a division of the Chersonian Institute
In a recent Liz Smith article, Cher revealed that her new album will be “all her favorite 60s songs.”
“I am really excited about re-interpreting some of that music. It was a pivotal time in history and in my life personally.”
I am utterly and wholeheartedly looking forward to it.
Two things happened recently, simultaneously. I received a bootleg of a Love Hurts Tour concert, a show which I had not yet seen in full, and I started reading James Joyce’s Ulysses.
THESE TWO ARE VERY DIFFERENT THINGS
This is Germany 1992. What you’d expect a bad bootleg to be (for years I pined of this in a ratty cardboard box, filed in after KATE BUSH and before BOB DYLAN, scrawled with markers on VHS spines at record conventions – always missing). This copy disorienting, dark, fuzzy. Mrs. Brisby I am suddenly. A rat in some German’s pocket trying to stretch for a view.
Where are all the video clips? I hear the sound (it’s going on forever), the David Letterman asshole bit, a Barbara Walters question.
We can’t see upstage. Cher is suddenly there, fuzzy blur with a big wig. The world is industrial-looking, constructed second-story platform and for a moment I wonder if that’s not an impersonator up there. Is this another false entrance? 1989 intermission – remember – at the Mirage – in your hometown? Her big entrance here, floating down an elevator platform. lack. luster. No staircase. No chandelier. No stiletto. No King Kong palm. A stage oddly smooshed, stone pillar bookends, mish-mash of last tour’s scenery from storage in the Valley.
Oooh. I got my first fan club missive! How exciting!
Apparently Cher will appear on The Ellen DeGeneres Show Monday, November 3rd to show support for Barack Obama.
Aiight!
My secret fan-club communiqué states:
"For information on when the show airs in your local market, visit http://ellen.warnerbros.com/about/whenitson.php for details."
And then they thank me for being a valued First-Year member. And send their closing regards, Official Cher Fan Club.
Grin!
Other reports this week state Cher has been throwing her support around out there on the radio waves.
"I called radio stations in swing states like Indiana, Iowa and Florida to tell people to go out and vote," Cher said at last night's grand opening of Luau restaurant in Beverly Hills.
Did Cher get the same MoveOn.org phone-your-friendly-swing-states email I did? I didn't do it. I so suck.
"I wanted to call the states he needs the votes in most. It was interesting because the stations wanted to talk about music, and I wanted to talk about politics!"
Cher modestly opined that she wasn't sure if she had any power to sway the electorate, but no matter…
"I have no idea if I was able to influence listeners, but I got the message that I was supposed to get across—to vote," she says. "I really think that Obama has a chance to be the president of his time. This is a very dangerous, very sad time for America, and I really think—I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t think it—I really think that he’s the right person for the right time."
And what if Obama loses to Sen. John McCain? "If you can't say something good about someone, you really shouldn't say anything at all," says Cher. "So what I can say is, if McCain is elected, the idea is so frightening to me, I really can't even bear to think about it."
Maybe this will help in the effort, a hilarious video of what might happen if I, (or you for that matter) forget to vote. Please watch:
Yours in Cher fandom,
Cher Scholar
Maureen McCormick’s book about life as a Brady Bunch kid, among other subjects is now available. Cher Scholar Robrt sent me the excerpt where McCormick writes about meeting Cher.
The setup: the group The Brady Kids had their first musical appearance at a music industry show at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. Sonny and Cher were there and met the Brady’s backstage.
I was enamored of Sonny and Cher. I couldn’t take my eyes off Cher. It was the first time I had been around a woman who thoroughly mesmerized people, who commanded your attention with her looks. We were introduced to her backstage. She was with her daughter, Chastity, a tiny blond cherub with her mother’s expressions. Eve (Plumb) held Chastity’s hand and sweetly asked, “Can you say ‘elephant’?”
Before she could respond, Cher cracked, “She can say a hell of a lot more than elephant, that’s for sure.”
First of all, in my fantasy version of this episode Cher says “She can f*#king say a lot more than elephant, that's for sure.” I don’t know why but that’s more believable to me for some reason.
Secondly, this brief exchange is interesting on many levels. For one, it shows how caustic and coarse Cher could be even among teen celebrities and her own kid. I’m not judging that; but I can attest to being jarred by it the first time I read Cher's language peppered with the f-bomb all through that People Magazine article of 1979. I was nine years old and sick with the flu at the time and my parents brought me home a milkshake and this Cher gift (Cher gifts becoming somewhat of a rare occurrence after it started to occur to them that I wasn’t outgrowing this Cher fetish). And this was right when my illusions of Cher being the classiest, vulgar-free princess were first shattered. I f*#king got over it but it took a while.
Secondly, it also shows how even the most lusted after teen blonde icon of the early 70s, Marsha 
Brady, #1 on every boys ToDo list and #1 on every gals ToLookLike list, was actually enamored of Cher who she saw as fully commanding with her looks; and meanwhile Cher is coveting the look of blonde princesses such as her mom, sister and Marsha-Brady-types. It’s insane, absolutely the stuff Dr. Seuss Sneetches fables are made of and evidence that our collective insecurities cause us to chase our own tales like idiots.
And not only could Chastity say the world elephant, she had probably already ridden one in that parade by then.
On Wednesday, October 22, 2008 Joanne Nichols wrote:
My 27 year old son and I have a bet. I say Cher did record and release "Cherokee People" (or is it "Cherokee Nation"?) he says she did not. Please help and tell me where I can find the release.
I’ve received this question three times, each time the Cher student is practically positive they have heard a Cher version. I’m not telling Cher fans anything they don’t already know to say Cher never recorded this song.
I guess the more interesting question for us is why does the public at large consistently and passionately insist that she did.
Is it because Cher did cover similar Native-American themed kitschy songs in the 70s?
Is it because the song has a kind of organic Cher sound to it? It’s hard to sing it yourself and not sound like Cher?
There are many better 70s drama-fest songs I would have preferred Cher cover, however: "Son of a Preacher Man," "The Night the Lights Went Down in Georgia" (which Cher was offered, but Sonny turned down and Vicki Lawrence recorded it). Cher did do a cover of "One Tin Soldier" for a Comedy Hour Christmas show.
Cher scholars, what are your thoughts?
Beyonce cites Cher as a influence:
"I love that in the seventies Cher and Diana Ross looked like superstars and never played it safe. When they were onstage, they gave you drama—and I love drama."
By the way, that outfit is uber-Cher.
Mr. Blackwell, the celebrity with no first name, has died. OMG, how will we know how to judge what celebrities are wearing now?!
He was a bit schizophrenic with Cher. At first she was one of his best dressed in the early 70s; but then by the 1984 she topped his worst list and then was on it again in 1999.
See a compilation of the yearly worsts:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5h3KVqscVrccxibkegEYLw94QNTdwD93U1VF80
No one seems to care about compiling the best.
One writer takes apart the Mr. Blackwell phenomenon
Now I'm getting wise to what it takes to attract Mr. Blackwell's attention.
The Spice Girls made the worst-dressed list in 1998. Today, they're old news.
Cher topped the same list last year. The reason? She made a major comeback from obscurity. She was news again.
What was interesting, at least to me, was that just four years ago, Blackwell dismissed any mention of Cher. He said then, "She hasn't been around for a long time, and she buried herself completely when she did that navel bit. She's no longer on my list."
What a difference a few years make.
"You've got to talk about people that you can see," he once told an interviewer.
We are seeing Cher again. We're also seeing her navel, and everybody else's.
Blackwell is an interesting guy.
Cher hit the ‘bloids again last week with news that she was canceling the remaining Caesars’ shows for this year, a total of 7 shows toward the very end of her run. She won’t be returning until next spring.
Stories ranged from straight cancellation news: http://www.cherworld.com/news/?p=624
…to more tabloid-esque rumors: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1069902/Cher-health-mystery-cancels-Vegas-shows.html
Speculation arose after conflicting stories about her health, her breakup with the Hell’s Angel, the expensive humidifier put into the theater for Celine Dion to avoid “Vegas-throat,” and sad stories about Cher fans who spent money they didn’t have to fly out to Las Vegas, book a hotel and see her show – and only the canceled show was refundable.
Too bad there’s not such a thing as Cher-pilgrimage insurance.
The Las Vegas Review posted a comprehensive piece: Betting on big name has downside for Aeg Live They point out that the humidifier was in fact taken out after Celine left.
There was even a rumor last week that after Cher’s cancellation she was spotted at the Hollywood Bowl at the Neil Diamond concert. Now is that really likely?
People. Common sense.
On the other hand, maybe she got free tickets. Maybe old Neil is makin a move!
According to the wedding magazine "The Knot" (Fall/Winter), Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" is a good song for cake cutting. Hmmm. I think it's better for a Father/Daughter dance. Is that creepy? What do you think?
Wouldn't a Sonny & Cher cake topper be sweet?
I didn’t post last week. There was just a lot of drama going on and work was utterly busy. Yeah, I said it. Utterly. My upcoming wedding, planning for which had gone off track for about 6 months, got back on track last week just in time for the economy to collapse and the political process to implode with crazy candidate behavior and, quite frankly, what seems like scary lynch mobs forming. I’m addicted to election news.
Then I joined a Ulyssesreading group with my bf and some people at work which has been very challenging but rewarding (so far I like James Joyce's overall structure and much of his poetic language but the stream of consciousness, after pages and pages, fails to serve). I’ve been trying to keep up in pottery (did the annual trip to Ojai this weekend where we revisited Sylvia Raz and found a new favorite sculptor, Ted Gall). I’ve also been trying to organize the wedding planning schedule from a 6-month stockpile of notes, keep up with political emails and do the 9 to 5 (which has entailed a lot of web postings of foreign language translations on Internet policy). And then there have been the interpersonal disappointments, the alienation, the self-doubt, the mild passive-aggressive persecution, the ennui. What can you do?
But I’ve wanted to publish this blog post for months, back when Cher scholar Peter sent me a slew of Sonny & Cher singles on CD in Italian and French. There was a lot to chew on and I kept waiting for my bf to have time to translate the three rare songs; but that time never materialized. He’s just not as dedicated to Cher scholarship as I am. What gives?
I did learn many interesting facts about Sonny & Cher singing in translation in the 60s. Can I just say how very kewl the whole thing is, Cher singing in Italian and French? I really love it. Almost as much as Cher with an Italian accent in Moonstruck. It can really make you think about a song in a different way. According to one website, in 1966 Cher herself competed in Italy with four covers of "Bang Bang" already on the charts by cover artists. How crazy is that? And Ahmet Ertegun said the song was” one of the greatest post-WW2 songs ever written.” I mean it’s good but… calm down.
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