on ATCO were well suited to the marketplace. Not one of them was a worthy follow-up to “The Beat Goes On.” That song had been so “hip” and socially conscious. “Beautiful Story,” “Plastic Man,” and “Good Combination” were all out of the silly vaudevillian/lounge act mode that Sonny’s material increasingly veered toward. “Beautiful Story” was a silly pastiche of a song, “Plastic Man” opened with something that sounded like a Salvation Army street band—complete with tuba—and “Good Combination” sounded like the theme song to a 1960s TV show. The best song of the batch, “It’s the Little Things,” sadly got lost in the shuffle and never became the hit it deserved to be.
All of a sudden, after three years on top and five albums, Sonny & Cher put their recording career on hold. Although the two were continuing to tour as Sonny & Cher, Sonny’s focus turned to his new passion, turning Cher into a recording and movie star.
Once considered hip rock and rollers, in December 1967, Sonny & Cher opened their nightclub act at the cabaret at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. This was to be a somewhat oddly prophetic booking for them. Little did they suspect at the time, but the duo was destined to begin the decade of the 1970s as a “lounge act,” far from the rock realm and a million miles away from the hit record charts.
The album containing “You Better Sit Down Kids,” 1968’s With Love, Cher , was Cher’s fourth solo LP for Imperial. Buoyed by her second Top 10 solo hit, the album reached Number 47 in America. It included her controversial classics “You Better Sit Down Kids” and “Mama (When My Dollies Have Babies),” which set a pattern for her biggest 1970s hits. She excelled at songs that were little soap-opera stories set to rock music. These were truly the precursors to her later hits “Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves,” “Half Breed,” and “Dark Lady.” With Love, Cher also included Phil Ochs’s “There but for Fortune,” Sonny’s “But I Can’t Love You More,” and—naturally—Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Many of rock stylists were discovering the classic songs of Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart during this era, including the Mamas & the Papas, Bobby Darin, and the Supremes. Not one to miss a musical wave, on this album Cher covered the songwriting team’s “Sing for Your Supper.”
Cher quickly followed it up with her second solo album of 1968, Backstage . The cover of the album depicted Cher looking at her reflection in a dressing-room mirror, as though pensively psyching herself up for a performance. She is made up in her most Cleopatra-like fashion, with her distinctive dark bangs and shoulder-length straight hair. Musically, she ran the gamut of current songs that were hot at the time. On it she covered the Moody Blues hit “Go Now,” Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe,” Bacharach and David’s “A House Is Not a Home,” the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe in Magic,” Miriam Makeba’s exotic African-rhythmed “The Click Song,” and naturally a Bob Dylan tune, “Masters of War.”
The album, which features some of Cher’s strongest 1960s singing, failed to produce any hit singles and never made the charts. She stretched out into a diverse number of musical directions. On “Carnival,” Cher is cast in a Brazilian jazz setting, and she delivers a wonderful string-laden rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “A House Is Not a Home.” Especially jarring was Dylan’s scaldingly bitter antiwar protest song, “Masters of War.” In the song Cher denounces the bureaucracy of war. To hear Cher sing “I hope that you die” to warmongers on this Dylan cut one minute, and then jump into the Lovin’ Spoonful’s liltingsong of love, “Do You Believe in Magic,” the next comes across as a bizarre musical transition to say the least.
Much of 1968 was spent on the preproduction and production of the
All of a sudden, after three years on top and five albums, Sonny & Cher put their recording career on hold. Although the two were continuing to tour as Sonny & Cher, Sonny’s focus turned to his new passion, turning Cher into a recording and movie star.
Once considered hip rock and rollers, in December 1967, Sonny & Cher opened their nightclub act at the cabaret at the Eden Roc Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. This was to be a somewhat oddly prophetic booking for them. Little did they suspect at the time, but the duo was destined to begin the decade of the 1970s as a “lounge act,” far from the rock realm and a million miles away from the hit record charts.
The album containing “You Better Sit Down Kids,” 1968’s With Love, Cher , was Cher’s fourth solo LP for Imperial. Buoyed by her second Top 10 solo hit, the album reached Number 47 in America. It included her controversial classics “You Better Sit Down Kids” and “Mama (When My Dollies Have Babies),” which set a pattern for her biggest 1970s hits. She excelled at songs that were little soap-opera stories set to rock music. These were truly the precursors to her later hits “Gypsys, Tramps and Thieves,” “Half Breed,” and “Dark Lady.” With Love, Cher also included Phil Ochs’s “There but for Fortune,” Sonny’s “But I Can’t Love You More,” and—naturally—Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’.” Many of rock stylists were discovering the classic songs of Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart during this era, including the Mamas & the Papas, Bobby Darin, and the Supremes. Not one to miss a musical wave, on this album Cher covered the songwriting team’s “Sing for Your Supper.”
Cher quickly followed it up with her second solo album of 1968, Backstage . The cover of the album depicted Cher looking at her reflection in a dressing-room mirror, as though pensively psyching herself up for a performance. She is made up in her most Cleopatra-like fashion, with her distinctive dark bangs and shoulder-length straight hair. Musically, she ran the gamut of current songs that were hot at the time. On it she covered the Moody Blues hit “Go Now,” Tim Hardin’s “Reason to Believe,” Bacharach and David’s “A House Is Not a Home,” the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Do You Believe in Magic,” Miriam Makeba’s exotic African-rhythmed “The Click Song,” and naturally a Bob Dylan tune, “Masters of War.”
The album, which features some of Cher’s strongest 1960s singing, failed to produce any hit singles and never made the charts. She stretched out into a diverse number of musical directions. On “Carnival,” Cher is cast in a Brazilian jazz setting, and she delivers a wonderful string-laden rendition of Burt Bacharach and Hal David’s “A House Is Not a Home.” Especially jarring was Dylan’s scaldingly bitter antiwar protest song, “Masters of War.” In the song Cher denounces the bureaucracy of war. To hear Cher sing “I hope that you die” to warmongers on this Dylan cut one minute, and then jump into the Lovin’ Spoonful’s liltingsong of love, “Do You Believe in Magic,” the next comes across as a bizarre musical transition to say the least.
Much of 1968 was spent on the preproduction and production of the
Similar Books
