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Tag: Gregg Allman

Cher Re-Releases Two the Hard Way on Youtube

Two

I'm behind on Cher stuff: the Acadmy Museum special appearance this week, the breakdown on the lovely new Scooby Doo. We'll have to wait a few more weeks for those things.

In the meantime I didn't want too much time to pass before I expressed how thankful I am that Cher has re-released this particular, remastered album, Two the Hard Way, from 1977, her last un-released Warner Bros. album from the late 1970s. I was afraid this one would get held back due to the flack it received when it was originally released near the end of their tumultuous union.

But it's an historically important album in context with Cher’s solo and other duet albums, Sonny & Cher being the yin to Cher and Gregg Allman’s yang.

The remastered album was released last Friday while I was driving up to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and I was forced to ask Mr. Cher Scholar a question akin to “Am I too fat for this dress?”

The question was "Do you mind if we listen to the digitally remastered Cher and Gregg Allman duet album?”

And the gentleman he is, he agreed. Two2

Now there are are rough voices and there are rough voices. No two are alike. I like some better than others.

A few weeks ago Mr. Cher Scholar volunteered the following assessment of Sonny's voice. It's like a drone pipe on a bagpipe. It sounds really unpleasant alone, but it actually performs a valuable service in conjunction with better-sounding voices.

After listening to this album, I asked for a similar assessment of Gregg Allman's voice. For some taste context, Mr. Cher Scholar grew up on country, alt-country and 1980s 120 Minutes MTV videos, not quite an aficianado of The Allman Brothers' style of Southern Rock. He said (and get ready for this): "There's so much testosterone in that voice, it's like a ball sack in your face."

So anyway, the issue with this album for most people, including Mr. CS, is the fact that Gregg and Cher's voices don't meld as well as Cher's voice did with Sonny. Mr. CS likened it to mustard and peanut butter, both good on their own but they don't mix. And when they sing at the same time, you can’t appreciate either voice.

I responded, "Well, just picture the great sex they were having." And if great sex isn't a reason to make a rock album together, what is?

And this is strange to say but the album seems to be lacking the level of perfectionism of Sonny's producing, at least as far as vocals are concerned. No longer would Cher be asked to do 50 takes of a song. These vocals feel kind of one and done. The songs feel less like duets and more like Cher singing around Gregg Allman.

When I was 12 or 13 I first found this album at the local library and I have to say I didn’t hate it. But there were songs on the album I probably never listened to again except once a decade when I revisited the whole album.

SIDE ONE

"Move Me" has a very memorable opening for the album. But as with many of the songs on this album, they could have done with less horns. A simpler record would have helped acclimate us to this duo. Gregg and Cher are big enough. But this is not a bad song and like the rest of the album, the session players are good.

"I Found You Love" was also recorded that same year by Barbra Streisand on her Superman album. I liked this one when I first heard it. Their vocals are probably best together here on this song, at least the beginning. Smokey and separate. But then the horns come in and it all gets pretty messy. Gregg sings silly things like “Oh Lord, I’m gonna squeeze her.” Please, no. Cher is not a peach.

"Can You Fool" was recorded previously (1976) by Tracy Nelson and later (1978) by Glen Campbell. This song bored me to death when I first heard it. But now I think this song shows that when they were singing separately, the thing works a lot better. I do like how they sing different parts of the same sentence at the end. Cher is starting to get vowelly here. 

"You've Really Got a Hold on Me," the Smokey Robinson & The Miracles classic (1962), is such a brilliant song, it’s hard to not to sing it well. Sonny & Cher did their own version on their debut album of 1965. I love it but I also love Cher and Gregg's version. Probably the best track on the album.

"We're Gonna Make It" is a Little Milton song (1965) and wow, just wow. This is an earthquake of vibrato from these two (my autocorrect wanted me to say 'vibrator'…whatever). It's pretty messy, and not just because they did not, in fact, "make it" but because you can’t even make out what they’re singing.

In three parts, here are the chorus lyrics for your edification. You're welcome.

And if a job is hard to find
And we have to stand in the welfare line
I've got your love and you know you got mine
So were gonna make it, I know we will

Cause togetherness brings peace of mind
We can't stay down all the time
I've got your love and you know you got mine
So were gonna make it, I know we will

And if I have to carry round a sign
Sayin Help the deaf, the dumb, and the blind
I got your love and you know you got mine
So were gonna make it, I know we will

"Do What You Gotta Do" is the lovely Jimmy Webb song mostly associated with Nina Simone's version (1968). It has the line “that dappled dream of yours” in it, which is not the only reference to the word 'dappled' on the album. Cher's conviction is strong in this one, which is a timely lyric if you think about Gregg Allman's controversial testimony in the Scooter Herring trial around that time

SIDE TWO

"In For the Night" I have no recollection of this song but it has lines like “there’s a bluebird flying home to Mobile, camping in your cornfield for a while” and Gregg sings about how he has “backed into a square meal” and there's an old flannel red nightgown thrown in there somewhere. As far as metaphors go, these are some.  This song is trying really hard in a lot of different directions.

"Shadow Dream Song" is a Jackson Browne song performed live in 1971. Gregg and Cher both liked Jackson Browne and both recorded mid-1970s versions of "These Days." This is the first of two solo songs, this one by Gregg. I thought a lot about this being the song he picked to sing ostensibly about Cher. It has lines like “I cant eat or drink/I can’t remember how I used to think" and the other dappled reference on the album:

“It’s the crystal ringing way
She has about in the day.
She’s a laughing dappled shadow.
She’s a laughing dappled shadow in my mind."

"Island" is the song Cher sings as a solo about Gregg and it's credited to Ilene Rappaport.  The writer left a note on this message board https://lyricsjonk.com/cher-island.html informing us she now goes by Lauren Wood and explaining how Cher came to sing the song:

Hey guys… I wrote this song. My name is Lauren Wood. (It used to be Ilene Rappaport, but don't spread that around.) I also wrote "Fallen" from the movie Pretty Woman ((1990) and had a hit single with Michael McDonald called "Please Don't Leave" (1979). I've written many other songs and had many covers.  Cher heard me sing this at a gig and told me it was exactly what was going on with her and Gregg, and asked me if I was ok with her recording it. I said, "go ahead, twist my arm, Cher."

The song is credited to Lauren Wood here as well: https://secondhandsongs.com/artist/18767/works

This is one of the more popular songs for Cher fans. It's very simple, emotive and evocative and captures the depth in her voice and feelings at the time.

"I Love Makin' Love to You" This song was recorded by Evie Sands (1974) and very interestingly was also an outake on the buried Karen Carpenter solo album of 1980 (the album that was squashed until 1996, after she died from complications to anorexia). Carpenter's handlers and family members deemed the album too risqué for her image and that indicates how awfully suffocated Karen Carpenter must have felt in her own career, not to have been able to express her own sexuality. I love that Karen Carpenter recorded this song and my heart goes out to her in whatever plush lovescapes of Adult Contemporary heaven she might be chillaxing in.

This song is a not-so guilty pleasure. I've always loved it. It's a bombastic, anthemic sex-capade that was once sung by a 12- year old girl in her bedroom once upon a time. This is the only song here where I can excuse all those horns. This kind of big, big love kind of suits my mental image of the Cher Bono Allman boudoir. Like "Thunderstorm" from the Cherished album, love is a big boom:

“I want you to fill me…..with your soul.”

We always heard Sonny was well hung but apparently Allman was bigger than a seventh wonder.

"Love Me" The final song is the Leiber and Stoller Elvis classic (1956). You can see the debt a later-day Cher owes to Elvis here. There’s something about the production that sounds screechy. And again, there are screechers and there are screechers. Cher is not a great screecher. I would argue….    well, nevermind.

 

Here's a link to the record's personnel. The album is dedicated to Chastity and Elijah.

One final thought is about how the image disparities of Cher in the late-70s to 1982 might have hindered her album sales. Just like when Cher was in a glamourous Caesars Palace revue and simultanously trying to launch a rock band in 1979, there seems to have been some confusion about the kind of artist she wanted to be; or that maybe she had her bets placed on too many projects. Music, espeically pop and rock, seems to require a kind of consistency in the act of authenticity.

Cher has just released an adult-contemporary pop album in August of 1977 and here it was November with a new act called Allman and Woman. She had also been appearing again with Sonny on a new variety TV show that year. Brand confusion between Sparkley Cher, Sonny's Cher and this new act was probably very confusing for everyone at the time.

So it's good this album can be reconsidered without all that riffraff.

Typical Cher Tabloid from November 1975

20200829_125805For my birthday, my friend Julie sent me this tabloid magazine TV Radio Mirror from November 1975. It's a good sample of tabloid coverage of Cher in 1975…

…with the exception that this one has a crazy cover of text, so tickled were these editors with their story they used actual newspeak verbiage instead of pictures. The gravitas of the gesture!

"The Taming of Cher: One woman has reportedly committed suicide over him. And now Cher, the cream of the female crop, is desperately running in circles trying to please him. Who is Gregg Allman and what is this strange, compelling power he has over women? Does he use drugs to cast his spell, or is his mere sexual intensity enough to (continued on p.40)."

That’s the cover! And make sure not to miss “Tony Orlando’s Childhood Memories: I rubbed elbows with pimps, junkies & murderers!"

Or "Rock Hudson Uncensored" (I'm pretty sure this 1975 story was completely censored.)

Wow. Just Wow. But it doesn't stop there!

This issue is interesting in a few ways. One, it gives more detail about the Jenny Arness tragedy because it had just happened. So this article includes a bit more about how her family was doing (not good). For those who don't know, this was a very sad story about how Gregg Allman’s prior girlfriend committed suicide.

Secondly, it's interesting how the writer, Amanda Murrah Matetsky, treats the idea of female self-agency and being in love (there is none). The article details the tumultuous first months of Cher’s relationship to Gregg Allman and then dives into speculation.

20201020_105044 (1)To be sure, Gregg Allman was so different than Sonny, everyone in America (including fans) were having a whip-lash moment. So the struggle to understand is maybe understandable but the dated-sexism is still pretty shocking. She says,

“He must have some kind of power over her and his mere presence in her life to muddle her head so effectively.”

Then she speculates about their possible drug use (to explain it all) and Cher's having just saved the life of Alan Gorrie of the Average White Band at a Los Angeles party on September 23, 1974. Read more about that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average_White_Band

But then the writer changes her mind to say,

“But Cher is probably too smart to succumb to any of the lures of the drug motivated (or unmotivated) culture….it is far more likely that our heroin’s head has been turned around by love—or sex (or both!!). It is most always through sex that a man gains his initial power over a woman….How long can Allman’s power last. For the present, Gregg has tamed Cher—just as one of Shakespeare's immortal characters tamed the proverbial shew. But there are those who feel that it’s just a matter of time before Cher slips through Allman’s musically talented fingers…When asked if he’s planning to marry his new girlfriend, Suzi Cuelho, Sonny Bono answers, 'We’ll see how it goes. I think I’ll let Cher get married a few more times first!'"

Invoking Shakespeare and Sonny Bono in the same piece. Who would have thought? The article then goes into speculating that this is a rebound relationship or fueled by Cher's mother’s many divorces and the kinds of statements Georgia was giving to the press at the time about marriage ending loving relationships…comments which our author is very critical of:

“Since this is the kind of motherly advice Cher receives, we shouldn’t be surprised if she has filed for another divorce by the time you read this.” [She didn’t.]

20201020_105117The article talks about the $24-million dollar lawsuit Sonny has pending against Cher and David Geffen. And yet Sonny tells the press,

    “I talk to her all the time. We’re closer than anyone will suspect.”

The article then discusses how Cher missed the first week of taping her new season’s show due to being in Buffalo “patch[ing] up her marriage.” [Allegedly, Allman was really in rehab in Buffalo at that time and Cher was lending support.]

The article ends by directly hinting to Cher that she needs to focus on her TV show more and avoid the pitfalls of Jenny Arness. Yikes!

Overall, an icky, manipulative little piece.

Gregg Allman’s Funeral

FuneralCher attended Gregg Allman's funeral a few weekends ago and it was a much quieter affair than the one we remember for Sonny; but fans still managed to insinuate themselves along the periphery of the procession route and around the edge of the cemetery (see below). 

It appears Elijah was there as well, although not fully photographed or mentioned.

Some local coverage:

http://www.macon.com/news/local/article154086244.html

http://www.macon.com/news/local/article153863999.html

Cher scholar Robrt Pela also located this very sweet retrospective of Cher and Gregg visiting a high school in Buffalo in the 1970s.  The story probably gives us more insight into their relationship that any of the other retrospectives that have surfaced of late.

While I was at the dermatologist last week, I spied a recent People Magazine (June 12, 2017) obit on Gregg Allman with a picture of Cher and Gregg in lower right corner of the cover. The table of contents declared the article was about "Gregg Allman: His Live and Loves" of which there were a few, but the article was exclusively about his relationship with Cher, "the glitzy variety show hostess" who met "the hard rocker from Georgia with a howl soaked in Jack Daniels."

FansAccording to People, Allman spent 11 stints in rehab and became sober in 1995. His nicknames were Cooch and Gui Gui.  Not to be confused with Gris Gris (from "Walk on Guilded Splinters"). They met, as we all know, at The Troubadour in Los Angeles where Allman said Cher “looked like an Egyptian idol.” And Cher said “I never loved anybody the way I loved him." But that "Gregg needed more than my love.” (which is unfortunately the Boilerplate summary of a music star relationship: see Victoria Principal on Behind the Music discussing Andy Gibb for the most infamous version.)

The relationship started working, Cher said, “when he found out that I was a person—that a chick was not a dummy.” Incidentally, this is the same realization Gene Simmons was made to come to in 1979. Cher: transforming sexist rock stars, one man at a time.

As we know, 9 days after the wedding, Cher filed for divorce but reconciled. Allman later felt "out of place in Cher’s glamourous world” and filed for divorce but she was by then pregnant with Elijah and they reconciled. Then they made their 1977 album and on the tour for that they fell apart with finality.

The Country Music Awards opened this year with a moving tribute to Gregg Allman: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/country-music-awards-open-with-powerful-gregg-allman-tribute_us_5938f2e6e4b0c5a35c9bfb75

And Cher fans have been discussing their feelings (then and now) around Cher's relationship with him. Full disclosure: she was about to separate from Gregg Allman at the moment my older brother unceremoniously and gleefully informed me (at age seven) that Cher was no longer married to Sonny and I cried in a chair for an hour before moving on with my life. I didn't learn about the Allman marriage until I was old enough to read a Cher biography.

But Cher scholar Michael put it very nicely: "I'm happy that I come to Gregg through Cher because I'm not sure I would have found Cher through Gregg. Cher has recorded so much in her career. In the days of album credits, I learned who wrote those songs she recorded. Because of Cher I discovered Dylan, Donovan, Gershwin, Tim Hardin, Neil Young, Buffy Saint-Marie, and a long list of others. Cher may not think that she has made a musical impact, but I know I've been forever in her debt for my early musical journey."

I would agree. And would add that when I was 17 I went on a journey to locate from my local public libraries, every original version of a song Cher had covered. There were so many, I never finished. But it's an interesting exercise to think about other artists you discovered by being a Cher fan. If you need a refresher, take a walk through the writers list, album by album, starting with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_I_Really_Want_to_Do_(album) and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Look_at_Us.

I can tell you this, I would never have tried to track down Edith Piaf's version of "Milord" or bought a Miriam Makeba CD in Paris had it not been for Cher.

 

Gregg Allman and Cher

GnaSunday morning I woke up to Mr. Cher Scholar telling me there was a front page story in The New York Times about the death of Gregg Allman, which was just very sad. It had been too tempting over the last few months to believe the reports that his illness had earlier been over-exaggerated. Apparently this was not so.

And although it is true that Cher fans don’t tend to be Gregg Allman fans and Gregg Allman fans don’t tend to be Cher fans, (as I bluntly stated last week), undeniably Gregg Allman was one of the major loves of Cher’s life and looking back over his life of surreal tragedy, (including the violent deaths of family and band members, suicides of ex-girlfriends–at least two–drug and alcohol dramas, all the way to a freak accident fatality on his biopic a few years ago), Allman was undeniably an emotional and physical survivor.

TwoAnd beyond the disparaging remarks he must have endured as Cher's second husband, (from the press and Cher fans alike), their one professional project,  Allman and Woman, continues to get a bad rap. A picture of Cher was placed prominently in The New York Times obit which stated, “the project was poorly received by critics and the record-buying public alike.” Technically true but the assessment could use a re-evaluation. Rolling Stone said the album “resembled an Ashford & Simpson-style effort.” Is that a criticism? I can't tell.

Is it a perfect album, no. Is it one of Gregg Allman's finest. Hardly. But it's full of sexual attraction, emotion and great musicians. And for the same reason Cher’s voice compliments Sonny’s, that same scratchy to syrup contrast works well on this record with Allman.

When I was eleven I found a library copy, (I can still remember the library’s thick plastic protective cover), and spent two weeks dancing to “I Love Making Love to You,” blissfully clueless to the song's meaning. I also felt their version of “You Really Got a Hold on Me” was comparable to Sonny & Cher’s and Cher’s performance of "Island" was duly heartbreaking. To invoke the ghost of George Michael, (ack! we’re losing so many!), listen without prejudice.

The Allman Brothers were groundbreaking in their lengthy improvisational performances but I liked the proverbial "radio edits" like "Jessica," a record I remember my brother playing quite often. I also liked both of Gregg and Cher's versions of "I’m No Angel" and Jackson Browne's "These Days" and The Allman Brother’s "Ramblin’ Man."

Cher-e-greggI have a friend who jokes that her life is so unlucky because she must have kicked puppies in a prior one. I hope Gregg Allman has paid off his karmic debts in this very challenging life and will be free for an easier one soon. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned from Cher over the last 40 years is that you can always find room in your heart to be friends with your ex-lovers, no matter what their travails or trespasses. Despite some disgruntled moments disparaging Gregg for his lack of parenting instincts, Cher and Gregg Allman eventually spoke well of each other and seemed to have stayed in friendly touch.

It's a very sad day when you lose someone who has rattled your heart so much.

The obituaries:

Some live performances from the Two the Hard Way Tour

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