and Cher start moving into the Tony Curtis houses (the St. Cloud house and the Owlwood house or “the big house”) and it’s surprising to know they owned them together at the same time. The Owlwood House on South Carolwood, a famous LA. house has a whole chapter in a book written about it (Michael Gross’s Unreal Estate: Money, Ambition, and the Lust for Land in Los Angeles) and is allegedly one of the biggest money sinkholes in Hollywood due to its gargantuan size (9 bedrooms and Cher said you could “starve to death” trying to find your way to the industrial kitchen). No one seems to hold on to it for very long. So to manage that house and another Bel Air house at the same time is a bit astonishing and shows how much cash flow Sonny & Cher might have had in the early 1970s.
As I said, we get more information about making Phil Spector records than we do Sonny & Cher records unfortunately. The rumor was Sonny’s production process was brutal on Cher, lots of lots of takes. But Cher doesn’t confirm or deny that. Compare this to all the stories we’ve heard around the making of “Believe.” The exception is the story of all the arguments surrounding the making of the Muscle Shoals Jackson Highway album.
SHEFFIELD, AL – MAY 5: Singer and actress Cher takes a break during a session for her album ‘3614 Jackson Highway’ recorded at Muscle Shoals Recording Studios on May 5, 1969 in Sheffield, Alabama. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
One of my favorite eras of Sonny & Cher happens to be the nightclub era. This is because it feels like a metamorphosis. Although it was rough, it was also a rethinking of what Sonny & Cher were. Plus it seemed very cinematic in its own way. For example, the contrasting image of a newly glamourous Sonny and Cher in tux and gown making their way through supper club kitchens and waiting behind swing doors for their cues, navigating the hecklers, the low turnouts, the band, the bad motels, the delight of a baby and toddler, (“Christmas everyday,” Cher’s words) and Sonny’s storytelling, “Good Princess Garbage Who Loved Garlic,” truly two people with their backs against the wall. Their relationship coming back together through the hardship of small time showbiz, Cher’s wise acre personality finding its way into the show.
The TV Shows
And that all paid off. I was always under the impression that the Nitty Gritty Hour was sort of a pilot episode for The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and not a first attempt that didn’t go anywhere as Cher describes it.
She reminds us that their summer replacement led into the Henry VIII miniseries (which probably helped). She does list the names of her supporting actors: King, Cullen, Langston, Steve Martin, Teri Garr (who she says was “funny enough to have her own show”). Sounds like Ret Turner and Ted Zeigler were her favorites. She says her hair was a problem until Renata came abord and that she always did her own makeup until Mask. Before doing her solo number, she would always ask stage manager to go find Sonny so he could watch her sing from behind camera and she did this even after their divorce. Recently I found a scrapbook photo of just that backstage moment.
She also explained a big mystery to me: what that Bono Award statue was. What the heck was that? It was an Oscar with large nose and mustache. Ahhh. Oy.
I love the weekly schedule run-throughs. Carol Burnett did this in her book, too. What happened Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, weeks they had to double-up due to concert commitments (50 a year) or recording albums in one week with Snuff Garrett. (Cher admits she doesn’t “like story songs much.” )
Cher talks of being permanently tired but knowing “this is what I was supposed to do” and that it was fun singing “the best song” referring to the Vamp song. Of Sonny & Cher, “that’s all we want to be and that’s what we were.” Besides, she had Sonny in her ear saying “this is our time.”
Little did he know, Cher would take over time itself.
Cher was called at the time one of the top 10 best dressed women in America. Their TV show was in the Top 10. Enter Irwin Spiegel. Sonny starts smoking cigarillos and calling himself El Primo. No one was ever allowed over to “the big house” except on Christmas, Thanksgiving or Chastity’s birthday. (What a waste of all that space!)
It was also interesting to me that Sonny booked them on the Playboy TV show and they accepted gifts from Hugh Hefner (that big lion on the album cover depicting Chastity’s bedroom), but after their separation, Sonny would use her friendship with Hefner to try to say she was an unfit mother in their custody battle. Sheesh, Sonny.
But then Cher meets Paulette in 1972 and this is very crucial to the story. Getting to know Paulette better in the book is very, very important. She’s described as “a breath of fresh air” to Cher. She arrives as the girlfriend of their road manager but eventually becomes Cher’s assistant. She’s worldly in all the ways Cher is not. They swap desires to live each other’s lives. Cher is in a very bad place, not eating, sleeping and by her own admission “needlepointing herself to death.” She has been on the edge, literally, of not one but several balconies. (Oy. Imagine.) She has no control over her life and Sonny is forcing her into a schedule she doesn’t want. She’s watching Paulette and being pulled toward these after-show band hotel-room gatherings Paulette recounts to her. Meanwhile the guitarist has a crush on Cher. It involves a riff and an Etch-a-sketch and it’s where the book slows down remarkably into a veritable suspense story.
So one night in drummer Jeff Porcaro’s room (don’t get me started on the Toto thing, please), Cher breaks ranks and all hell breaks loose. David Brenner is involved, the whole band is involved. Sonny gets dark.
They go on with the show and an episode with The New Seekers, of all people. Cher tells of the Mother Nature skit in that episode in her book. Sonny tells another version of the same story in his. Cher maintains that they were not, in fact, great actors. But that they genuinely enjoyed doing the show and had work chemistry even as they were breaking up. Sonny’s account isn’t identical to this. People who worked on the show wrote about the famous Battling, Bickering Bonos and how Sonny and Cher would go their separate ways immediately after coming off stage.
Which is heartbreaking for all us kid fans who had their imaginations ignited by Sonny & Cher existing that stage ramp with Chastity. What other stage door was so pregnant with meaning as theirs? It’s like we hated to see them leave and had to keep imagining them living life as they disappeared into silhouettes. One of my favorite pictures of them is from a Cher tour book, Sonny & Cher exiting the TV stage with Chastity.
But then as Anthony Kiedis notes in his own memoir, Cher babysat for Sonny’s girlfriend’s kids (Kiedis) during this time. So…it sounds genuinely complicated.
Post Sonny
So the excitement keeps on keeping on after Cher separates romantically from Sonny. For one thing she remarks about “dressing without permission” and I think that’s an important phrase we also heard her use on the book’s speaking tour. Women wearing what they want to wear is one thing, but then braving criticism about it is another. Just the agency to wear WTF you want I think is something we take for granted now. Something men take for granted and something young women also take for granted. Bodily agency is what is being enacted here. And it’s been dismissed (sometimes even by me) as frivolous. It’s not.
Cher also depicts funny post-Sonny moments, like the first time she guffs signing a check with “All my love, Cher.”
We find out that the brother of the guitarist Bill Ham is Cher’s sometimes saxophonist Warren Ham (ex: Black Rose).
And besides lame weddings, the things Cher had to put up with astounded me. Just Bill Ham asking her what movie she wanted to see. David Geffen given her the first valentine’s day gift ever received (she cried). It’s incredible! The 600 cassette tapes she bought because she was finally allowed to explore her own music tastes.
I also found her relationship with Sonny’s girlfriend Connie very interesting. The whole Girls Room thing.
She talks about the affairs with David Paich and mentions the tour with the Toto guys, how she met David Geffen and their early days and all the famous rock stars she got to know through him. And all the movie stars, directors and producers. How Sandy Gallin, Jack Nicholson, Anjelica Hooton and Warren Beaty all kept Cher’s relationship with Geffen a secret as part of Cher’s agreement with Sonny to not be seen in public with another man. Oy vay!
This statement when talking about Geffen thinking she would jump him: “I never made the first move with a guy in my entire life.”
Geffen famously rescued Cher from involuntary servitude with Sonny. That’s all well known. Cher states quite clearly, “Sonny was undoubtedly responsible for making us who we were but…he could never achieved that without my voice.” Cher references having to do this performance after one contract fight.
I did not know Cher had won a Golden Globe for Best TV Actress in 1974. She also won one in 1984 for Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Silkwood) and in 1988 for Best Actress (Moonstruck).
Cher and Joni Mitchell
At Bob Dylan’s famous birthday party she sang “All I Really Want to Do” with him and The Band and, I ididn’t know this, “Mockingbird” with Rick Danko. I wondered how hard it was for Sonny to see Cher’s experience and deep entree into the music business on the arm of David Geffen at that time. She penetrated the in-crowd of the music business in ways he never would. Although even so, the music biz always kept Cher at arm’s length.
She is quite candid about the Average White Band overdose party scandal. “Ken moss told everyone I was being an alarmist.” Wow.
She talks about the struggles with her own solo show after David Geffen stopped helping her get the best musical guests (because he was mad she left him for Gregg Allman which is understandable). There were the censors who “read sex into everything,” the fact that the show was up against The Wonderful World of Disney.
She was at the Troubadour to see Etta James when she met Gregg Allman. The story is pretty funny. She was there with Geffen, Paulette, and Tatum O’Neal (she references O’Neal a bit dismissively, there’s probably an untold story or two in there). Allman’s friend Chank gave Cher a note that started with, “dear enchanted lady” and ended with his phone number. There’s no mention of a finger sucking in this retelling of their first, disastrous date. The second date entailed dancing and went much better. Cher’s take of the Allman Brothers Band is that they were jealous and undermining of Gregg. She admits it was a mistake to have him come on her show, a “lose lose” proposition for everyone. She says the wedding was “not romantic” and there was no honeymoon and he “was gone the next morning”…which strikes me as a more egregious move than leaving his “dope kit” behind. Cher says it was hard to make these mistakes as “the most famous woman in America.”
Her show then went up against The Six Million Dollar Man during its second season and that show was a phenomenon. (Sonny guest starred on it, to add insult to injury.)
She didn’t see much of Gregg during the reboot of The Sonny & Cher Show, she says. He was kind of miffed about the whole thing, thought he was being made a fool of. I can see his point of view. The birth of Elijah seems very dramatic as it fell in between Allman’s rehabs. I forgot after reading the book the whole complicated story and if Allman was even there for it or not (he was and it sounded very moving; he named Elijah). But it Sonny who was on the road with Cher for many of Elijah’s milestones in hotel hallways (similar to the toddlership of Chas). This explains why during Cher’s Take Me Home tour we saw all those photographs Cher said Sonny took of Elijah.
Cher says it was a surprise to find out The Sonny & Cher Show was cancelled while she was on the road with Sonny. That’s surprising to me too considering the last show seemed so…well final.
Cher said it was her idea to drop her name from Allman and Woman and that her favorite track on it is “Do What You Gotta Do.”
The Gene Simmons section is even shorter than the Allman part (could they have warranted a chapter each?) but Cher tells the story of the $2,800 phone call he made to her from Japan. Simmons was really good with her kids, she says, giving KISS-fan Chasity lots of memorabilia, giving Elijah his first guitar and teaching him how to swim. Life in a bandana was a problem, though, as it turns out. It was hard to have a private life with paparazzi inside every restaurant. It’s very hard to eat pasta with a bandana on.
The rest of the book is about the Black Rose / Take Me Home Tour eras which included the factoid that Michael Keaton was the opening comedian for the Take Me Home shows, Cher’s affair with Les Dudek while working on Black Rose and Cher’s failed attempts to break into acting or even get an acting agent, despite being in the lucky position of having actors, producers and directors as friends. She only got encouragement from Shelly Winters and Francis Ford Coppola (who used to play cards with Sonny at the Encino house). She said Jack Nicholson got her the audition with Mike Nichols for The Fortune and she tells the story about why A Star Is Born didn’t happen.
She lists out the names of her dancers who all died of AIDs while only in their 30s. She also talks about her new assistant (after Paulette left to be with Dickey Betts), how Deb Paull had no experience but was crucial in helping Cher get over her stage freight before the new tour, her first without Sonny, shows where the mic went out, the fire alarm went off and how she broke Sinatra’s attendance record and cab drivers would recommend the show to tourists.
The books literally ends with all the reasons Cher was getting movie role rejections: she was too old, too ethnic, too tall, too typecast as Cher, and had a punchline for a personal life. It’s a great place to end the first book.
The Possible Movie
As I said in a previous post, I think this book contains the synecdoche that represents the whole of Cher’s life, an era that defines the other eras.
The early 1970s journey back from being rock stars and those supper-club indignities feel like a very tactile beginning, their traveling nucleus, their backs-against-the wall bonding through small tours. A movie could allude to everything that came before. Big concerts and tv shows never film as well. They always come across as flat and kitschy. With live shows, you very literally “had to be there.” These times on the road feel very 1970s, and also very A Star Is Born. (Which, by the way, Sonny and Cher track better to A Star is Born than Cher and Gregg Allman do.) It’s also interesting that when things were bad professionally, Sonny and Cher became good again personally.
Casting is always tricky with both Sonny and Cher. Imitations always collapse in flat cartoonishness. Which is egregious considering Cher is one of the most multi-dimensional people in show biz people. The actors should be cool but not publicly understood as cool. Steve Buscemi is a good example I always give. Before their time people. Under the radar people. Despite being right there. (Which reminds us of Sonny’s idea that being before your time is as bad as being behind your time.) They don’t even need to look like Sonny or Cher. It can be an allegory.
The core action is Cher leaving Sonny. That wasn’t the hard part of the memoir to write for nuthin. It pretty much is the movie. It’s the most dramatic sequence in the book by far. Because the first hard thing you have to do is the hardest hard thing you will ever have to do. This is Cher’s first quintessential solo battle. It’s where the character discovers her strength. And nothing afterwards could happen if this didn’t happen. And it was emotionally hard to happen. It was physically hard to happen. It was professionally hard to happen. It was a confluence of a lot of things. And that release of tension would release this very large Cher character into the world.
Meeting Paulette is also important to the story, her worldliness and independence and interactions with the band.
The most dramatic thing is this before and after Cher. Plus it’s about Sonny & Cher, arguably the most charismatic coupling ever. Even Cher will say there will always be Sonny & Cher. Sonny even said something similar on Bob Costas, how a magic seemed to happen when they got together, a frenzy.
At their story’s resolution, the Cher character launches into another life and amazing things the movie can allude to but things most of us already know.
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.
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
There 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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
Speaking of Little Bites, here is a post to catch up on bits and bites of the Cher news we’re behind on.
There 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.
