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Category: Music (Page 21 of 35)

Cher Standup From 1995

IMG_0744Cher Scholar Dishy sent me this stand-up piece from Cher’s 1995 album It’s a Man’s World announcing the single of “Not Enough Love in the World,” including the Sam Ward Mix and the Junior Vasquez Club Mix of “One by One” (cassette also available).

What I love about this picture is that it shows me something I haven’t seen before.

Those blue contact lenses and that luscious lipstick are well-recognized from her Man’s World cover (where she’s dressed in that green slip-dress), but I had no idea Cher did versions of this photo session with that curly wig.The long, black hair choice on the album seemed like such a departure (finally) from the big hair of the 80s and 90s, but this shows that look wasn’t too nearly departed.

Soon after I crouched to snap this foto with my iPhone, I fell over backwards on my ass.

 

Cher Back to Russia, Woman’s World News

CherhatOooh! Cher holding a cowboy hat. That’s almost as good as Cher in a cowboy hat. Cher is at LAX on her way to Russia for a performance.

Cher News and Cher World are also reporting that the “Woman’s World” single (and I hope video) will be released soon in June.

Cher.com is offering a premiere listen. Note: I can only get the song to play in Google Chrome.

Cher also indicated that the Lady Gaga single is now off the album. I’m not too torn up about this, myself. I didn’t like the Gaga version on the YouTubes and that song is like “so two years ago.”

Honky Tonk Woman Review

ChergeorgiaI've listened to Honky Tonk Woman, the new album by Cher's mother Georgia Holt, (at left the two of them first photographed together in 1946), three times now. These were lost tapes from recordings made in 1980 with the Elvis Presley band. Cher's current band refurbished the tracks and helped Georgia to release the album last month.

I love the country feel of the cover. I downloaded the album from
iTunes and so haven't seen what any inner CD packaging or recording details there might be.

I'm Just Your Yesterday: I can understand how Georgia would want to interpret this song in a mother-daughter duet. On the TV special, Dear Mom, Love Cher, neither Cher nor Georgia could remember recording the song. So this is Cher singing circa 1980? The Black Rose era? That would be incredible. I thought this was a new recording and I keep listening to it in order to catch clues to properly date it. Cher's vocal style has changed over the decades and I'm stumped as to why I can't sort it out. It doesn't sound like 1980s Cher. I love the harmony between Georgia and Cher and although they sound similar, (especially singing vowels like Ah and Ohs), Georgia's voice is very clean and neat. Cher is notably more earthy.

Honkytonk1I Sure Don't Want to Love You: I'd love to know who the writers were for these songs. A lot of them invoke "Daddy" which carries all those connotations of Fathers, Sugar Daddies and Honky Tonk Daddies. Definite barroom feel to it.

Movin On: Georgia can sure hit all the notes and effortlessly. This isn't gritty country. It's pop country. I've always heard Georgia describe this project as California country is that the same alt country we think of when we say California country these days? I'm not sure what California country was back in 1979.


Honkytonk2Las Vegas Blues
: I didn't love this one. According to the short-lived Wikipedia page about the album, Georgia wrote this song. But it sounds too Vegas-hokey for me. More Daddys in the lyric. And unlike Cher, Georgia's vocals can get overpowered by the band.

I Bought the Love Love That You Gave Me: Great title and although this didn't stick out for me, I appreciate its honky tonk torch-like quality.

I Wonder Where You Are Tonight: This one seemed off the rails for me. A dissy up and down quality yet a little lackluster. Too enunciated and we need more crying in the beer.

Love Me Tender: This is one of my top two favorite tracks on the whole album. Georgia shines doing a simple ballad that seems tailor-made for her. The backup vocals warm up her sound. I strain to hear Cher doing backups but I think she's there. I love that Cher is doing backups for her mom.

You Can't Go Home Again: Sultry and 1970s sounding. Again, I think Georgia scores with quiet, particular ballads.

Homecoming Queen: Interesting in a faded-flower kind of way. And Georgia sort of owns this one with her lady-like demeanor and her hard-times-in-Hollywood persona. Allegedly Georgia wrote this song as well and I like it much better than "Las Vegas Blues."

Cryin' Time: My very favorite track on the whole album. Not just because  Sonny & Cher did the song as a single circa 1966 and it was included as a bonus track on the 1999 re-release of The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher. Not just because you can really hear Cher doing backups strongly on this track. But because Cher and Georgia really sound great together here, better than the duet even. Also, the song is a more twangy country selection that seems like a happy compromise between Cher and Georgia's voices. I love it!

While listening to the tracks, I thought a lot about mother and daughter vocal differences. About genetics in vocal chords. About learned performance and what it says about the cultural time during which each woman developed her vocal style. Why one succeeded and the other did not. Beyond perseverance, beyond talent. Georgia's voice is pretty. Cher's voice is hip. Georgia can sing in a more "professional" manner but Cher's can emote.

I played the album for Mr. Cher Scholar who was a young 1970s country fan growing up in Kansas and is a current alt-country aficionado. He loves Mike Stinson and we've just discovered Stinson's 1960s alter-ego Sonny Throckmorton. We've been watching all the old RFD country shows like The Porter Waggoner Show, Pop Goes the Country (which I LOVE), and the awful Nashville on the Road. I swear Jeannie Kendall of The Kendalls is doing a Cher impression every time I watch her Pop Goes the Country appearances.

I was having trouble placing Georgia's delivery style. At first he said her songs sounded like Nashville pop of the 1970s but then he decided that the songs had more of a 1940s/50s country sound and that Georgia most reminded him most of Norma Jean, the original girl singer on The Porter Waggoner Show (before Dolly Parton arrived). Singers like Patsy Kline, Kitty Wells and Norma Jean had a very toned-down delivery, almost bland-sounding judging by today's sparkle and belting.

Mr. Cher Scholar and I talked a lot about Cher's "it" factor and what the heck that was. Cher isn't so neat with her notes after all. But fame requires an act of salesmanship (even Sonny would tell you), what many call sincerity or authenticity but what I prefer to call "soul," a kind of cool polish or (in the case of someone squeaky clean like Doris Day or Karen Carpenter), selling yourself as the genuine article (hip or square). Mr. Cher Scholar thinks it's a package of many variables that work together to create charisma.

Cher.com has some great artwork posted about the album. By the way, Cher.com is looking much better! Check out the browser tab title logo! Is this what Cher meant when she mentioned her new blog? It sort of reads like a blog.

And The Huffington Post talks about how the new album has charted. You can buy it on iTunes or CDBaby.

 

Not Bad for a Shy Girl

Earlycher2
Oldgal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you to Cher scholar Laurie Dudley who pointed out that Cher has hit a new milestone today: she has been recording for officially 50 years! Not bad for such a shy gal.

Laurie says:

"…pleasingly, Cher's release history now officially spans 50 years from
backing vocals on "Be My Baby" in 1963 to Georgia's album in 2013."

After this post, I'll be downloading Georgia's album and watching the TV appearances over the next few days. I won't be back to post until mid-May due to our big celebration here for Mr. Cher Scholar's graduation. I'm very proud of Mr. Cher Scholar. He's now an official archaeologist. Now I have to clean the house before my mom gets here next week.

Enjoy the Cher stuff everyone and I'll see you on the other side for some explication and scholarin!

 

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector

SpectorIn my stack of to-dos I have a post-it note with the title The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector and for the life of me I can't remember who recommended this to me. Was it Cher scholar Dishy, JimmyDean or Robrt? Was it someone at work? Anyway, I watched it yesterday and it's a BBC documentary from 2009 which aired between Phil Spector's mistrial and his final conviction for second-degree murder (not premeditated) that same year.

To me the death of Lana Clarkson is a very complicated whodunit, a legit mystery with a dangerously broken man at its center. There seem to be facts supporting his conviction and facts supporting his innocence. I don't feel this documentary clears up the matter at all. The movie only confirms one thing, Phil Spector was looking more and more like Penny Marshall throughout his trial.

The film inter-cuts video footage from his first trial with clips of his greatest musical moments. Commentary about his oeuvre and brilliance is set as text which you try to read while court dialogue plays at the same time. It's very confusing to catch it all. But the commentary on Spector's "little symphonies for kids" is actually very good, the best part of the movie. The interviewer also handles Spector well and gets some semi-sane conversation from him, mixed with a bit of grandiosity (Spector compares himself to Da Vinci, Galileo, Gershwin, Miles Davis and Irving Berlin) and conspiracy theories (he thinks his enemies from the 1960s and 70s are involved in his latest troubles and is needlessly jealous of Bill Cosby's honorary PhD). But it's not so easy to write Spector off as a lunatic because he has completely lucid, smart and valid things to say about his career. Although he's bitter and a mess, he's right on some points.

It was weird to hear him talk about MTV because I thought he was already a shut-in by the time I was watching MTV. In fact, I was surprised to hear he had met a woman at the House of Blues. I'm too reclusive to frequent House of Blues. What the hell was Phil Spector doing there?

There are about 101 shots of Phil Spector looking like a sad sack, put upon by the system. Testimony to the power of film, this almost drew me info full sympathy with him until I reconsidered all the problems with this documentary and Spector's case:

  • The film too obviously sympathized with Spector. It's in no way a balanced look at the situation. The director asked leading questions, in some cases attempting to give sympathetic answers to Spector, like providing him with a good alternative reason for wearing his hair in an afro to court appearances.
  • The court footage is too highly edited to favor Spector. Court testimony supporting his innocence was given more weight and time than evidence against him: Lana Clarkson's bad, black-face audition reels are dwelt upon whereas a string of former girlfriends with their horror stories of him holding a gun to their faces or mouths were all collaged together in a sweep that implied this wasn't important testimony. Clips chosen of the prosecutor and judge made them look flippant and conspiring.
  • Surely Phil Spector wasn't allowed to comment on the details of his trial but this becomes a big problem for the documentary. Spector never addresses any remorse over the fact that a woman died in his entryway. He is also unable to discusses his history of violence (which includes infamous stories of threats with guns in recording studios, in Ronnie Spector's book and from a plethora of old girlfriends testifying). He complains that if a celebrity is well-liked, the media won't talk about their dark pasts and uses William Shatner as an example, implying Shatner got away with something (the drowning of his third wife) because he's popular. Which is all very possible but that argument implies Spector is equating himself with someone (Shatner) who is getting away with some crime. Is this Spector admitting he's committed a crime? The "other celebrities get away with shit" defense if very creepy.
      
  • There is evidence to his credit: his white coat and his body did not have any evidence of blood
    spatter or gun residue which should have been all over him unless he cleaned up quickly. The direction of the head wound could have been self-inflicted and
    Lana Clarkson was in the midst of a life crisis and hinted at being suicidal. On the other hand, after the shot was fired, the chauffeur saw Spector run out of the house, gun in hand, saying to him, "I think I killed somebody." Lana was sitting on a chair in Spector's entryway with her purse strap over her shoulder. So nothing is conclusive. On the outside, it looks like the director, Vikram Jayanti, made a judgement call based on his admiration of Spector's work (which is weaved throughout the film).

In the beginning of the movie, Spector wonders how his life would have been different had his
father not committed suicide when he was 6 years old. I also wonder if Spector would
have become less bitter if he had simply recorded himself instead of producing a string of other
artists he didn't respect. To his credit and as the film shows, many of those artists couldn't
replicate the greatness of his records in their live performances. If Spector had recorded himself
and caught what he felt was the deserved credit and adulation….who knows.

Why did women keep going home with Phil Spector? Why did Phil Spector keep finding himself in dysfunctional relationships with women. Why didn't Phil Spector retire into a nice career as a music critic or as an elder statesman of music?

Be warned, there is some sad footage of Lana Clarkson taken by House of Blues surveillance, gory testimony described and her death scene photos are shown, albeit at a distance from the top of the staircase (a staircase from a grim-looking, dark and dated Phil Spector house, a death scene that looked the the entryway of doom).

It's hard to find a moral in this sad, sad story. I guess maybe the "teaching moment" would be if you have a history of playing with guns and scaring women, make sure no woman ever dies from a gunshot wound to her head in your house…like ever. Because karma will f*#k with you.

The posting I watched yesterday has already been taken down due to copyright issues, but you might find a new posting of it by searching for it on the tubes. Phil Spector has spent his time in prison appealing his conviction. His last appeal was denied in 2011.

 

Album and Children Updates, Old Video and Photo

TwiggyHere is an old photo of Sonny & Cher and Twiggy that popped up on the Internets recently. What clean hair they've all got.

Cher has been tweeting that she has finished her album and this was picked up by many news outlets including The Huffington Post and ABC News Video with the headline, Cher Reaches Out to Young Stars After 12-Year Break.The video remarks that Cher "has made as many comebacks as a Clinton." Ahem…I rather think the Clintons are still in the process of having a Cher-like number of comebacks…if you do that math.

In the same tweet-span, Cher also talked about visiting Chaz in a musical on a break from final album tweaking:

…went to see Chaz in an unbelievable musical! It was so funny and everyone was great! Got home at 12:30…

Chaz is also breaking out in the news cycle this week due to stories about his 60-pound weight loss. The UPI story.

 

CalendaroutfitI have a long list of video links that I've been meaning to talk over. This one I love for many reasons. According to the post where I found this opening clip of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, "I Need You" is from Episode #28 which aired on November 10, 1972. I don't remember having seen it before. But those outfits I remember because I had a calendar when I was a kid and one month was devoted to S&C in these outfits. I kept the calendar page all these years. That's what a Cher hoarder I am. It's nice to see the video that reminds me of my Cher hoarding problem. Secondly, the video is full of classic Sonny & Cherisms: hair flipping, tongue rolling, wardrHandsobe issues, rocking back and forth, singing to each other (I've noticed Dolly and Porter never so much as looked at each other), Sonny with his hands on his hips, Sonny with his paws all over Cher (see right), lots of whoos, Cher mocking Sonny, Sonny & Cher laughing at some inside joke and lots of polyester perfection. For all these reasons, I consider this video High Period Sonny & Cher.

 

American Idol Duet Rumor

LlRemember the rumor that Cher would be performing on The X Factor last December? Well now there's a rumor that eliminated contestant Lazaro Arbos wants to do a duet with Cher on the finale of American Idol because Cher is allegedly a fan and has connected with him on Twitter.

Remember when Cher was going to duet with Britney Spears on the Grammys? If I had a dime for every music show Cher was rumored to be going on, I would have about one-hundred dimes.

If Cher goes on a reality show, that will be news.

Read more at Cher News.

 

Album Delays Makes the Place Behind My Eyes Hurt (& Steve Martin)

ChertofansCher, left, talking to her fans.

So it would seem Cher's album is delayed until fall and this is making the spot behind my eyes hurt not because I can't live without a new Cher album this month, but because we have to keep talking about it coming out all this much longer. They say in "new marketing" that you should create a buzz for your product on social media before it comes out. This is a good case study about how that can fall apart if the product doesn't come out on time. If Cher were just silently working on a new album, we wouldn't have a fan meltdown and we wouldn't have a Cher meltdown, one that may or may not have been either legitimate or dishy depending upon who describes it.

I don't know but I just need to lay down.

The Cher-Album-Delay Twitter stories:

Contact Music took the shout-down more literally, "Cher confirmed it will now be moved back until after Summer in an angry reaction to fans…Cher expressed her disappointment in further Tweets, which have since been deleted." But Idolator said it was "all in good fun" (ah, yes) with tweets like "AM OLDER THAN FIRE,& TWICE AS HOT !"

SmSigh.

Anyway, let's talk about me. I am the first one to say I would like a new Cher album about now because Mr. Cher Scholar and I are going through a shitty time with our transition out of Santa Fe, New Mexico. But I will have to console myself with my 40-something other Cher albums and the other billion or so consumer products at my disposal, starting with the new a new DVD my friend brought me a few weekends ago, Steve Martin: The Television Stuff. I loved this DVD so much I wrote a 7-page essay about it for Ape Culture. Not only do I think early Steve Martin work was ironic and brilliant, I draw a direct connection between his meta-stand-up and the ironic Generation X meta-writers Dave Eggers, David Foster Wallace and Douglas Copeland.

I've talked occasionally about how Steve Martin was a writer on The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour and friends with Teri Garr. He talks about this in his book Born Standing Up. In the DVD commentary of this set, he talks more about being a TV writer for The Smothers Brothers, Sonny & Cher and Cher, saying it was always his hope to become a regular comedic actor on one of those shows but it never happened. I once mourned that fact that Martin's humor never made it to Sonny & Cher skits, but now I think his own stand-up shows were exactly where he needed to break out and maybe The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour was not a good fit for his kind of abstract pieces.

This week Cher scholar Dishy sent me a 45 of a song I had never heard before, Sonny singing "I'll Change." Later I found this clip of Sonny singing "My Way" which I sent to Mr. Cher Scholar to cheer him up today. It worked.

CherpantsLet's all look at Cher in some silly pants and vow to get over these dramatic obstacles in our lives.

Cher at British fashion designer Gareth Pugh's fall-winter fashion presentation

Cher at Gareth Pugh's show and her tweet about it

Another story about the Pugh show

Cher shopping in Paris with Fergie

More Cher shopping with Fergie: Mr. Paparazzi says: "We love a random celebrity friendship, and here’s one that is particularly so….She and Cher hit some of Paris’ most upmarket boutiques and were obviously out to splash some cash; they left one designer store wearing a completely different ensemble than the ones they entered it in."

See? The world isn't coming to an end.

 

TV and Album Stuff Upcoming; Good New Cher Remix, New S&C Cover

WwCher Album News

So it's already March and there is no build-up going on for a new Cher album. There are only rumors she will perform at next year's Grammy awards (but didn't she say that last year?). Sure enough, her latest twitter reports indicate that the album may as yet be unfinished. 

GPhilly put it well as a tack-on to her tweet about all these delays:

Pop goddess Cher took to Twitter over the weekend to talk about her new
album, tweeting, “As an artist whose last release was 11 yrs ago!I  want
2 sing my heart out! Some think I haven’t sung because I no longer
Can..Its is why I’ve taken so Long..I want it 2B perfect.” The release
date is scheduled for not-soon-enough.

GayStarNews reports on another tweet regarding the album:

'All the songs in this CD have notes so high only dogs will hear them!'
Cher claims. 'Notes should go lower as singers get older. Ahh…well… You
Haven’t Seen the Last Of Me blew that! Think those are my highest notes?
All of the songs on this CD have choruses that are nose bled/break
glass notes!'

Both Cher World and Cher News reported on Cher's comments about the new DJ Mz Poppins remix of "Woman's World."

Cher called it "Truly Superb!…don’t know how she got vocal only??" Cher also said “Had To
Hear It JUST One More Time ! You Rock’n It With Those STRINGS MZ”

Cher World says, "In my opinion it is by FAR the best remix of Woman’s World, much better
than the original remix from Paul Oakenfold.  This version is unique and
makes you feel!"

I totally agree that this remix pumps some life into the song. Although the ubiquitous drum beat intro to these remixes truly fatigues me in my old age, I like the stronger driving main beat and the weaving synth…all which detracts from the lackluster lyric. Her remix also gives the song distinctive movements, specifically halfway through with "Love hurts" we slow back down for a rebuild. All mucho interesting. The DJ Mz Poppins remix can be found here.


CmTurner Classic Movies

Cher News has been faithfully following Cher tweets (it's truly the Lord's work) and reports Cher's news that she will be returning to TCM in April to co-host a Friday night show with "Robby" Osbourne.

John and I just watched The Caine Mutiny (1954) with Humphrey Bogart this weekend on TCM. I love that movie. It foreshadows Jack Nicholson's infamous breakdown in A Few Good Men and has a great scene with José Ferrer dressing down his clients in the final scene. There is no clear villain in this movie. You actually feel bad for Lt. Queeg.

New Acclaimed Sonny & Cher Cover

American artist Mark Koelek released a solo album this month called Like Rats which includes a cover of Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe." Lindsay Eanet in Black Book Mag gives it a good review:

Mk"Mark Kozelek Covered Sonny & Cher and It Is Beautiful…

…one of the standouts here is the stomach-dropping closer, a simultaneously
gentle and devastating take on Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe.” And how
quickly the warm, fuzzy Sonny and Cher classic
turns into a spare, heart-wrenching tale of desperation, of a broken man, down
on his luck, clinging to the one thing he has left in this life: his babe. This
is how you do covers, people
. Kozelek is a reminder that covering a song can
actually still be an artistic statement and really create the song anew as
opposed to just making overly precious folk versions of rap songs for YouTube,
perky college a cappella arrangements or soulless, grinning Glee soundtrack
reproductions. And thank God for that."

Never has "I don't know if all that's true" sounded so desperately resigned. You can buy the song on iTunes.

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