Category: Music (Page 33 of 34)

Tickets are on sale now (and new wig alert!)

February 7, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 4 Comments

Hallelujah! Glory be the day! Merry Christmas and Bob’s your uncle! Cher is going to Vegas. Have a beer! Bear hug your dog! As Maurice Cavalier says in Gigi, "have a piece of cheese!"

Go buy your tickets!

I’m going to watch Cher on Nightline tonight and will purge some more thoughts mañana!

Note: She was also interviewed by on Good Morning America this morning by Cynthia McFadden who was friends with Katharine Hepburn. Found this out while I was doing two biography book reviews for Ape Culture.

See the Good Morning America video and article here.

And one last thought: never thought I’d say this about Cher as a blonde…but I LOVE THAT WIG. It makes Cher’s eyes look lovely and serene.

S&C on Hullabaloo and The Beat Club

January 17, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Whoops…I was wrong about the Sammy Davis Jr. medley last week when I was talking about Shindig. The Sammy Davis Jr. medley was from Hullabaloo and it was a Beatles medley. I blame my incomprehensible note-taking last December for the error. On Hullabaloo S&C join in the medley with "I Cant Get No Satisfaction" which just sounds silly. Later they join Sammy in singing "I’m Henry VIII I Am."

They also sing "I Got You Babe" live, Cher in one of her Good Times top and dancing with insane jerky movements.

My favorite of all of these 60s TV appearances has to be from The Beat Club. It’s so European! Cher is in a long-sleeved turtleneck. They sing "And Then He Kissed Me." The camera does a closeup of Cher’s moccasins and pans the small audience and I think kids today – err, yesterday! Sonny and Cher say something like "Danka" when they finish singing. This must be a German show. Those must be German youths. And are those bad German teeth?

Cher sings alone on "I Feel Something in the Air" – her head down like a morose teen. This is a very raw Cher performance. You know how the song (written by Sonny) turns in the middle? A sudden girl group song appears, then it’s a downer again with vague references to pregnancy, so vague as a poem it wouldn’t make it through an MFA workshop. I’m sure the kids were confused by it all but maybe not seeing as they were Germans. I like the crazy moodiness of the song and Cher is good at looking teen tragic. Sonny pops back in wearing stripes! Then the video cuts off as if Sonny’s outfit has caused apocalypse.

Sonny & Cher on Shindig

January 10, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Have Sonny & Cher ever played with the Stones?

Hell yeah!

This is my second installment on the fabulous 60s TV appearance DVD I received from a stranger in the mail after an eBay purchase: this is The Shindig Episodes.

On one episode we find S&C, Bobby Sherman, The Rolling Stones and lot of other peeps I didn’t know. First of all, Cher was in a jumper. A jumper! Sonny in a suit. They do a medley, a crazy jam…with the cast and The ROLLING STONES!

Totally happening! Super groovy!

Could this host, Jimmy O’Neill, (right) be any more dapper?

S&C don new outfits where they sing “We’re Gonna Make It,” a clip that has been making the rounds of email and Cher list postings over the last two years; I reviewed this clip back in November – the highlights:

Here’s a clip of Sonny & Cher singing "We’re Gonna Make It." Wow! First of all, didn’t we associate that song with the Allman and Woman album. Sonny & Cher did it too? Just like "You Really Got a Hold on Me." Was Cher trying to recreate Sonny & Cher with Allman duets? It seems so beyond comprehension…or did Sonny & Cher cover so many friggin songs it would be impossible not to re-cover her covers? …it would be hard to top this version. Bobby Sherman, that ridiculous dance, the screaming kids, the sudden appearance and disappearance of backup singers (if it wasn’t the 60s I’d think they were CGI’d in there), Sonny going absolutely crazy at the end. Wow!

The clip has since been taken off YouTube. (sad face) Find it…it’s unlike any other S&C clip I’ve ever seen. Back in November, fellow Cher Scholar, Robrt Pela of the Arizona New Times among other things wrote to say:

I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW THIS CLIP COULD POSSIBLY EXIST.

I mean, this looks way early, circa "Look at Us," and it just doesn’t make sense that they would use crucial TV time at that point to do a song that a) they hadn’t recorded and b) therefore weren’t promoting.

How is this clip POSSIBLE?

This DVD brought me the answer to that very important and mysterious question: why indeed were Sonny & Cher wasting valuable airtime to scat? And Robrt was very astute to recognize the clip as a promotion for their first album. I look at all these 60s videos and get confused. Unless i see her bangs starting to grow out (see top pic) and only then I can identify it as late-decade.

Anyway, this was filler material for "I Got You Babe" promotion. S&C do "IGUB" later in the show…with props. Cher is in one of her Good Times outfits, the ruffle-covered bell bottom outfit from "Trust Me" where she skips around LA. Interestingly, this Shindig performance of "IGUB" is excruciatingly shortened and you don’t see Cher’s face for much of it.

Sonny then sings "Laugh At Me." At first I thought it was his usual bad lip-syncing but then I realized he was trying to sing over the record! (Cher Scholar shakes head)

In another Shindig episode, S&C star with Aretha Franklin, Marianne Faithful and The Kinks. I don’t remember any groovy American-Idol style medley but I do remember Sammy Davis Jr. making maudlin over current hits. Marianne looks completely uncomfortable and bored. S&C sing "It’s Gonna Rain" and Cher sings "Dream Baby" – both are sung live. I’m surprised how often "Dream Baby" was promoted on Shindig and Shivaree.

In the next segment Sonny dresses like Caesar and Cher like Cleo. I couldn’t place the song for the life of me but Cher looks great in her dress and they’ve got ‘a look’ even with her stringy hair and their big noses. It’s fun to see Sonny make her laugh.

Then the host, Sammy Davis Jr., introduces the pick of the week, "IGUB," calling it a masterpiece and outa sight. Cher wears her union-jack-fit. Why does Sonny shake his head like that when he sings. Cher has an epileptic moment at the end and then PDA. Eewwww!

To cleanse yourself, you may want to look for Cher in this long ABBA retrospective video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz_1g9kwBUM

Although Shindig Cher clips are not available at the moment on YouTube, here is a hilarious Rollings Stones clip from around that time: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXb5UL0dwLc

And before I was mentioning Teri Garr was a dancer on Shindig and Shivaree. Here’s a pic (I think she’s on the far right).

Sonny & Cher on Shivaree

January 3, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I purchased an item on eBay late last year and as a very special gift (RONCO anyone?) I received a DVD of old 60s Sonny & Cher appearances on shows like Shindig and Shivaree. Was I in heaven?! I kept looking for Teri Garr go-go dancing in the background (as she worked on these shows as a dancer between 1964-1966). I still think it is odd that Garr worked for years for Sonny & Cher in the 70s and never once mentioned running into them on those 60s shows. Because it seems like they made a ton of appearances there.

I’ll just start with the Shivaree episodes this week which were grainy on my DVD copy but wonderful to see nonetheless, amazingly raw. (The dancers are pitiful on this show, by the way.)

I watched two episodes with Sonny & Cher, one where they sat back-to-back singing “Just You” and then stood on a balcony full of dancing teens to sing “Sing C’est La Vie.” Cher wore a very conservative shirt, similar to what she wore on the album cover of Look At Us. Which is, quite frankly, a bizarre thing to see — Cher in a normal teen piece of clothing. Nothing hippie-like or scandalous about that green t-shirt.

Cher also sang “Dream Baby” solo on one show (in some funky, skin-tight paisley pants) and “All I Really Want to Do” with some equally funky Cher-style dance moves. She seems very shy and young in these clips but does fine without Sonny. At the end of the Cher-solo episode it’s fun to watch the credits where you can see Cher dancing in a crowd of guests — in what looks like the last moves of anonymous carefree-ness she would ever make. So un-self conscious.

Watch the YouTubes:

Sonny & Cher doing “Just You”

Cher doing “Dream Baby”

Cher doing “All I Really Want to Do"

I can’t find the Shivaree credit clips or the "Sing C’est La Vie" clip which is too bad because it’s ridiculous when the MC camps as a Frenchman. By the way, when I was first chatting with my bf almost three years ago on match.com, I found out he was a former Proust scholar. We hadn’t met yet mind you and he was such a effortless and enthusiastic emailer. I thought he was gay. Heterosexual men write really dull emails IMHO. Anyway, I told him Sonny & Cher were once really into the French. And he said he had, coincidentally, just borrowed a copy of Sonny & Cher’s greatest hits at the library and he was very bemused by the song "Sing C’est La Vie." I found copies of it all over the YouTubes:

Sing Cest La Vie the video!

On Barbara McNair

On Mike Douglas 1969

Happy New Year!

January 3, 2008 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

Take a deep breath everyone; it’s a new year. Last year was pretty good I must say, bumps aside. Took some good trips, made some money for a change, experienced career advancement, published some poems, made some pots, blogged about the Chermeister.

Ugh. I hate when people do that to proper names. I really do. Please accept my first apology of the new year. So far, it has been an uneventful one. My boyfriend (who stuck with me through the last weeks of moving drama) was sick over New Years just as I was starting to get back into the groove after the move from Venice to Redondo Beach. I was a whiny lump of exhaustion the whole time. We now have a yard (a patch of grass just screaming “I need a dog”), a garage to store all my Cher crap in and an extra meditation/martial arts room. Ahhhh – so nice! Only bad news: no kitchen counter space. My mother will be upset when she visits this year but we will deal.

This was my major Cher-thought over the holiday as I was listening to The Very Best of Cher (I played it about seven times — very much a coping exercise as I was hauling my own furniture down the Pacific Coast Highway in Bluebelle, my Chevy Cavalier.

The Cher-thought: Who would have guessed a match up between Cher and Giorgio Moroder would turn out to be so boring? I’m speaking of the song “Bad Love” of course from the Foxes soundtrack. I mean, what a kewl early-80s match-up to be made in a post-disco-pre-new-wave sort of heaven? It was such a particular musical era between Donna Summer and Duran Duran, a time where Flashdance was king Cher was mostly MIA. What a dud that song turned out to be. I don’t blame the songwriting skillz of Cher (which I kind of dig, frankly) or Moroder-magic. Solid building blocks for something off the charts, right? Am I right? I guess the irony is these gargantuan parts managed to sabotage the actual sum of those parts.

Sadness and How It Makes Me Soft on Elijah Blue

December 7, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I’ve been steeped in sadness this last week over my move and sudden unexpected (and profoundly disappointing) interpersonal dysfunctions in relation to said move. I’ve been watching YouTube Cher videos to cheer up.

First , S&C singing Little Man – look at those hilarious earrings: are they fuzzy dice? I love how intimate S&C seem in this video, how even then Sonny is trying to fix Cher’s hair, his wacky suit and how in love and in sync they seem at this moment in time.

Cher sings Fire in Monte Carlo – I truly love how that dress moves.

Sonny & Cher Mike Douglas Interview from early 70s

Part 1; Part 2 and Part 3

Watch what a bad job Sonny does lip syncing and his follow-up comments about being a better producer/writer than a singer – which is remarkably different from the interview he did as Cher’s guest on The Mike Douglas show in late 70s where they tell him he should continue producing and he says he wants to perform. I think he must have missed all the spot-light rigmarole and hullabaloo.

Next S&C sing The Beat Goes On – oh those hilariously animated French people. I love Cher’s hair swinging around in this one and her crazy hippie dancing.

Insane Cher wig alert! Cher is such a better lip sync-er than sonny.

To prove what a sad state I’m in, I actually enjoyed this Elijah interview from earlier this year. I chalk it up to not being in my right mind. It still irks me that Elijah can’t give Cher artistic cred. I know its hard in comparison to his Dad (who has built-in-coolness) but it would be so truly antagonistic (since it’s his job to be an antagonist – which is an interesting idea) to give his mom some props beyond pop lite throw-off compliments. Undercore is an interesting term, the constantly moving edge. I’m not sure I can connect it yet to what I’ve seen from Deadsy and I’m still uncomfortable with his critiques of women’s value and intelligence as he has not yet proven himself to be brilliant.

Here he is on Howard Stern late last year. I actually like Howard’s show, exactly because it takes the piss out of celebrity interviews and inverts the power structures of those interviews. We see Elijah shares the Cher trait of abbreviating names needlessly. Paris becomes Pare. It was also interesting (in a kind of icy way) hearing Elijah describe living in a Cher house, where there could be 50 people roaming around and you wouldn’t see anyone for days. That’s so fucking depressing. (I think that’s my moving stress talking). Elijah had good words for Cher’s boyfriends: Rob, Gene and Tom Cruise. Tom Cruise? I thought that was just a rumor. I feel all like Mrs. Spencer Tracy now. “Katharine Hepburn: I thought you were just a rumor.” Snap.

The Internet, Video and Links

November 1, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

I don’t feel much like blogging today but here goes. Yesterday as part of a work excursion I attended part of ICANN’s (Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers) 30th public meeting. You probably don’t know ICANN (and their name isn’t very sexy for sure) but they do things like run the Internet – make sure it works and isn’t hacked into and all that sort of thing. It was fascinating – the three session I attended.

The Internet is one of those things you take for granted but is so crucial to life in the modern world. My favorite quote from the meeting was from ICANN-ite George Sadowsky who said “All forms of human behavior have moved to the net and magnified.” And he went on to say how that included both good and bad forms of human behavior, saints and thieves. Do you consider how important the Internet is to your modern life and how crucial it is that it doesn’t break down?

I definitely feel mentally exhausted today. The energy there was calm but intense and now my brain is completely fried. Just listening to the translations was exhausting but very cool.

I’ll just leave you with these links for thoughts…

Cher single "Believe" was huge. Least we forget how big it was, this Today in Music article coves the basics, how it was the dance record of the 90s and probably the biggest selling dance record of all time.

Here’s more news on Cher swearing on TV and whether or not that’s a good thing or a bad thing according to US courts. Ugh! I wish this story would just go away! I’m so friggin over it already. Grant on Ghost Hunters says "What the Frig!" all the time and I think it’s so funny. My bf said yesterday that he was suffering from a bad case of the friggits.

Here’s a clip of Sonny & Cher singing "We’re Gonna Make It." Wow! First of all, didn’t we associate that song with the Allman and Woman album. Sonny & Cher did it too? Just like "You Really Got a Hold on Me." Was Cher trying to recreate Sonny & Cher with Allman duets? It seems so beyond comprehension – how could we have considered it? Or did Sonny & Cher cover so many friggin songs it would be impossible not to re-cover her covers? Of course, Cher and Allman didn’t make it, Sonny and Cher didn’t make it either but it would be hard to top their version. Bobby Sherman, that ridiculous dance, the screaming kids, the sudden appearance and disappearance of backup singers (if it wasn’t the 60s I’d think they were CGI’d in there), Sonny going absolutely crazy at the end. Wow!

This last clip is about a Joni Mitchell impersonator. It’s tone irked me…a lot. The article begins by indicating how high class it is to be a Joni Mitchell impersonator and how that possibly elevates the act to cabaret. First of all, you could argue that a Joni Mitchell impersonator is even more ridiculous of an act than a Cher impersonator…that is if you think impersonations are ridiculous in the first place which you probably do if you’re a close-minded Joni Mitchell fan. Then there’s the implication that other impersonators are of a lower-caste, being reduced to hand out pamphlets on the streets of Provincetown to their shows because “Ms. Mitchell appeals to far more rarefied tastes.” I can personally attest that you can be both a fan of Cher and Joni Mitchell. (I have her collected lyrics in my library for frig’s sake!). This was a subtle Cher-shaft in action and I had to say something.

The picture above is Bar Ilan University‘s map of the Internet. The Internet. What an awesome thing. Just this one post has brought us a blog conversation, a youtube video, factual information on a pop song and potential opinions blossoming out of billions of brains worldwide.

New Sonny & Cher Compilations

October 28, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 3 Comments

September 2007 gave us two new Sonny & Cher compilations. I was a little hesitant to buy Forever Sonny and Cher by Warner Custom Products because I could find no picture online. I’ve been burned before on these fly-by-night compilation CDs. But then it arrived and I was so excited. The CD comes in a tin! A Sonny & Cher tin!! Glory-be! The booklet inside is pretty spartan (considering it comes in a tin!) and spells Cher’s last name Lapierre and calls her an aspiring singer. But there was a picture in there I hadn’t seen before with Sonny & Cher lying on the floor of their house, Sonny in what looks like snake skin boots. This is one of those rare pictures showing Sonny in mustache and Cher still in her 60s bangs.

The compilation itself however is a bit crazy. The tin (a tin!) comes with three CDs, all with different labels, the last one being extra copies of that bad compilation from the 1990s All I Ever Need is You – a title which still confounds Allmusic guide. They think the 90s compilation is the same as the original 70s studio album. See, they’re not so smart.

The first two CDs catalog some S&C 60s hits but is by no means comprehensive or educational. Sprinkled in are some sub-hits and a few B-side rarities ("Good Combination," "Have I Stayed Too Long," "Love Is Strange" and oddly one of Sonny’s LP songs "Revolution Kind"). And there is an unusual representation of S&C songs from their freshman album Look At Us. The third disc picks up with S&C in the 70s and is the aforementioned left-over copies of All I Ever Need Is You including the misleading error that you will hear a version of "United We Stand" live. Back in the 90s I was so excited to read that when I plucked the CD out of a Tower Records bin in Yonkers, New York. But it was just a lie.

Disc: 1
1. I Got You Babe
2. Little Man
3. Just You
4. Good Combination
5. But You’re Mine
6. Beat Goes On
7. Have I Stayed Too Long
8. Beautiful Story
9. It’s the Little Things
10. What Now My Love

Disc: 2
1. Baby Don’t Go
2. Laugh at Me [Sonny Solo]
3. Living for You
4. Love Is Strange
5. 500 Miles
6. Revolution Kind [Sonny Solo]
7. Let It Be Me
8. Unchained Melody
9. Then He Kissed Me
10. You Really Got a Hold on Me

Disc: 3
1. All I Ever Need Is You
2. Cowboy’s Work Is Never Done
3. When You Say Love
4. Mama Was a Rock and Roll Singer and Papa Used to Write All Her Songs
5. You Better Sit Down Kids
6. Crystal Clear/Muddy Waters
7. Beat Goes On
8. I Got You Babe
9. United We Stand
10. Bang, Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)

The tin compilation however turned out to be quite normal compared to Sonny & Cher Classics released by Rhino Flashback records. This one is compilation very similar to the one Rhino Flashback did a few years ago I Got You Babe with S&C playing bongos on a red and white checkered background. This compilation spells her last name La Piere and contains only one S&C hit: "Baby Don’t Go." The other hit is Sonny’s "Laugh at Me" and the rest is a few aforementioned B-sides similar to the other compilation and again lots of Look At Us material.

At the end of the day these compilations make no sense, have no cohesion and contain negligible rarities.

Disc Tracks:
1. Baby Don’t Go.
2. Laugh At Me
3. Living For You.
4. Love Is Strange.
5. 500 Miles.
6. Revolution Kind, The
7. Let It Be Me.
8. Unchained Melody.
9. Then He Kissed Me.
10. You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me.

But I do enjoy rediscovering "500 Miles," the song they did made famous by Peter, Paul & Mary.

It’s Gonna Rain and the Sun Isn’t Coming Back…Ever

October 18, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 1 Comment

YouTube Master Tyler posted a link to Sonny & Cher singing "It’s Gonna Rain" — consider that this was going to be their first single if Ahmet Ertegun had won the first-single fight with Sonny. This video brings up these thoughts:

It’s interesting to me that Sonny would write a song like this living in a city where it never rains.
Sonny is terrible at lip syncing, worse than Britney.
This is the only part of the movie Wild on the Beach you ever need see.
You wouldn’t break a sweat dancing like Sonny & Cher. It’s a dance that says I’m groovy yet bored.
That woman dancing in her chair – too funny. I’m gonna try that out the next time I hit the clubs. Because I like dancing. But not as much as I like sitting.

I found these other links under related links. I wasn’t sure what they all had in common at first and then it occurred to me: they’re all weather-related Cher songs.

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Mix

The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine from Top of the Pops

Master of YouTube

October 12, 2007 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher fan Tyler is the master of YouTube. Over the last few weeks he has posted some fabulous links to the Cher Yahoo! Group. Speaking for myself, I am like a kid in a candy shop on YouTube. When I start surfing Cher videos, I soon get hyper and start foaming at the mouth as if overdosing on SweetTarts. Soon I’m on Ritalin with no TV privileges.

Glen Campbell’s Good Time Hour
I loved this clip so much I went out and bought the whole DVD. This is an early 70s Cher appearance on Glen Campbell’s variety show (yes, everyone who was anyone had one). And it’s an amazing thing. They sing Dylan’s “All I Really Want to Do” and punch life into the dern thing. Never before have I dug this song so much, has it seemed so buoyant. I love the horns! It also shows Cher in pre-TV-show innocence, slacky hair, not much confidence with the camera, and all that innocent clapping. Also of note is the easy and casual relationship between Cher and Glen. It’s lovely to watch. And his set! Is that a bed they’re sitting on? That would be scandalous! Is this some swinging bachelor pad he’s lured Cher into? All I really want to do indeed. I don’t buy it for a minute. I’ve seen his Surreal Life lair!

Live in Monte Carlo
I haven’t seen this whole show from start to finish, I’m very sorry to say, only clips and chunks. Maybe someday the Monte Carlo Gods will smile upon me and I will snag a bootleg copy. In the meantime, Tyler posted a clip of “Easy to Be Hard.” I’ve heard versions of Cher singing this song on both a bootleg of this Monte Carlo show and on out takes from the Jackson Highway album. And I have to say I just can’t get comfortable with Cher singing it for some reason. There is something too pedestrian about those lyrics (I love this song, by the way – have the Broadway and Movie soundtracks to Hair…but I love the movie version the best). Cher seems too exotic to pull it off…no matter how down to earth she may be behind closed doors. It just feels funny. I like all the copious amounts of audience shots in this live special, however. What are they eating do you think?

We also have “Take it To the Limit” from the same show. Is that Cher sweating?? Cher sweats??? I don’t believe it. See for yourself.

Celebration at Caesars
Then there’s the Celebration at Caesars version of “Take it To the Limit” which we’ve all come to know and love.

The Tonight Show
But here is the gem: The Tonight Show version of “Take it to the Limit” circa 1983 (not sure on that date). This is the most yummy version ever in the whole world-wide tarnation of Cher versions of this song. The outfit so perfect for the Vegas show, so brazen for The Tonight Show. Her phrasing and singing on this version are almost perfect. And that pink 80s makeup is so…well 80s!

Cher sings another Eagles song on The Tonight Show, “Those Shoes.” I can’t believe they got that big shoe moved all the way over to the Burbank studios. Kudos! I love how the dancers come out of the wall. It doesn’t have the sexy lighting of the Vegas version but its fun.

These clips give me hope for the next incarnation of Cher in Vegas, if it ever arrives next year. Maybe she’ll have a big bolo tie this time or a big loafer or (dare I dream?) synchronized dancing!!

Here a video I found myself, one of my favorite things in this world. “I may not win…but I can’t be thrown!” No one can sing that like Cher.

Category: Music (Page 33 of 34)

Tickets are on sale now (and new wig alert!)

S&C on Hullabaloo and The Beat Club

Sonny & Cher on Shindig

Sonny & Cher on Shivaree

Happy New Year!

Sadness and How It Makes Me Soft on Elijah Blue

The Internet, Video and Links

New Sonny & Cher Compilations

It’s Gonna Rain and the Sun Isn’t Coming Back…Ever

Master of YouTube

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