Category: Stage

Internet Cher Things (All the Things)

September 10, 2025 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

The big news from the last week was Cher’s appearance on 30 August 2025 to help her friend Cyndi Lauper finish out her farewell tour at the Hollywood Bowl. Unbeknownst to me, Lauper’s closing song for this tour, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun,” was paired with a set inspired by one of her favorite artists (and mine), Yayoi Kusama.

And not in a million years would I have been able to even drum up a fantasy of a Cher/Kusama mashup. But there it was. And the news went nuts. A sampling:

Rolling Stone
New York Post
American Songwriter
Classic Rock and Culture (what exactly is classic culture, btw?)

Oh and Joni Mitchell was also there (!) and SZA, John Legend, Trombone Shorty and Jake Wesley Rogers.

Clips are going up and being taken down as we speak. Apparently the show is being turned into a TV special so stay tuned on that. Fans who were there say Cher said “I’ll see you soon” which they took to mean a new tour. But it could mean anything.

Anyway, I thought it would be a good time to do a news rollup of articles (old and current) I’ve come across over the last few years that have been stuck languishing in my phone’s browser tabs. I had over 200 tabs open as a kind of to-be-read-later list. Now that I’ve culled out all the Cher articles and dead links (pages and even whole websites now gone), I’m down to 124.

Sigh. I categorized them.

Movies

Let’s start with this young YouTube film aficionado who does video reviews, in Cher’s case her whole oeuvre. Nora! has watched every Cher movie and talked about the experience, all of which is interesting. I mean just hearing how young Cher fans see Cher movies differently than we did in the theater. Also, Nora has interesting thoughts about even movies we don’t enjoy, like Faithful. Spoiler alert: she liked it. I equate this to my thoughts about the movie Suspect. Sometimes there’s a fan out there who sees something nobody else does.

Nora astutely notices (and why haven’t we?) how Good Times is basically Sonny’s movie with Cher appearing only as a minor character. (To answer her befuddlement about this: it’s because he pretty much wrote the thing.) Nora calls out Chastity for having a “nothing story” and “no real plot,” that it’s just basically “Cher walking around and pontificating” which pretty much sums up that movie. But she gives those films redeeming points for Cher fashion.

Nora comments on what an uphill climb it must have been for a pop icon to become a serious actress because “society doesn’t let women be complex and multi-faceted.” Truth.

She finds a “weird looming element of racism that is never explained” in Silkwood. I completely missed this (and can’t even locate it in memory) and so I will watch it again to see what I can see. She calls out Silkwood’s “extreme de-glamming effort” on Cher. She focuses on “the emotional stuff” in Cher’s performances and quotes the L.A. Times in noting Cher’s ability to reveal depths underneath. This is helpful for me when trying to figure out how to write about Cher in her movies, not being a film critic and all.

It’s interesting to see how a younger person scoffs at the whole Cher, Sarandon, Pfeiffer love-lines plot in The Witches of Eastwick (“how three queens fall for Nicholson”) . As Gen-X kids we did not do this. We remembered Jack Nicholson as a sexy younger man and I guess we just started to suspend belief as he aged. Huh. Likewise, the character played by Dennis Quaid in Suspect annoyed her in ways that were novel to me. His audacity. We focused on the improbable illegality of his behavior, but not his audacity with Cher.

It’s great to hear Nora enthuse about Cher’s “career-defining role” in Moonstruck and the balance she struck between comedy and emotion. She calls Cher’s ability to continue with parts after the age of 40 in the 1980s an “astonishing accomplishment.” She expresses surprise at the good reviews of Mermaids because it “seems like the kind of movie male critics love to hate on.” This I think speaks more to the increasingly misogynist manosphere Nora grew up around as opposed to male critics writing in the early 1990s. Asshole Male wasn’t such an institutionalized thing back then. (As Nora says earlier, “Lord, give me strength.”) She rightly notes the shifts in roles Cher gets after Mermaids, how Cher begins to play her own persona. And Nora is right to call the plot of Tea with Mussolini meandering but as a kind of memoir, maybe that was unavoidable. She ends the video in talking about Cher’s unique sense of agency in show business.

Nora also did some great research on Cher’s press at the time of her movie releases and I tracked down some of the articles she sourced and quotes from:

Let the Oscar Sweepstakes Begin! Our Fearless Forecasters Predict Who Will Will, Say Who Really Should (Washington Post, 9 April 1988) – I’ve always said Cher is not as popular in Los Angeles (her hometown) as she is in New York. I take that knowledge just from having lived in both places and attended multiple Cher concerts in both places at different venues (including the Broadway musical). The difference in enthusiasm is palpable, my favorite NYC overheard quote being “That Cher! I just love her!” L.A. is, ironically, too snobby for Cher. This article explains, for one, how the best movies rarely win Oscars. It’s a great overview of how the Oscars really work behind the scenes. It also articulates why Cher always gets snubbed by L.A. (and double the irony, she didn’t this particular year): “But, again, the overwhelming grass-roots response to “Moonstruck” — and Cher’s own fairly heavy media barrage — has all but eclipsed the early positive feeling for Hunter. Also, with “The Witches of Eastwick,” “Suspect” and “Moonstruck,” this is thought to be Cher’s year — especially since she was snubbed in 1985 (remember the Spider Woman dress?), when she was left off the list for Mask. Speaking of that dress, the only possible fly in the ointment here is that Hollywood is not really crazy about Cher. Yes, they think she has talent (finally). Yes, they respect her drive and determination to break through as an actress. But the sentiment is that she is too independent, too outspoken, too, well, tacky. They’d much rather give the award to Meryl Streep or Glenn Close, because even if they’re playing bums or psychos, those perpetual Oscar-baiters still have class, taste and legitimate acting credentials — all the things that appeal to Oscar’s sense of snobbery. And all things that Cher gloriously lacks.” And all which seems very rock and roll to me but oh wait…she’s usually snubbed there too.
“The Cher Conundrum: The Oscar Winner/Pop Diva/Exercise Goddess Talks About Acting, Relationships, Being Fortysomething and Other Serious Stuff” (Los Angeles Times, 3 November 1991) – This is a great article to follow the preceding because it further underscores how Cher is treated in L.A. by reporters who are just not that impressed. This is a particularly tough interview that pushes back on almost everything Cher says particularly about why she isn’t making more movies, and the conclusion of the piece seems to be that it’s due to a perfect storm between parts Cher turned down, difficulty with a few directors (Mask, Suspect and Mermaids), the infomercials (which historically have taken the most heat on this issue), and the fact that Cher just didn’t love the process of making movies. The interview then gets into comments about difficulties Cher was having with her mother (Georgia situations which occasionally used to show up in interviews but surprisingly were all but missing from the memoir last year). The article also misspells the name Sonny. Oy.
“Cher: ‘Women have always been sex objects and always will be’” (The Guardian, 7 November 2013) – I struggled on whether to put this in movies or music because it talks about the Closer to the Truth album and the legacy of “Believe” but also about the movie Burlesque. And it even occurred to me to consider what she was wearing for the interview: sweats or jeans (movie interview) or leather jacket, fishnets, tiny skirt and biker boots (music interview). But that felt reductive. And the comments about Burlesque were what Nora was referring to in her review.
More movie articles from my phone:
“10 Powerful Movie Quotes That Deserve More Recognition” (Screen Rant, 17 August 2025) – and the quote discussed is “Everything Is Temporary. That Don’t Excuse Nothin’.”
“The best singers turned actors of all time” (The Week, date unknown) – The article doesn’t really say why. Just that these people have skills in both areas. And that this is rare.
“Cher rejected Eric Roth’s biopic script” (Film Stories, 1 March 2024) – More news than scholarship but hey, it was hanging out in my phone. All I will add is that there are music stars and there are film stars and then there are films about music and film stars.
“7 Things You Didn’t Know About ‘Mask,’ Cher’s 1985 Breakthrough Film” (Remind, The Home of Nostalgia, 8 March 2025) – and yeah there were some things in the article I did not know.
“Guardian writers on their ultimate feelgood movies” (The Guardian, 22 July 2025) – In a list that begins with Big Night, Rushmore and Amélie, I assumed Cher’s title would be Moonstruck would be the listed movie and was painfully wrong on that assumption. Here’s the link to the article’s full review of Burlesque by Guy Lodge where he agrees was a “less-than-seminal 2010 musical…a film with precisely zero complexities to unparcel, that exerts a strangely forceful hold on me just the same.” Also of note is the inclusion in this list of The Towering Inferno, which sticks in my mind because in Sonny’s book he talks about taking Raquel Welch to that movie on a date (after they met at a Christmas party hosted by Cher) and that they both agreed to leave early because they thought it was a terrible movie.
While I was putting this together, I found another good one: “Cher movies: 15 greatest films ranked worst to best” (Gold Derby, 17 May 2025) – they get the top four right.

Music

Dark Lady by Cher Dollmation (2022) – very cool dollcreation.
“Texas judge blocks Ten Commandments in public schools with epic ruling that quotes Sonny & Cher, Kurt Vonnegut and Billy Graham” (The Independent, 20 August 2025) – Wow.
“Top 10 Sonny & Cher Songs” (Classic Rock History, 2020) – top 4 are good. “It’s the Little Things” should be higher. A few factual errors.
“Top 10 Cher Songs of All Time” (Classic Rock History, 2025) – Odd list. I don’t even think #10 is Cher’s best Diane Warren Cher song (the subject matter was already handled better by Elvis Costello, for one). “Take Me Home” at the top but no “Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves” or “Bang Bang”? Tsk tsk.
“Cher’s 30 Greatest Songs–Ranked!” (The Guardian, 18 October 2018) – a good interesting list that goes through all the years and all the things and puts “Gypsies” up on top.
“Cher’s 10 greatest songs ever, ranked” (Smooth Radio, 20 May 2025) – while I was compiling this list I found another song list.
“The 150 Greatest Albums Made by Women, Shocking Omissions: The Resilient Reinvention of ‘Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves” (NPR, 20 September 2017) – the album “was written to showcase and cultivate her signature contralto and the title track became her first No. 1 hit on Billboard Hot 100” (as a solo artist). “It even scored her a Grammy nomination for Best Pop Vocal Performance” (losing to Carol King’s Tapestry). The song “presented a darker, more powerful Cher, whose strength lies in her embodiment of the character.” Even Cher’s dislike of the song does not deter this writer (Désiré Moses), who said, “that’s exactly the sentiment that makes Cher, well, Cher.” Right! We’re under no obligation to agree.
“It Has Stood the Test of Time: 1971, The Greatest Year in Music” (The Guardian, 22 May 2021) – Cher’s album or song is not in this article but it’s a good one to read after #7 above because it was one of those unforgettable songs of 1971.
“In Praise of Cher, the Self-Proclaimed Betty White of Rock and Roll” (Salon, 29 May 2021) – This one is by Annie Zaleski, the same rock journalist who did the write up for Cher’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee program essay and this year’s picture bio, I Got You Babe, A Celebration of Cher (which I still need to blog about). Great writing as always, “Although Cher is often viewed through the lens of a comeback narrative — among other things, she had to extricate herself from a bad business relationship with her late ex-husband, Sonny Bono, as well as climb back from solo career nadirs — this has softened into her being positioned as a beacon of resiliency.”
“The Number Ones: Cher’s ‘Believe’” (Sterogum, 4 July 2022) – “Less than a minute into her improbable comeback smash, Cher shatters. The moment happens when she sings the line ‘I can’t break through.’ On the word “can’t,” Cher’s voice atomizes, breaking into a billion tiny little shards, before coming back together. She sounds like a glitching-out robot, or like a kid singing into a fan. All throughout ‘Believe,’ her first #1 hit in a quarter-century, it keeps happening. Cher’s voice falls to pieces, and then it resolves.”
“Cher’s secret pop history: The massive hits pop icon sang backing vocals on” (Gold Radio, 13 August 2025)
“Cher Sells Range of Music Assets to Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group” (Music Business Worldwide. 2 August 2023) – “Cher is the fifth-ranked female artist with the most Billboard US Hot 100 charted singles….Cher is one of the world’s best-selling music artists. Launching her career in the 1960s as part of Sonny & Cher, the superstar made unprecedented strides in what had long been a male-dominated industry. Cher has sold more than 100 million records. Her three-year 325-show world Farewell Tour from 2003 to 2005 played to more than three million fans and became the most successful tour ever by any female artist.”
“Cher On Making Her First Holiday Record” (Billboard, 6 October 2023)
“Cher Talks New Christmas Album” (People, 11 October 2023)
“Cher, 77, on her six-decade career: ‘I’m some sort of freak’” (New York Post, 20 October 2023) – NYC loves Cher. “…when it comes to taking on Mariah Carey for Christmas queendom: ‘I’m not gonna take over that spot,’ she said. ‘I’m kind of out of my league there.'”
“Cher’s Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Performance Interrupted” (Entertainment Weekly, 23 November 2023)
“Cher Scores No. 1 Song on a Billboard Chart in Seventh Decade” (Billboard, 30 November 2023) – This article is in my phone because I sent it to my brother last week after my sister-in-law sent me a Cher drawing from the Canfield Ohio Fair and I asked what the art category was and my brother said “has-beens.”
“Cher’s Christmas Album Tops the Charts” (NPR, 4 December 2023)
“Cher is Heading to the Metaverse with ‘Christmas’ Roblox Event” (Billboard, 8 December 2023)
“25 Years Ago, Cher Released a Song That Would Change the Sound of Pop Music” (NPR, 19 October 2023)
“Should Cher Have Cancelled Her own ‘Offensive’ Song?” (The Telegraph, 5 September 2024)
“Rock Hall Inductee Exhibit: From Cher’s glamour to Frampton’s guitar” (Axios Cleveland, 11 October 2024)
“Cher facts: Songs, age, films, husbands and children of the Goddess of Pop” (Gold Radio, 23 October 2024)
“Miley Cyrus’ Bright, Effervescent Cover of Cher’s “Believe” Is Vocal Nirvana” (NBC, 21 October 2024)
“Decades Before Kellyoke, Cher Covered a Dazzling Range of Songs on Her Weekly Show” (Billboard, 30 September 2024)
“Cher Returns Half Of Her Career Hits To The Same Billboard Chart” (Forbes, 27 November 2024)
“The One Song Cher Couldn’t Live Without” (Far Out, 18 January 2025)
“I’m Not a Cher Fan: why Cher desperately wanted to be like the Eagles” (Far Out, 9 February 2025)
My own Cher interview with Robrt Pela on KJZZ (NPR Phoenix) – of course I kept this in my phone.

Concerts & Stage

“Michael Keaton’s disastrous stint as Cher’s opening act: ‘It was death‘” (Far Out, 10 November 2024) – this was interesting.
“Cher and share alike: three actors star as the singer in musical that turns back time” (The Guardian, 20 April 2022) – review of the UK musical…still in my phone. There’s an interesting video in the article about the creative team for the show.

Style and Beauty

“Cher at Home: The Goddess of Pop’s Domestic Life in 22 Photos” (Architectural Digest, 15 August 2025) – I had this bookmarked twice. The first version of the article was only 15 photos apparently.
“Inside Cher’s Stunning Malibu Mansion” (Show Biz Cheat Sheet, 5 January 2022) – “Every day when I wake up and look out my bedroom window I’m never not amazed.”
Sonny & Cher’s former home rentable from Airbnb for allegedly around $600 a night.
“Cher’s 31 Most Iconic Looks of the ’70s, From Dazzling Dresses to Bold Bodysuits” (InStyle, 26 June 2025) – There’s a 1960s outfit in the list and at least one from the 1980s. Sigh.
“Cher’s 10 Best Looks of All Time, Hand-Picked by Bob Mackie” (Variety, 20 May 2021) – Too bad we didn’t see that unicorn outfit. And interesting he puts in the duct tape TBT-fit in his list considering…
“Designer Bob Mackie Didn’t Want Anyone to Know He ‘Had Anything to Do’ With Cher’s Iconic Bodysuit” (US Weekly, 26 January 2025)
“Cher and Bob Mackie on Over 60 Years of Iconic Looks” (Harper’s Bazaar, 11 October 2024) – “For the past six decades, Cher has been living in our collective minds rent-free.”
“Turn Back Time Like Cher with Her 5 Beauty Secrets” (Women’s Health, 26 June 2021) – There’s a sign-in wall. I never did see the five secrets.
“Cher’s Take on The French Manicure Features a Glitzy Detail” (Marie Claire, 25 October 2023)
“77-Year-Old Cher Has Eaten Like a Blue Zoner for 30 Years. Is That Her Secret?” (VegNews, 26 September 2023)
“Bryan Adams photographs Cher, Grimes and Iggy Pop for Pirelli calendar” (The Guardian, 5 August 2021) – Remember that happened??
“Cher is Inducted Into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Leather Platforms at the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Induction Ceremony” (Yahoo! Entertainment, 19 October 2024) – There were plenty of seen-in-that-outfit news stories in the last few years, but this is the only one I left in my phone.
“Cara Delevingne, Cher and Jodie Turner-Smith Celebrate Burberry Flagship Reopening” (Variety, 23 October 2024)

Food

“Cher’s Mom’s Cheesecake Is Impressively Easy” (Parade, 2 December 2023) – but this review links to a non-existent Allrecipes page. Even allrecipe’s own article about it has vanished. But another site has archived it so…. I’ll be blogging about this later after I make it for the Cher food page. Another mention I just found, “The Heartwarming Story Behind Cher’s Favorite Cheesecake Recipe” (Mashed, 26 November 2023)

News & Tabloid

“Cher Mourns Ex Husband Gregg Allman” (Rolling Stone. 27 May 2017) – Yup. still open in my phone.
“Queen Elizabeth Death: Cher Appears to Refer to the Queen as a Cow” (All over the press, 9 September 2022) – Well, they are little emojis and hard to see clearly for the elderly. I’m sure there is someone in the colonial world who was calling the Queen a cow; it just wasn’t Cher. Cher’s rebuttal.
“Cher Posts Thirsty New Pic of New 30-year-old Boyfriend and…whoa” (Queerty, 24 November 2022)
“Cher Relists Iconic Malibu Mansion with a $10 Million Price Cut for $75 Million” (People, 4 April 2023), A.D. version (21 March 2023) – Why does this house keep going on and off the market?
“Cher Opens Up About Her New Cherlato Business: ‘It Was A Labor Of Love’ “- Remember Cherlato, the new perfume(s), Sanctuary, Aquasentials? You gotta take advantage of these Cher ventures when they come up because they disappear fast. (I have a few regrets.)
“Cher “Only” Averaged $6 Million Per Year Throughout Her Career, But It All Adds Up” (The Things, 24 September 2023) – Only? wtf.
“Celebrities Partying in the ’70s: Photos” (Esquire, 10 January 2023) – I’m sorry, any list of 1970s debauchery that excludes a photo of Margaux Hemingway (particularly at Studio 54) just isn’t worth its margarita salt. This exact photo below was indelibly etched into my childhood imagination forever as illustrating precisely what 1970s debauchery was…the drink between the legs, the facial expression…
Whenever I try to pose debauchery, as unconvincing as it is (and this is one of my favorite Mary Tyler Moore Show quotes that I can relate to: “I might not have been around, but I’ve been nearby“), this is the pose I attempt.
“Cher hired men to kidnap troubled son Elijah Blue Allman from NY hotel as he tried to save marriage” (New York Post, 26 September 2023) – Only the family knows about all the things in this story but Cher being vindicated this summer is not so happy news.
“Cher’s son Elijah Blue Allman responds to conservatorship filing: ‘I am well, and able’” (NBC Los Angeles, 29 December 2023)
“See Photos of Cher with Her Sons Chaz Bono and Elijah Blue Allman Through the Years” (People, 28 December 2023) – Some sites tried to focus on the positive aspects in their capitalizing on that story.
“Cher Says She’s Living ‘in the Moment’ with Boyfriend: ‘It’s Never Too Late’ to Find Love” (People, 11 October 2023)
While looking for the link above, I found this one: “Cher Says Younger Boyfriend Alexander ‘A.E.’ Edwards Doesn’t Get ‘Most of My References’” (People, 24 October 2023)
“Cher, Who Turns 78 Today, Says She’ll Celebrate By “Putting My Pillow Over My Head and Screaming”” (Marie Claire, 20 May 2024)
“Kevin Costner Sits Next to Cher at SNL50 After His Epic Reaction to Her Recent Performance at Radio City Music Hall” (People, 16 February 2025) – Kevin Costner sits next to Cher…and it’s news.

Two takeaways here. One, there are many more news stories out there than any one mere Cher scholar could keep up with.

And two, the categories of this list are a good study itself in demarking the areas of Cher’s cultural influence (in real time surfing the Internet). And the spread of articles across each category is telling in where the most interest seems to rest.

Although I would correct that in saying the articles in the movie section are the most laudatory, so even though that category is small in number the section is still pretty packed with cultural value.

Cher Scholar’s Deep Thoughts

June 24, 2025 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Cher is going through some family stuff right now. The Johns and I were driving up to a family reunion in northern New Mexico last week when I saw the news on my phone, that Elijah was in some more drug trouble. I remember thinking to myself days later, this is going to push back an already-rushed Memoir 2 schedule and we’re going to need to be okay with that.

Sure enough, Cher Universe reported last weekend that the memoir is being pushed back to May 19, 2026. Not the least of our problems right now. Anyway, let’s not dwell about sad Cher-family things.

Dark Lady, The Unlikely Musical

Happily I recently created a Broadway page on Cher Scholar. Last week, Playbill announced a new Cher musical called Dark Lady, this one aiming for an Off-Broadway run.

The Cher Show musical (on tour now) tells the biography of Cher through her hits catalogue (which was a challenge since very few of her songs are autobiographical) and I contend was worthy for its direct message to fans and women about working through fear and Cher’s candor about how difficult parts of her life were.

But this is a new fictional musical possibly using many of the same songs.

There was supposedly two private, by-invitation-only, industry presentations held on 20 June in NYC with a presentation cast, directed and choreographed by Sara Edwards. They story was written by Mike Sheedy.

Ok let’s just stop here for a minute to talk about Mike Sheedy because there is a story here. (Today has been nothing if not adventures in show-biz research on search engines.) My new Brave search engine found nothing on this man. Zippo. Google (secondary searches only) pulled up this amazing story on him from 2015. He’s a family practice doctor from Chatham, Illinois, who wrote this musical and has been trying to get it produced since 2008! It’s based on something he wrote for his daughters to perform at a party! “I discovered a story line in her songs,” he says. “I used 23 Cher songs to create a musical called ‘Dark Lady.'”

What a smooth Dad move! I love this guy! The more I read about this the more I’m 100% in favor of it!!

According the Playbill story, the musical follows a young gypsy on a wagon train who has a fortune-teller mother, a preacher father and two friends of various hair colors. “It seems safe to assume the score will include Cher’s 1971 hit, “Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves.” (Playbill writer Logan Culwell-Block quipping there.)

Some Broadway aficionados are already sniping that The Cher Show didn’t do well enough to warrant another Cher jukebox musical. “Broadway61004” posted on Broadwayworld.com on 20 June at 10:41am: “I was about to say ‘why does someone think another Cher jukebox musical is needed when the first one did so poorly’ and then I saw Ken Davenport and it all made sense.”

There’s a snipe in there about this man’s production record so I researched him this morning, too. Davenport produced Barry Manilow’s ill-fated but bravely produced (considering the subject) Harmony musical most recently. He also did Cyndy Lauper’s Kinky Boots which won Tony Awards for Best Musical and Best Original Score and Davenport has a list of plenty of other awards and Broadway successes so…why the shade?

No news on when the show will open. Maybe it depends on how well the presentations went.

Meanwhile, Cher World has also been hinting about some major Cher news on July 8.

Has anyone started to notice the trend in social media Cher accounts: Cher World, Cher Universe, The Cher Planet….we now just need a Cher Galaxy, a Cherlandia, the State of Cher, and a No Cher Country for Old Gay Men. (Ok, I’ll stop.)

But here are some other things to keep us preoccupied for a little while:

Compilation of John Wilson’s Cher cartoons: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S66oBEhaKSU
Compilation of the WarnerBros/Phil Spector Cher singles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nkdKRLjoxA
Cher’s narration of the Ugly Duckling story: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltLX8BdeMQA

Fan Theory

I’ve been gathering a decade’s worth of notes on pop-culture theory for a Cher book. They’re organized by subject type and I picked fan theory to start with so I could turn over all my books to the Intro to Anthro podcast team who are working on a future show on fandom. (I have now moved on to film theory.)

But fan theory is very fascinating: how do people become fans of things, what are the kinds of fans? We all have grandiose ideas around taste but it’s really all about peer groups and identity building.

I made some buckets for myself to categorize how fan-y people can get (with my own examples):

Things you happen to come across and think are great (Dolly Parton, Bryan Cranston performances). You make no effort to find more of their stuff but appreciate each thing you come across and tend to proselyte about it.
Things you like enough to consume “the best of” that thing (Patti Labelle, Ben Folds). You are no completist but you know a lot more than someone who isn’t a fan.
Things you try to be a completist about (Haruki Murakami novels, Vincent Price). You’ll complete the series or all of the albums, movies or books in an oeuvre but then never feel compelled to do that ever again. Things for which you can say, “I once got really into The Muppets.”
Things you are a completist about and consume over and over (The Mary Tyler More Show, Cher).

Not all of these things are about identity building. Some are just escapist fun. For example, I like to read haunted house novels but I’m not a part of any horror-loving community. And what does contribute to identity-building sometimes has nothing to do with its intensity level. For example, I can trade in on my Bryan Cranston fandom (as in “I saw Bryan Cranston perform in Network on Broadway”) in ways to offset how people may harshly judge my intense Cher fandom. My Cranston fandom is not intense, but it’s useful you see?

It’s all about this thing called “social capital.”

Social Capital

Fans have this annoying tendency to use their knowledge about something in order to gain social standing, especially in the fan universe of that thing. Poets are the absolute worst about this, by the way. Worst of the worst. But it’s flagrant in pop-culture fandom, too. One fan-theory scholar used the fan universe of the TV show Quantum Leap as an example. The people who knew the most about the show gained social capital in their fan forum; they gained social standing among the other fans.

I have become highly aware of my social capital as Cher Scholar. I am reminded of this whenever I am contacted to speak as Cher Scholar or when I meet other fans who have visited my site and tell me they are fans of my fanning. I am also aware of my social capital in other fan environments.

For example, during Covid my day-job company started social forums on all sorts of subjects from cooking to pets to music. In each forum I found myself having to negotiate my social capital around that subject. You were acknowledged or ignored based on the dynamics of each group. I had no cooking experience but that group found me funny. I had some music knowledge but that group was overrun by male heavy metal snobs who only wanted to talk to each other. The book group dynamics went nowhere because everyone was conversationally challenged.

If you’ve been to any fan forum, Facebook page or attended a fan convention, there is invariably that guy (and many times a girl) who will be angling for social positioning as the top dog, maneuvering to get to the top of that particular heap ‘o fans based on their longevity in the group or the lording of arcane knowledge or just from a place of general snootiness.

I refuse to trade in on my own social capital or deal with anybody else’s. It’s a waste of everybody’s time. I tend to gravitate to the nicer fans (often the goofballs in the group). They are often the only ones I will engage with. It’s also why I put the term ‘Cher scholar’ before the names of all other fans I talk about on my blog. Because truly we’re all experts in different ways.

Academic discussion itself is a distancing tactic (I know; I do it). That’s also why I gravitate to the fans who squee (show exuberant emotion about the thing) for the opposite reason. It’s intentional lack of distancing, it’s demoted social capital. Besides, I have often found that it’s the popular kids who are always the least interesting. There’s not an adjective “extraordinary” for nothing.

Here’s another favorite example: during one of the old Cher Conventions in Woodland Hills, California, years ago a talk show crew showed up (I think it was Megan Mullally’s short-lived show) and they interviewed the organizers and hosted a trivia contest for the fans. Now I ran the trivia game for prior conventions so I had social capital in this area. But I did not play for various reasons including I hate all cameras and competitions. But a longtime Cher fan named Phil did play and I watched him answer questions from the sidelines. He missed only one question: “what does Cher consider her best feature?” He guessed her cheekbones. The show’s answer was her eyes. Fair enough. He came straight over to me afterwards to ask me what I would have said. I said I would have guessed the very same thing, her cheekbones!

The fact is we are on the same team, all of us Cher fans. We weren’t in competition with each other. And I think Cher fans in general are like this because they’re truly outsiders in so many ways, sometimes very difficult and dangerous ways. We need to stick together. There are some Cher fans who try to cash in on their social capital, maybe as writers of liner notes, authors or talking heads. But it’s not very extreme like it is for fans of other people.

The fact is, social capital really buys you nothing valuable (at least as a writer and at least outside of that fan bubble).

This all got me to thinking recently of the ex-wife of a friend of mine who trades in on the embarrassingly intimate secrets of her social group for her projects. She does this to position herself as a guru in order to try to gain social capital. And it doesn’t work very well for her, by the way, because you need knowledge, expertise (and a bit of charimsa) to be convincing as a guru. But this all seems to be a big part of her identity building. And that got me to thinking about Cher as a guru. Cher has published books and tapes on exercise and eating well and has traded in on her fame as a commercial pitchwoman.

But in almost every case she has had a real fitness, hair or beauty guru alongside her. She positions herself as a student, not a guru. The book Forever Fit had Robert Hass. Her exercise videos had professional dancers and trainers running the routines (Keli Roberts and Doriana Sanchez). Her skincare line had makeup artist Leonard Engelman. Cher never claimed expertise over something she hadn’t earned. Which is kind of unusual in the celebrity product world. And I think in some ways, her willingness to be perceived as a student and not as the top-dog has an affect on her fans.

Why do we position ourselves as gurus and superfans? I don’t know. I think it’s part of our influencer obsession. Nobody wants to be a real teacher (the pay is for shit) but everyone has a how-to or educational video on YouTube. And it’s not that they’re not often very helpful, both the YouTube gurus and the superfans. Their lifehacks and CD recommendations are often very valuable. It’s just the spirit in which their advice is offered which can be completely useless.

Being Ahead of the Curve

And then there are the fans who are ahead of a curve. This has it’s own social capital. Mr. Cher Scholar calls it being a “cool finder.” People take a certain pride in finding things before everyone else does, before things attain mass popularity or critical acclaim. To like something before it “hits big” has a special cachet. It says something about your taste and ahead-of-it-ness. You’re not a follower. You’re a leader. What older Cher fan hasn’t felt it when a whole new generation of Cher fans gets onboarded or whenever institutions and critics come around to Cher?

Many fans will abandon their subject when this happens. And they have both true and false rationalizations at the ready for when they do this. Usually they will say the artist or thing got commodified and has started pandering to the bigger audience. But the truth is that the very fact of being ahead-of-it was where their identities were building, not in liking the thing itself. They can say “it was better before x. y and z” all they want.

I call this the “As Good As It Gets” phenomenon. At the end of that movie, Melvin Udall gives this big, beautiful speech:

“I might be the only person on the face of the earth that knows you’re the greatest woman on earth. I might be the only one who appreciates how amazing you are in every single thing that you do, and how you are with Spencer, “Spence,” and in every single thought that you have, and how you say what you mean, and how you almost always mean something that’s all about being straight and good. I think most people miss that about you, and I watch them, wondering how they can watch you bring their food and clear their tables and never get that they just met the greatest woman alive. And the fact that I get it makes me feel good… about me.”

The last line is the most important: “and the fact that I get it makes me feel good…about me.”

Some fans abandon their subjects, yes, but since we are Cher fans and she’s been in and out of favor more times than practically any other artist, we’d get motion sickness trying to stay ahead of it. Plus personally I just love to be right. Like I really like it. And I can like it a long time.

It’s actually one thing to see somebody doing something great before others do. You also have to able to articulate what you see. Especially if it’s something non-obvious. Or sometimes you like an obvious artist for non-obvious reasons (Barry Manilow). And then you have to gain some kind of appearance of objectivity. This is important. I’ve worked over the years at trying to sound objective about Cher. There’s the academic distancing and the claims that I don’t consider Cher a role model or an icon, which is mostly true but not entirely true. I don’t like everything and don’t feel compelled to say I do.

The point is you can see the magic but you need to be able to articulate it, that something deeper about it. And you need to be able to make an argument.

Deep Thoughts

Deep thoughts can get you social capital after a time and can change how a subject is perceived. And I’m not the only one who’s been doing this for Cher, by the way. This whole thing is just basically fans talking about you in a deeper way than most fans tend to talk about you. Often it takes lots of thinking about pop culture and a few mad creative writing skillz and maybe a Lit. degree or some such thing where you had to learn to write papers explicating a cultural object and make an argument about it. (Room 237 is a great documentary about this practice run amuck).

The average fan is not suited-up for this. Nor should they have to be. Rob Sheffield’s deep thoughts about Taylor Swift in his book Heartbreak Is the National Anthem: How Taylor Swift Reinvented Pop and Wayne Koestenbaum’s Jackie Under My Skin: Interpreting an Icon are the best examples I can think of that are professional fan explications.

For Cher in the 1960s, 70s and 80s and 90s, nobody thought enough about what she was doing. Nobody put up an apparatus up to mull it over, gave it an area in which to ponder, a place to post their findings.

And for Cher I think all our work has helped a lot (as did the passage of time and Cher’s longevity) to raise her credibility profile. It was mostly Gen X fans who grew up with post-modernism and the willingness to talk about pop culture with the same consideration as high art. We were young students who understood pop art as a matter of fact. Highbrow was already considering lowbrow subjects and lowbrow subjects were already aiming higher and it’s all become swirled around together.

I’ve even come to think that good writing about an artist is more important than any accolade if only because accolades are not really all that specific. They never explain exactly why something is good or better.

Mr. Cher Scholar sometimes mentions that my Cher blog is about pop culture broadly and sometimes it is. Sometimes it’s also about Cher. And sometimes when I’m writing about Cher, I’m not really writing about Cher or pop culture at all. Sometimes I’m sending out subversive messages about myself. Or about you.

The Cher Show Musical in Phoenix

April 8, 2025 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

The Cher Show traveling musical is now in its second year around the U.S. The closest it has come to me has been Phoenix (or maybe Denver). And those cities are a 7-hour drive in either direction, far from really “close.” And this is not the kind of show I would travel farther than Kansas City to see. The first incarnation of the traveling show was set to come to our Popejoy Hall on the beautiful campus of the University of New Mexico here in Albuquerque where I have seen many other traveling once-Broadway shows.

But that whole enterprise was cancelled before it began due to COVID. The reboot show has not returned to Albuquerque for some reason. We get plenty of pop and rock shows finding there way to us as a second or third-tier market. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen Elton John (solo, bucket list) at Tingley Coliseum at the city fairgrounds (where my parents once saw Johnny Cash in the 1970s and where Sonny & Cher came to play), Bob Dylan at the Kimo Theater, Sammy Hagar and Don Williams at the surrounding casinos (Route66 and Isleta respectively). I have yet to visit our local amphitheater although I came close to seeing Elvis Costello on tour with Steely Dan there (I had seen Steely Dan already at the Riverport amphitheater, now Hollywood Casino amphitheater in St. Louis).

All to say I’m hoping The Cher Show comes to Popejoy in year three.

But I do have a few friends and relatives in Phoenix and one of them is journalist Robrt Pela, who you may know from previous Cher Scholar conversations and interviews. I decided to head out in that direction for the 28 March 2025 show at The Mesa Arts Center. I really wanted to see it again because the first time was mostly a Broadway blur.

While I was in Cleveland a few months ago moving my parents, Robrt and I did a Phoenix Magazine conversation about the show and then the day before the show we did another brief conversation at the KJZZ studio for NPR. It was the first radio station I’d ever been in and it looked just like any other office space. Later that weekend when I was talking about the experience to my cousin, she asked me what I was expecting and I said WKRP.

Unlike the 2022-23 British version of the tour last year (which had unique costumes, sets and assets), this show appears to be a simplified replica of the Broadway show.

We have a new cast and I’m now noticing the interesting combinations of characters played by single actors. These are the major parts:

1980s Cher, a.k.a. the Star (sometimes called Icon or Badass) played by Morgan Scott in her second year
1970s Cher, a.k.a. the Lady (sometimes called the glam pop star or the Smartass) played by Catherine Ariale in her second year
1960s Cher, a.k.a. the Babe (sometimes called the Kid or the Sweetheart) played by Ella Perez in her second year
Sonny played by Lorenzo Pugliese (who played Joe Pesci in a show of Jersey Boys similar to Jarrod Spector who also played Frankie Valli in Jersey Boys on Broadway, which is telling about the crossover of the Sonny role to the Italians in Jersey Boys)
Georgia Holt/Lucille Ball played by Kristin Rose Kelleher (the press sheet for this show listed actress Lucy Werner, as does the Wikipedia page) so were we seeing a new, unlisted understudy or has Werner left?)
Bob Mackie/Robert Altman/Frank played by Tyler Pirrung
Gregg Allman/John Southall played by Zack Zaromatidis (which kind of turns Gregg Allman into a southern-style father figure here, which is not really what he was for Cher)
Robert Camilletti played by Brooks Andrew
Phil Spector/Sid the Censor/Male ET Reporter played by Kevin Michael Buckley (kind of a subset of villains)
Infomercial Director/Digby the Writer played by Mark Tran Russ (another set up even larger villains…these two get a big amount of shade in this musical and, by the way, Digby Wolfe was the head writer on Cher in 1975)

(click to enlarge)

I like to crowd-watch these things. Most of the audience was comprised of older couples and groups of women. This might because younger people don’t go to these shows. There was one young, gay couple ahead of us who seemed very into it, as did the groups of women around me.

There were a lot of gray-heads, including mine. But talking to my group, we thought we might have skewed younger than most of the crowd. One blonde woman in the row ahead talked about having bought a Cher doll.

I took notes this time at the risk of looking weird. Which is something I wasn’t willing to do at the Neil Simon Theater on Broadway.

The show started with an audio cacophony of Cher from interviews and other clips. A pack of sailors enters with the 80s-Cher dressed in the Hole fit. This was a hippier, more full-figured Cher. And I like these variations. She was less of a powerhouse of a singing voice than the other two but my group all agreed she had the best talking voice. I don’t see why the “Cher voice” is necessary but people seem to like to understand Cher as this drawling creature (they, likewise, make Sonny cartoonishly nasally) when normal people using normal voices would probably do. My group noted that this show is very old Broadway and I agree that the characters were all broadly played. “Cher puts the Broad in Broadway”…okay I’ll stop now.

One thing this musical does is that it embellishes. This Cher’s holefit had wings. Which is a fiction. Which reminds us, this isn’t a documentary. It’s part fiction. It has embellishments and conflations. Cher never wore wings with her holefits. The holefit was enough.

Likewise, the 60s Cher also was not known for bare midriffs. She showed much less skin in the 1960s. But the archetypical Cher outfit for 60s Cher is a halter top. So 70s Cher is dressed too conservatively and 60s Cher too scantily.

One of the things Robrt Pela and I talk about in the interview is a survey of fans and non-fans I did years ago that amounted to people saying Cher was resilient and strong (as a single impression). The musical underscores how this is only part of the story and really focuses on Cher’s fear and the overcoming of fear. This time I noted all the ways it does this. Cher, according to both this musical and her memoir, never feels naturally, organically strong and fearless. The 60s Cher is especially shy and tentative. Which means, this is something we project on to her as an audience. We see the results not her struggle to get there.

During the scene where Georgia and John Southall, Cher’s step-dad, (as opposed to John Sarkisian, her biological dad), take little Cher to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Georgia tells Cher, “life can be scary.” There’s another line about fear, “the real you is terrified.” Another line: “See what happens when you high-kick fear in the butt?” And “being shit scared and facing it anyway.”

One of the effects of seeing a Broadway show is shock and awe, usually from the huge stage sets. My first Broadway show was Sunset Boulevard. And I remember thinking, this set is bigger than my Yonkers apartment! The traveling show has traveling sets which are quite a bit smaller and scaled down. The show relies a lot on projected images and a few, representative pieces, like a dressing table to signify Cher’s childhood house. But thankfully there is still a plethora of wigs, costumes and love beads.

And I found it interesting to watch the show after reading Cher’s 2024 memoir. Because not only do we know the story better now, we get more detail in the book. All the broad strokes are fleshed out. Which makes the show seem super-simplistic. Plus the events are not new to readers anymore. But this show is still a good option for those who don’t read celebrity memoirs.

When Georgia tells the kid Cher (technically is this the fourth Cher?) “you may not be the prettiest, smartest most talented,” I heard the crowd in front audibly laugh/groan. Cher has said this quote from her mother for decades. As time goes by, it has less punch. (The crowd did not agree. I do not agree. Howard Stern did not agree). Contrast this to the very similar Silkwood story about the audience laughing when Cher’s name came up during the previews. We feel great sympathy for Cher but we find that event believable. She was undervalued. It’s the flipside of the Georgia Holt story. Holt is talking to a pre-swanned Cher. There’s dramatic irony going on there added to the fact most of Cher’s fans find Cher prettier than Cher finds herself.

When Cher meets Sonny, she is intimidated and embarrasses herself with some inane small talk, “I’m a taurus” and Sonny responds disdainfully, “I’m a Bono.” This dialogue isn’t in the memoir. The musical also claims Sonny is 28 when they meet instead of 27. The musical also has Cher saying, “I like to run through fields of flowers” which if you’ve seen Good Times…

Our party commented that seeing the characters Bridget and Coleen felt like an Easter-egg and at one point one of them tells Sonny that Cher is “someone who will make you feel ten feet tall.” (This is a very concise, telling and bittersweet line.)

The show conflates Cher’s first two meetings of Phil Spector. According to the memoir, she didn’t actually meet him with Sonny. She had met him before with previous boyfriend Nino Tempo. This is where they had the famous French exchange which is not depicted here. (Spector: “Coulez vous coucher avec moi?” Cher’s sassy response: “Pour de l’argent.”)

The Spector sessions scene has a great line though, maybe from Sonny: “Like Columbus, the world before Cher was flat.”

The audience engaging in spontaneous clapping gave me cognitive dissonance, to be honest. I’ve been one of a marginalized fan group for so many decades, I initially wonder how non-Cher fans even know these famous tags and triggers? Like S&C coming out to sing “I Got You Babe” (in those furry Sonny boots and there was a story about those in the memoir), or some semi-famous Cher quip, (the line, “I am a rich man”). And then I realize, oh yeah…hundreds of people have now come to a roadshow musical because they actually like Cher (or were dragged here by someone who does…being a Barry Manilow fan didn’t teach me nothin’). Cher’s F.U. Oscar dress eliciting big applause is another example.

The scenes in 60s England were represented with four TV monitors (depicting the flurry of their appearances there) and Union Jacks. Sonny & Cher wear retro-I-Got-You-Babe outfits. Or rather, our shorthanded idea of them, but not exactly it. Similar to Bob Mackie’s recreations for Cher’s “All I Really Want to Do/The Beat Goes On” moments in live shows.

The musical calls them “the world’s first hippies.” Were they though? Possibly. They did fall in between activities of the Beats and the psychedelic bands.

One of the anachronistic things about this musical is the scrambling up of the musical timeline.” When the Money’s Gone” plays with Sonny (so we can re-read this song as Cher’s challenge to Sonny’s love: would he love her without the money she earns for him; and we are left with doubts on this point). My normal distaste for images used in the wrong decade is suspended when song order is scrambled on purpose to raise questions or when lyrics are rewritten for the dramatic situation.

To break it down: we start, of course, with “Turn Back Time” because this is what storytelling is doing. The UK show also included “Believe” in the intro part of the show.

Songs signifying childhood include:

Half Breed (Cher is part Armenian and looking dramatically different than her mother and sister)
A Dream Is a Wish Your Heart Makes (from Disney’s Cinderella) (not in the official cast recording)
You Better Sit Down Kids (which was changed to “You Better Sit Down Kid” in the UK and traveling US programs and does not get included on the cast recording)
Half Breed is then reprised (in the traveling UK and US shows)

Meeting Sonny and Phil Spector-era songs include:

Da Do Ron Ron (The Crystals) (not in the cast recording)
Be My Baby (The Ronettes) (not in the cast recording)
The Shoop Shoop Song (signifying the 60s)
I Like It Like That (a Dave Clark Five song in the US/Broadway show that took up valuable real estate for little gain, we thought, and was non included in the UK version or on the cast recording)

Career with Sonny songs include:

I Got You Babe
Little Man (not in the cast recording)
When The Money’s Gone
All or Nothing (Not listed in the Phoenix program but I vaguely remember it)
Vamp (not in the cast recording)
Aint Nobody’s Business If I Do (the Mackie parade)
Bang Bang (only in UK and traveling US show)
Living in House Divided (a rare treat)
Bang Bang (Reprise for UK and traveling US shows)
Believe (Ballad)
All I Ever Need Is You (UK position only, the song is moved to Act II for the US shows)
Song for the Lonely (interesting end for the Sonny-era)

Solo/Gregg Allman Era songs include:

All I Ever Need Is You (US shows only)
Heart of Stone (US shows only)
Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
Midnight Rider (Gregg Allman)
Ramblin’ Man (The Allman Brothers Band) (US shows only)
Just Like Jesse James
Believe (UK only)
Dark Lady
Baby Don’t Go (Sonny’s departure) (not in the cast recording)

Post Husbands/Movie Era songs include:

Strong Enough
When the Money’s Gone (not in the cast recording)
The Way of Love (as an acting performance)’
The Beat Goes On (movie montage)
It Don’t Come Easy (Phoenix show program) (the Ringo Starr song? I don’t remember this)
D’ove L’amore (UK only)
I Found Someone (video with Robert Camilletti)

Last songs include:

A Different Kind of Love Song (UK only)
Heart of Stone (UK position only)
We All Sleep Alone (UK only, removed August 2022)
Song for the Lonely (UK added August 2022)
I Got You Babe Reprise (UK and US traveling shows only)
You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me (Broadway and UK only)
I Hope You Find It (UK shows in my program but not on Wikipedia)
A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes Reprise (US shows only according to my UK program but not listed on Wikipedia and also not in the cast recording)

Finale Medley (US traveling show didn’t list the medley they played)

Believe
Strong Enough
Woman’s World
You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me (Broadway only)
D’ove L’amore (UK only)
Shoop Shoop Song (UK only)
I Found Someone (UK only)
Believe Again (UK only)
Take Me Home (Curtain Call, US only)

So you can see how the songs were used out of order to further the plot. This makes the show a new thing and not just a kind of Review of her existing songs. You can’t sing along to this. Songs are put into dramatic medleys and used as segues.

I did not know this until Robrt told me but “When the Money’s Gone” is a cover of Bruce Roberts (1995). A nice, sweet version with juicy alternative lines like “Shred the credit cards/just like Watergate” and “black and white TV. When the weekend comes, we can watch Pee Wee.”)

The scene with the television show seem rough as it’s mostly about Sonny’s slave-driving and temper. The joy of working, depicted in the memoir, is absent from the musical. There are lines about bad writing, too, (which is a bit unfair considering the cultural work the show did for women) and there’s a line from about Cher being dismissed with “it’s all about the clothes anyway” which goes into the James Brown song “It’s a Man’s World” (in my notes but not depicted in any of the show programs). This was probably true but it doesn’t map to the memoir, where the censors were discussed but not so much the struggles to work around bad writing. Besides, some of those writers went on to do big things (Steve Martin, Bob Einstein). The musical is dismissive without details.

The big Bob Mackie number really wowed the Broadway crowd. I checked my program pics to confirm this but this show’s parade of outfits couldn’t be track back to real Cher outfits as easily in the traveling show. The Broadway show had recreations of the real iconic Cher outfits: the Ringmaster, one of her recent live Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves outfits, the D2K opener, Laverne, the Rhinestone Cowboy fit from the solo TV show. There was a male dancer in the Phoenix show in drag wearing the Take-Me-Home-Viking-fit with a bare ass that got a big laugh. Looking back at my Broadway program, it was a male dancer in the Half-Breed outfit for that show. So, similar to the UK show, the costumes have been reworked and made “in the style” of Cher, aside from one or two emblematic efforts (like the “I Got You Babe” outfits and the “Take Me Home” one).

The woman next to me would grunt whenever Sonny said something sexist or mean, like she was feeling it viscerally. In fact, there was applauding when Sonny was finally shuffled out of Cher’s life. That seemed harsh, even though Sonny was harsh himself. Sonny was played so broadly, as we’ve said, his scary lines seemed super-scary. And Sonny did have his scary moments but they were conflated here with his controlling moments. For example, he slammed a wall in their 60s kitchen, not a glass mirror in their 70s dressing room (according to the memoir).

The Gregg Allman part never ceases to feel very kitschy. I mean, Gregg Allman…as a character…in a big, broad musical? Singing Cher songs? A Gregg Allman impersonator? It’s just so wonderfully weird. He sings pieces of “Midnight Rider” and “Ramblin’ Man” which reminds me of a meme my friend Coolia just sent me (unrelated):

Sonny and Gregg Allman expressing their discomfort in stepping over each other in Cher’s life during the late 1970s via the song “Dark Lady” and Cher’s duet with Allman on “Just Like Jesse James” are strangely satisfying for the audience.

They mistakenly call the post-solo, reboot of the Sonny & Cher Show, the Comedy Hour and the show wasn’t cancelled after a half a season as the musical states, more like two half seasons and 34 episodes.

In the Robert Altman (discovering Cher as an actress) scene, the audience laughed at Cher’s casual Popeye comment and in this case the musical elaborated farther than the memoir did, having Cher qualify her critique: “It was just so dark.”

There was another line in the musical about there being basically two emotions, fear and love and love is the better side of it because it’s full of vulnerability. (Which is very astute.)

The infomercial filming seemed revealingly harsh, the depiction of the director. That didn’t seem pleasant.

And even though they cheered when he exited, we all got teary when Sonny came back as a ghost. Cher still needed to talk to him.

The Assets

This show has no swag. I tried to remember the traveling shows of my youth and can’t remember swag at the outdoor Muny theater in St. Louis either after Show Boat. But then, I wouldn’t have gone looking for it.

On my ticket, this introduction was printed: “Superstars come and go. Cher is forever. For six straight decades, only one unstoppable force that has flat-out dominated popular culture – breaking down barriers, pushing boundaries and letting nothing and no one stand in her way.” [Ok that sentence is a bit much. Things did, in fact, stand in her way quite often], the kid, the glam pop star and the icon. 35 smash hits, two rock-star husbands, a Grammy, Oscar, Emmy…enough…Bob Mackie gowns to create a sequin shortage in New York City, all in one unabashedly fabulous new musical that will have audience dancing in the aisles!”

Well, in Phoenix they weren’t.

While we were all talking about how we became Cher fans, I told the story of starting out as a Sonny & Cher fan, how I loved their charisma, their glamour (another visiting cousin confided to me last weekend she had a crush on Sonny), their glamour and how they were never boring. How Cher has carried on that tradition and how I can now enjoy being a fan through scholarly digs and also the same childhood delight.

Impersonators can’t recreate that. The impersonation gets in the way.

Robrt and I also talked about how this show is about anxiety and fear as much as resilience. About the great wall of fear. And how Cher’s impact and legacy may still be evolving in these very times of political fear. We’re gonna need these lessons in overcoming anxiety. This is a time when the powers in place want to put women and minority groups back in our place (their words). And therefore, this musical takes on a practical value, being as much about vulnerability as it is about heroics. We see Cher doing this work of encouraging us during her Hall of Fame speech last October: “don’t give up, you belong here.”

At least, it affects me that way personally.

This musical is one of the lucky things we have now that provide meaning for the last seven decades of Cher: music, a musical, a memoir, dolls, perfumes, a skin care line, a Vegas poker machine, cookbooks, maybe someday a movie, a video game, a board game, who knows.

Cher Songs on Rolling Stone’s List of Greatest Songs

March 20, 2025 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Another deep dive.

In late 2024 I came across an online Rolling Stone Magazine article introducing a podcast called “Why Cher’s ‘Believe’ Has Ruled Dance Floors for Nearly Three Decades.”

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.

(click to enlarge)

This RS write up only mentions one other version of the song, Jackie DeShannon’s 1963 original version. It doesn’t mention Cher’s 1966 version. But then neither does the Wikipedia page on the song, which mention’s the 1977 European hit version by Smokie, the Ramones version in 1978, Tom Petty’s 1985 live version and a smooth 1999 version by Willie DeVille.

But there are others. Here is a sampling:

The Ventures (1964) (This is a nice instrumental version)
Gary Lewis and the Playboys (1965)
Crack the Sky (1983)
Die Campbells (2009, South African country)
Uke-Hunt (2014 ukulele)
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)
Trippynova with Luca Giacco (2019 reggae version)
Jorn (I kind of really like this 2020 Norwegian hard rock version)
Die Toten Hosen (2020, German punk)
White Rose Motor Oil (2021, country/cowpunk)

(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.”

Little Bites

October 8, 2024 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

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

Lawsuits

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

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

Billboard

Chaz Bono Appearances

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

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

Watch the Trailer

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

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

Ted Lasso and Cher

Ted Lasso (TV Series 2020–2023) - IMDb 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.

Cher At Large

October 9, 2023 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

Fashion

Cher attended Fashion Week in Paris again this year with Alexander Edwards and it looks like “things” are back on. The week produced some beautiful pictures and happy-looking pictures of Cher.

Life

Then there was the big scandal uncovered in the released divorce documents between Marieangela King and Cher’s son Elijah Allman. The news sources online went batsh*t that day. I’m always uncomfortable commenting on Cher-family news, those private details we only know because Cher is world-famous.

And yet it is those personal stories that are the most poignant of any memoir or life story, those human moments that go beyond the journal of work experiences. And actually, this was what made the stage show The Cher Show meaningful I felt, the key idea being that Cher is not fearless (as we everyone might believe). She is, rather, a person full of fear and the show explores how she navigates in that space of fear. It’s beyond any movie, song or personal appearance, and yet it’s also about all that, too.

On Stage

Speaking of which, the stage show has finally hit the road with a list of shows coming to a town near you (except not a town near me because apparently most touring companies, like most Americans, consider New Mexico to be a foreign country). I would love to go see the show again but I’m not sure I will be able to make a show trip happen any time soon.

Peruse the touring schedule and watch a video excerpt: https://thechershowtour.com/

Even though the pre-Covid touring show was planning to hit the University of New Mexico’s Popejoy Hall in Albuquerque, this new tour seems to be playing smaller venues with a new cast. Oddly, there’s no update or mention of this show from the main Broadway page, https://thechershowbroadway.com/, which still lists a 2021 tour coming soon.

Music

The new single was released for the Christmas album and there are some good reviews.

from Attitude:

“to be as daringly un-Christmassy as possible. Save for some subtle sleigh bells here and there, that is. And you know what? It’s refreshing.

This is a cut-glass powerhouse pop-dance banger that would work just as well in the height of summer at a beach party, or year-round at circuit parties. Fire will be blasting it through the speakers come Christmas Eve, that’s for sure, and maybe through to Boxing Day.

After so many desperate attempts by modern artists to tap into the commercial viability of Mariah Carey’s ‘All I Want For Christmas Is You’ – when even Chris Brown is dropping cringe-inducing festive fare, you know all bets are off – Cher outshines them all with this cool, chill cut from upcoming album Christmas, which the icon promises is “not your mother’s Christmas album.” We don’t doubt it. Just call her Mother Christmas!”

The Rolling Stone review posted the track list: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/cher-holiday-album-single-dj-play-a-christmas-song-1234847962/

“DJ Play a Christmas Song” is the first record listed on the track list, which boasts guest appearances from Stevie Wonder, Darlene Love, Michael Bublé, Tyga, and Cyndi Lauper. The 13-track album features four original singles and new interpretations of “Santa Baby,” “Run Rudolph Run,” and “Please Come Home For Christmas.” Helmed by producer Mark Taylor, the album recreates Wonder’s “What Christmas Means to Me” and Bublé’s “Home. This meant she would entertain the thought of updating classics, but would also recruit Tyga to rap on “Drop Top Sleigh Ride” and drop it on the tracklist right next to the Bublé cut. Sarah Hudson — a pop songwriter with credits on records from Dua Lipa, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber, and more — helmed that unexpected collaboration, as well as “DJ Play a Christmas Song” and “Angels in the Snow.”

Billboard also did an article about the album: https://www.billboard.com/music/pop/cher-talks-first-holiday-album-christmas-1235435413/

And the wikipedia page also lists the tracks and other basic info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas_(Cher_album)

The Pink News https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/06/cher-releases-festive-single-dj-play-a-christmas-song-and-the-reviews-are-in-top-tier/

Initial fan Tweets: https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/10/06/cher-releases-festive-single-dj-play-a-christmas-song-and-the-reviews-are-in-top-tier/

Cher Universe is also tweeting about how the downloads and presales are faring around the world: https://twitter.com/TCherUniverse

The Cher-effect is definitely already present in song one, but interesting Cher’s voice gets clearer as the song progresses. Voice manipulation will continue to be controversial. And I continue to evaluate my own feelings around it. I’m never excited to hear it. All my favorite singers have voices I like for their organic qualities. Whatever values they have, those voices are solidly themselves. I do not want to hear, for example, Barry Manilow’s voice put through a vocoder. Well, maybe for a minute, just for chuckle.

But the point is, Cher doesn’t like her natural voice. So shouldn’t she be afforded the artistic license to use it as a material to manipulate like, for example, clay or paint? What I don’t like personally, I do defend intellectually. And at this point if you criticize Cher for using voice manipulation, she’ll give you the middle finger. Which is what we have here, in a nutshell, as a Christmas song. And that’s just as badass really as having the reputation for hiring four hitmen to rescue the son of Gregg Allman from a British pop singer.

There are four new songs by Sarah Hudson (who turns out to be the daughter or Mark Hudson from The Hudson Brothers) including the dance track. Billboard describes another one of her contributions, “I Like Christmas” as bluesy. Also on the album are 3 1960s-era R&B/Soul songs, 1 1950s-era rock-n-roll classic, 2 pop songs, a big-band jazz song, 1 rap and 2 country songs. Pretty good spread.

“DJ Play a Christmas Song” – new song
“What Christmas Means to Me” (duet with Stevie Wonder)
This Motown Christmas staple popularized by Stevie Wonder in 1967. The original b-side of the record was “Bedtime for Toys.” One 3 occasions on this album Cher revisits originals with their artist of note, which is a nice way to express her respect for these songs.
“Run Rudolph Run”
According to Wikipedia, this 1958 hit was “written by Chuck Berry but credited to Johnny Marks and M. Brodie due to Marks’ trademark on the character of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” Oh boo. The b-side was “Merry Christmas Baby.” You may remember the Bryan Adams version if you are a child of the 80s and had that first red “A Very Special Christmas” album with the Keith Haring cover.
“Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” (duet with Darlene Love)
The nice thing about this duet with Darlene Love is that Cher and Love worked on this Greenwich-Barry-Spector-penned song together back in 1963 (Cher singing background vocals) on the Phil Spector Christmas album, “A Christmas Gift for You” where the song originally appeared. It wasn’t technically a single but the song has become one of the most popular Christmas songs of all time. Darlene Love reports that she and Cher were very excited to re-record it together again. And Darlene Love doesn’t get nearly enough popular attention for her amazing vocals nowadays, so it’s significant that she’s on this album getting some spotlight.
“Angels in the Snow” – a new song
“Home” (duet with Michael Bublé’)
This is an unlikely choice, Michael Bublé’s 2005 single “Home.”
“Drop Top Sleigh Ride” (duet with Tyga) – a new song
“Please Come Home for Christmas”
“Please Come Home for Christmas” was a 1960 Charles Brown hit, later re-done very memorably in 1978 by the Eagles (a favorite band of Cher and so this technically adds to her covers of Eagles songs). The b-side of the Brown hit was the awfully parenthetical “Christmas (Comes Once a Year)”… but it starts in October so…
“I Like Christmas” – a new song
“Christmas Ain’t Christmas Without You”
This song is not yet linked on Cher’s “Christmas” album Wikipedia page so its provenance is a bit mysterious. It might be from the 1965 “Christmas with Buck Owens and his Buckaroos” album, although the song, co-written by Owens, is technically “Christmas Aint Christmas Dear Without You” on that album which also contains the charmer “Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy” and “Santa’s Gonna Come on a Stagecoach” which unfortunately sounds more interesting than it is.
“Santa Baby”
This big-band/jazz smash by Eartha Kitt with Henri René and His Orchestra from 1953 was also covered by Madonna on that first 80s “A Very Special Christmas” album. I hope Cher takes it in another, less baby-doll direction.
“Put a Little Holiday in Your Heart” (duet with Cyndi Lauper)
Cyndi Lauper and Cher sing this country song together, one of the songs LeAnn Rimes performed on her 1997 ABC movie “Holiday in Your Heart” about Rimes (playing herself) “preparing to make her debut at the Grand Ole Opry at Christmas” (Wikipedia). I liked Cyndi Lauper’s 2015 country album, “Detour” so I’m looking forward to this duet. Plus those two have great chemistry with each other.
“This Will Be Our Year”
This is the track that gets me all verklempt. This Zombies song was not even a single from their 1968 Odessey and Oracle album. I started the year with this song; it my New Year’s Day Tweet. And I grew quite attached to it during the year. That Cher closes her Christmas album with it and thus my year will end with it…well, that’s really quite moving.

I forgot to mention this but back in January, Cher and Eric Esralian published an Op Ed in Newsweek about Armenia: https://www.newsweek.com/you-cannot-erase-us-opinion-1776282

Programs for The Cher Show

June 14, 2023 / Cher Scholar / 0 Comments

I keep hearing rumors that the US traveling-version of the Broadway musical The Cher Show is set to launch. Fall 2023 is the latest story. But the show’s own site still lists the old start date of Fall 2021!

The Broadway version of the show opened on December 3, 2018 with Stephanie J. Block, Teal Wicks and Miraela Diamond as the three Chers, and when I went to see it in January of 2019, the programs weren’t available yet. Which seemed incredible since any fan would want a program to a Broadway show, at minimum.

And then I forgot about it. So it was a long time, (maybe even after the show closed), that I ordered my copy from the online store.

When the traveling UK show started up in 2022, their program was ready right away and I mailed away for a few of their show’s artifacts.

These programs are very different. The shows were different. Different cast, sets and costumes. And I think their programs reflect those differences.

The Broadway program has a beautiful design, the three stylized Cher drawings, very colorful incarnations. There’s a emoji-strewn message from Cher inside. The program is maybe a little too much like a Cher concert program; it has the mandatory two-page collage of her record album covers. Always impressive to see, but not entirely germane in this book. There are shots of the cast, with quotes and song titles to situate them in the show. There’s a big centerpiece, fold-out of the Bob Mackie costumes. On the one hand, this almost puts too much emphasis on the clothes, (Mackie here calls the costumes “get-ups”), but in light of the dead, old critics view in the 1970s that Cher was “just a clothes hanger,” this doubling-down feels alright.

There are lists of Cher’s hits and awards, Bob Mackie sketches for the show, (little art pieces themselves). One-hundred costumes were created for the show, including a recreation of the hole-fit which Mackie always calls Swiss Cheese. Mackie retells the story of meeting Cher and what a young “sprite” she was back then. How daring she has always been.

There are some great shots of the sets. But one of the best things about this programs is the list of accolades about Cher.

TV producer Flody Suarez talks about germinating the idea 17 years prior. (Didn’t the Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour producers Chris Bearde and Allan Blye once try to mount a Sonny & Cher musical back in the 1980s or 90s?)

Suarez went to New York and met people who knew people on Broadway who got the show hooked up with stage producer Jeffrey Seller and Rick Elice of another successful jukebox musical Jersey Boys. He says Rick Elice demanded great performers and nice people. With Cher involved, it was easier to get Bob Mackie involved.

And what about Cher? Suarez talks about her power, her vulnerability, tenacity, kindness and originality.

In Rick Elice’s notes, he talks about a visit from Cher in the summer of 2015 when his life was at its lowest ebb due to the death of his long-time partner, how Cher helped him through it. He talked about Cher as “a minister” who is “attentive to people.” Someone who is kind, thoughtful, fun, generous, surprising, full of variety.

The choreographer Christopher Gattelli talks about Cher as an inspiration, her confidence, strength and resilience. He sees her as a kick-ass singer and actress and a goddess warrior.

Music supervisor Daryl Waters talks about hearing “Gypsies Tramps and Thieves” as a young music nerd and dissecting it. He calls Cher caring, funny, poignant, irreverent.

(These are some good words.)

Director Jason Moore talks about trying to create an old variety show set and how they tried to pick the songs that would tell Cher’s life in less than six hours. He felt the theme of the show was about facing fears in order to grow and be stronger. Oh, and glitter. Glitter with intimacy and authenticity, how they tried to embody Cher’s essence without impersonation.

He sees Cher as “a beautifully complex woman, larger than life and a deeply authentic human being, spectacular, extravagant, intimate and emotional.”

Set designers Christine Jones and Brett J. Banakis talk about wanting an over-the-top look of glamour (because we want to see Cher big and strong) but also intimate sets (because we want to see her up-close and vulnerable). Cher has covered so many years and so many mediums, they said. She’s “fierce.” They wanted to use mirrors to highlight the multiple Chers, sometimes struggling through the fragmentation of the world. They needed flexibility with the lighting and they didn’t want to upstage the “get-ups.” They call the show a “kaleidoscopic ride through a psychological closet.”

Lighting designer Kevin Adams talks about bringing together a contrast between the dark-haired Cher and the big bright spectacle.

It often seemed the US show struggled to show Cher’s legitimacy (or a jukebox musical’s legitimacy for that matter). The UK show never seemed to face such a struggle, more willing did their press seem to just just let go and have some Cher-fun. This might be because the UK show traveled and the US show was ensconced in the Great White Way.

As I’m working on a Katharine Hepburn project at the moment, I can’t help but be reminded of the differences between her Broadway and London Shakespeare reviews similarly. You’d think if anyone would be overly serious about Shakespeare…except the US critics couldn’t get over Hepburn’s New England accent doing Shakespeare and the London critics couldn’t care less. They loved seeing Hepburn do Shakespeare.

So it was much more pleasant to watch the UK show publicity unfold. And I love the Broadway Chers but casting people of color was brilliant. (The three UK Chers were Millie O’Connel, Danielle Steers and Debbie Kurup.)

Their program has ads in the front and back advertising jukebox musicals about The Osmonds, Tina Turner, an unfortunate musicalization of Pretty Woman, and the choreographer Oti Mabuse’s own show. This program goes more into the biography of Cher (because maybe they’re not as familiar with it?) which calls Cher a “rock and roll survivor…a prize fighter.” The bio goes into Sonny’s unfaithfulness and how he absconded with all their money . It states Cher’s freedom cost her over a million dollars.

There’s a page of movie highlights where Cher talks about being a bumper car (“I won’t stop.) This program also talks about Cher’s iconic impact on LGBTQ, her struggles with alienation, mistreatment and marginalization. They talk about her sass and style, how she tells it like it is, her survival. They point out her role as a lesbian in the movie Silkwood, her relationship to her son Chaz and how she supported drag queens back to her 1979 show that brought the art of drag into the mainstream, the influence of her style on people like Kim Kardashian and Miley Cyrus.

There’s a page of celebrities praising Cher: Gwen Stefani (who credits Cher for making us strong and true to ourselves), Beyonce, Sarah Paulson, Christina Aguilera and Rob Halford, whose comments are the best and most specific. He says she has the “most beautiful voice…beautiful, beautiful texture in her voice.”

The production notes in this version talk about the show’s color palette, how Rick Elice made a visit to Cher’s own closet to generate ideas about the story, (and being in the closet is such a wonderful metaphor here). Set designer Tom Rogers talk about wanting to avoid making the show “a soulless presentation of her songs.”

What’s great about this program is the 4 pages of behind-the-scenes rehearsals, it gives list of acts and numbers, longer credit pages (like a Playbill), all the actors and dancers, everyone’s Tweet handle, 5 pages of the creative bios and 1 page of production credits.

Although I love the design of the Broadway program, it’s very slim in information and beyond words, doesn’t take you behind the curtain. It feels bare bones compared to the thicker, more outgoing UK program.

I’m looking forward to what the traveling US show programs will look like. Fingers crossed that even happens.

Information about both shows: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cher_Show_(musical)