Category: Music (Page 26 of 37)

VH1 Has a New List of the 100 Greatest Women in Music

April 26, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 8 Comments

In the year 1999, Cher was listed at #43 in between Sheryl Crow (44) and Dionne Warwick (42). Now it’s 2012 and she has moved up to #31 between Fantasia (#33) and Sade (#30).

What’s amazing about this is that she’s moved up over 10 spots even after the luster of 1999 and the single “Believe” have worn off.

Not bad for a woman who’s not very good at singing. (See Gregg Allman comment in previous post)

Some notable commentary:

Comedian BD Freeman: “I love Cher. Who doesn’t love Cher?” (The Allman clan)

Comedian Chuck Nice: “The 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and the new millennium, she’s had something on the charts. That’s almost 50 years!” (That is actually 50 years)

Comedian Ari Voukydis: She’s not just part of music. She kinda is music.”

Tori Amos: “Cher has been able to show people that as she ages, she’s still sexy and sensual.”

Simon Doonan of Barnys NY: “The Cher legacy is ginormous.”

I can’t wait for the 2022 list! At this rate she’ll be #19!

Cher TV Performances in Iconic Mackie Outfits

April 13, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Perusing the new TV videos online, it's been great fun catching some iconic Cher outfits.

Remember the black and white jig-jag doll dress with a white feather headdress?

This is the adult version with black feathers.

Cher sings "Just for a Thrill" on The Sonny & Show Comedy Hour.

I call this look macrame-head.

Cher sings "Working Together."

Remember this dress from the back cover of the All I Ever Need is You album?

Cher wears a fringed white halter top and long slit skirt?

Stared at that picture for many hours while listening to that album as a kid in the 70s.

I wished this outfit had been made into a doll dress. She sings "Aint Misbehavin’"

Strike a pose!

My favorite Cher dress of all-time, from The Cher Show in the mid-70s, Cher singing "Aint Nobody's Business."

Loved the fringe and lace overlay over the satin purple, the neckline showcasing some shapely armpits (hey, if you got em).

The dress really moves.

70s Heaven: More Video and David Geffen

April 4, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 4 Comments

Cher sings the Bread song "If"–a most unfortunate choice to play in your wedding if your wedding happened in the 1970s and 80s.

This is the most hilarious hair style on a Cher TV solo spot…even she looks pissed off about it.

The lyrics of this song really make me nuts, even when I was a preteen and particularly disposed to the sappy effects the song conveys:

If a picture paints a thousand words than why cant I paint you
(who says you can’t?)
The words will never show the you I’ve come to know
(sounds like a You problem)
If a face could launch a thousand ships than why can’t I launch you (No!)…than where am I to go?
There’s no one home but you; you're all that’s left me to.
(You’re all what’s left me to what? You shouldn’t end on a preposition for all this vagueness: that's all you've left me to)
And when my love for life is running dry, you’ll come and pour yourself on me
(Like in a nagging way?)
If a man could be two places at one time, I’d be with you
Tomorrow and today, beside you all the way (tell it to the judge, rock star)
If the world should stop revolving spinning slowly down to die (WTF!)
I’d spend it all with you and when the end was through
Then one by one the stars would all go out (this is NOT romantic)
Then you and I would simply fly away. (you think so if-boy?)

The song is mercifully only 2 and a half minutes long.

In this clip of "I Got it Bad and That Aint Good" you see a promo cover of the Bittersweet White Light album (can I say–this was a particularly poetic title for a Sonny-produced Cher album, or any Cher album for that matter). The clip also contains the I-got-it-bad wig.

This is a clip I remember seeing in the 1970s, Sonny & Cher singing "Delta Dawn." For days I circled the house singing the chorus over and over again. My lucky mom. Sonny is really rockin it here….but it sounds like they turned his mic off before the end. And that….is quite a shocking bit of yellow.

Romancing the Cher

Good Hollywood Reporter story that appeared back in February about David Geffen: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/grammys-cher-david-geffen-289539

New Old Video

March 23, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

There’s been a surge of cool stuff showing up on the YouTubes. I have a whole list of things to discuss but we can start with these three items:

Here is one of my two favorite Sonny & Cher show duets, "Stagger Lee/Rip it Up" from the early 70s Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. I love that song "Stagger Lee" and they really do a swell Sonny & Cher version of it. The bright lights, the big stage. It's all good.

Sonny & Cher singing "Two of Us/We Can Work it Out" from their 1976-77 The Sonny & Cher Show. I loved this one so much after I saw it again on VH1 or Nick at Nite back in the 1990s, I wrote a poem about it. They look so glamorous and happy.

I love the part where Cher’s earring dives for the deck and Sonny gives her a teasing smile.

So the following bits are a bit timely of late, seeing as the comedian Gallagher just got out of the hospital. Remember his silly watermelon bashing bit? Well, Cher did that act five years earlier with the Jack-o-matic, the Wonderbat, the Brick-o-matic, the Mug-o-matic. On the Cher Show in 1975, Cher did a recurringly unfunny skit called Donna Jean Brodine showcasing tools for the new housewife which were basically many forms of sledgehammers for any task. Since this event predates Gallagher’s Sledge-o-matic debut on television by at least five years, why doesn’t anybody mention this? I guess it’s not the kind of comedic bit you want to take credit for. They’re both southern characters doing fake infomercials and even both borrow the “o-matic” trope.

Her outfit for the skit recently sold at Julien's for a whopping $4,500.

Is This Cher?

February 28, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 5 Comments

How tragic it is to be a Cher-collectible-completist. You have to buy crap like this.

The only interesting aspect of this CD release of This Is Cher is the timing of it; coincidentally this is the flagship compilation for Cher Zine 3.

And it has to be one of the cheapest re-issues of a re-issue I've ever seen. Not even a liner note or so much as an album-credit inside. Don't even expect a picture of Cher.

I should have known by the cover art which looks more like a karaoke release than a real Cher CD.

These crap-compilation/re-issues just junk up the Cher Universe.

Christmas with Billy the Kid

January 7, 2012 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Sigh. Life continues to get in the way of Cher schoalring. For Christmas, Mr. Cher Scholar and I headed down to southern New Mexico to visit the Billy the Kid locales of Fort Sunmer (where he was kilt) and Lincoln (where he made his brazen escape). Then we headed to Roswell for the night. Sadly, my Uncle Ben (really my Dad's cousin but practically an Uncle to me) passed away on Christmas Day and the funeral was set for the following Wednesday. So we decided to head home, on the way seeing our remaining sights of Carlsbad Caverns and White Sands. Mr. Cher Scholar poses to the left with Billy the Kid; Franz poses below on White Sands snowy beach.

In the meantime, I've been saving up a few links from friends.

Cher groups at Yahoo posted this link to USA Today's own version of the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame –the fashion edition and Cher sits here with some reputable company: http://mediagallery.usatoday.com/Women%27s+role+in+rock/G2245?csp=lfmpg

Cher scholar Tyler sent around this interesting link — a story about one-time Cher Show and Sonny & Cher Show writer Iris Rainer Dart who wrote Beaches with Cher in mind. Oh, how sweet that would have been.

In fact, she was apparently the only female writer on those TV shows, saying,

"she had to prove her mettle, mostly by "not crying," even when criticism was rugged. Brutal honesty was the name of the game and no one was too concerned with hurt feelings. Still, as the sole woman on the show, she had a close relationship with Cher, who ultimately became the model for the lead character in "Beaches." Initially she had hoped Cher would play the part in the film version, but in the end it went to Bette Midler."

And finally, Cher scholar Dishy was kind enough to recall my frustration that not enough non-"Believe" Cher mashups existed in the Universe and sent me this new mashup, Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" mashed with "Song for the Lonely."

I so love mashups. I really do.

Bric a Brac

October 12, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher’s new single, “The Greatest Thing” has turned into a duet with Lady Gaga. And the world is agaga waiting for it. It’s being tweaked even as we speak. The new album is set for Christmastime but that sounds like a hard deadline to meet when they might still be recording tracks.

The movie Zookeeper came out on DVD and Blu-ray yesterday.

And Cher-scholar Rob sent me a great copy of Cher and Gregg Allman singing “Love Me” — see screen shot above.

A Real Farewell Tour

September 18, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 5 Comments

One of my favorite Cher covers of all time is her 1975 Cher Show cover of Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy."

Sad news was reported in the September 2nd issue of Entertainment Weekly. Glen Campbell is embarking on a true farewell tour (and final album). He's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.

Campbell had a rennaisance in 2008 with his album Meet Glen Campbell. His last album, Ghost on the Canvas, was just released this year to good reviews.

As you recall, Glen Campbell was a member of The Wrecking Crew, the studio musicians in LA who recorded with everyone involved in the Southern California sound, including Sonny & Cher (I wish that documentary on those guys would come out on DVD already), and Cher performed with Glen on both The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour in 1969 and on The Sonny & Cher shows of the 1970s.

Although now polar opposites in political speak, those crazy kids once had real duet chemistry!

One of their best from 1977 (stick to the end for the duet).

"And offers comin over the phone"
Glen: I got three offers today.
Cher: Just three, huh?
Glen: That's all.

Cher Sings the Hits

September 1, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 6 Comments

Thank you Cher scholar Robrt for reminding me of this most unfortunate compilation in your comment to last week's post.

It reminds me of a story. When I was a preteen, I found a list of Cher's ouvre in a record guide sitting in the entertainment section at our tiny B. Dalton bookstore at the mall. I secretly wrote the list out on an envelope found in my purse. Back then, you couldn't just peruse books with a cup of coffee like you can do at Borders (well before Borders went kaput). If you were caught reading something, you might hear: "Are you gonna buy that?"

With that stolen list, I was on a mission. My mother made my brother drive me from the burbs into the city of St. Louis to search the two local used record stores. It wasn't the bonding moment it would have been had I had a flamboyantly gay brother.

Soon, I found a list of more used record stores in the back ads of Rolling Stone magazine. Bingo! I hand-wrote letters to stores all over the country. I wish I had a copy of one of these dorky letters by my 10-year old self. Let me tell you, in the early 80s nobody was looking for Sonny & Cher records. Long story short, I was very excited to find someone in Indiana or some such place had a copy of Cher Sings the Hits. I was picturing an album of 60s covers. Okay so that pretty much describes any Cher or Sonny & Cher album of the 60s (give or take a few Sonny songs)…but I was imagining different covers, new covers. More hit-y covers. What I did not expect was another Cher compilation album of somewhat questionable hits like:

Alfie
You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me
Blowin’ In The Wind
Will You Love Me Tomorrow
Like A Rolling Stone
I Want You
Magic In The Air
Masters Of War
Catch The Wind

Ok, so some of those had been hits by other people. But clearly not all of them. And I took umbrage with the usage of the work the in the title, as if this indicated surely that these would be the definitive hits of the day.

Add to that the travesty that the album didn't even include a picture on the cover! Why did it exist?? It was my first moment of compilation dismay, heralding in a lifetime of more to follow. Do James Joyce scholars go through this? I don't think so.

Sonny & Cher Once Again

August 25, 2011 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

It's true I have an irrational fascination with the Cher-Compilation-Industrial-Complex. Secretly, I believe Oompa Loompas are in some factory putting these things out. This is an old rare one I've been hunting for many years…basically for the cover art….a painterly representation of Sonny & Cher. Now that I have it, I'm highly disturbed by it.

Hilariously, this MCA compilation, Sonny in Cher Once Again, was produced for Spencer Gifts in 1976. Any mall rat from the 1970s remembers the cheap gifts, sex games and back-of-the-store poster racks of their favorite mall store Spencers. The electronic puppy running into the wall at the front of the store? Where else could you get a pet rock? By the time I was frequenting their shelves, Sonny & Cher merchandise was long gone.

But back to this unusual cover art. The artist is not credited for some reason and the faces of Sonny & Cher are a bit off. Cher's lips and nose especially. Sonny looks more like Magnum PI, Cher like Lindsay Lohan. Secondly, their heads are taken from two completely different pictures…and you can kinda tell by the awkward positioning. Cher is from the back cover of the 1972 All I EVer Need is You album, the best S&C picture ever taken in my humble opinion.

I have no idea where Sonny's image was extracted from. That blue button down is totally unrecognizable to me. Especially without fancy embroidery on it. Does anybody know? The background is I guess some kind of a door opening into a large fern forest.

Once Again is a good name for a compilation from them. Other good compilation titles would be: Yet Again, More Random Selections from Sonny & Cher, You Haven't Seen The Last of a Sonny & Cher and/or Cher Compilation.

This is also a double album. It's got a mix of songs from their Live and Kapp/MCA albums…so you get "Train of Thought" bumping up on "Brother Love's Traveling Salvation Show" and "Half Bread" inbetween "The Beat Goes On" and "Song for You." It ends on "United We Stand."

I love their version of that song. I really do.

Category: Music (Page 26 of 37)

VH1 Has a New List of the 100 Greatest Women in Music

Cher TV Performances in Iconic Mackie Outfits

70s Heaven: More Video and David Geffen

New Old Video

Is This Cher?

Christmas with Billy the Kid

Bric a Brac

A Real Farewell Tour

Cher Sings the Hits

Sonny & Cher Once Again

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