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‘A Woman’s Story’: Amazing Cher rarity, produced by Phil Spector
05.15.2015
05:55 pm
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“There are many who have laid with me, then got up and walked away from me.”

Thus begins one of the rarest, and some (like me) would say very best, songs that Cher ever recorded.

I’ve heard Cher’s 70s output referred to as “whore operas” and that’s an especially pointed way to describe her extremely rare 1975 Phil Spector-produced single, “A Woman’s Story.” Written by Nino Tempo, April Stevens and Spector himself, it’s the plaintive lament of “a woman who was passed around” but who has now found true love in her life, and who desperately wants and needs this love. It’s a really tense, haunting, moving, gorgeous, slow-burning number, fairly unique in both Spector’s, as well as Cher’s, oeuvre. Backed by the The Phil Spector Wall Of Sound Orchestra, as you can hear, it’s an absolute show stopper.
 

 
Continues after the jump…

READ ON
Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.15.2015
05:55 pm
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Wild animated music videos for Joni Mitchell, Kinks, Coven and more
06.25.2014
03:21 pm
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John David Wilson, an English animator who died last year at the age of 93 was the proprietor of his own animation house Fine Arts Films. Among Wilson’s many, many credits are Disney’s Peter Pan and Lady and The Tramp, various Mr. Magoo shorts, Shinbone Alley the animated “jazz adventure” of Don Marquis’ archy and mehitabel (made with Mel Brooks, John Carradine and Carol Channing), the opening for Grease and an animated version of Igor Stravinsky’s Petrushka made for television in 1956 with the maestro’s participation. For an innovative body of work mostly seen on The Sonny and Cher Show in the 1970s, Wilson is considered to be the father of the conceptual music video.

I saw this animation for Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” when it originally aired on The Sonny and Cher Show. Like The Lorax, I never forgot it:
 

 
Jim Croce’s “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” This originally had Sonny and Cher singing, but was re-tracked with the original song here (which is why, when Sonny and Cher are seen singing behind the bar that their lip-sync is off):
 

 
Sadly, although this animation was originally done to The Kinks’ own version of Muswell Hillbillies’ “Demon Alcohol” this version is sung by Wayne Carpenter:
 

 
Cher’s own “Dark Lady”:
 

 
An unexpectedly powerful take on “One Tin Soldier” by Coven, made famous in Billy Jack:
 

 
Helen Reddy’s somewhat sinister “Angie Baby” hit given a more light-hearted prime-time TV touch by Wilson:
 

 
Cher covers Melanie’s “Brand New Key”:
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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06.25.2014
03:21 pm
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Weirdest Beatles medley of all time from Cher, Tina Turner and… Kate ‘God Bless America’ Smith?
07.01.2013
02:50 pm
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Kate Smith
Kate Smith, the original, not the Charlie’s angel…
 
As far as The Beatles’ milieu goes, I’ve yet to see a campier, stranger tribute than this April 1975 collaboration on the Cher variety show. (And this is edited to death—- it was actually longer!) Tina Turner had just played the Acid Queen in Tommy, furthering her reputation as an intense, artistic performer. Sonny and Cher had split up a year ago, and while Sonny’s variety show floundered, Cher’s show was incredibly well-received.

The odd one out here is Kate Smith, the sturdy, matronly symbol of wholesome American resilience, famous for canonizing “God Bless America” in the 1940s. Kate went through a major re-vamp in the 1970s—one of the weirdest public transformations from wholesome to glitzy I’ve ever seen. (Fun fact: Woody Guthrie actually wrote “This Land is Your Land” as a bitter response to Smith’s inescapably popular tune, which he found schmaltzy. Bonus fun fact: “God Bless America” was written by Irving Berlin, who changed his name from “Israel Isidore Baline,” supposedly to evade American antisemitism. God Bless America, indeed!)

Frankly, I think it’s damn cool that Kate Smith came back as a groovy granny glamour-puss, and that the big 1970s stars embraced her return to pop culture. To this day, Kate Smith remains a lesser-obvious choice for drag queens looking for an esoteric challenge. I guess these three seemingly disparate chanteuses have a common thread, after all!
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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07.01.2013
02:50 pm
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A 13-year-old Cher in a mug shot
05.02.2013
06:21 pm
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Apparently Cher was arrested when she was just 13 years old for “borrowing” her mom’s car. Ha!

Via Towerload

Posted by Tara McGinley
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05.02.2013
06:21 pm
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The sound of heaven: isolated vocals tracks from The Ronettes’ ‘Baby I Love You’
01.08.2013
04:55 pm
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It just occurred to me, I never wished you all a Happy New Year!

Well, here we are people. We made it past the Mayan apocalypse, past the predictions of the I-Ching and Terence McKenna’s computer, past the fiscal fucking cliff (whatever that actually meant) and we’ve arrived in a new age!  

And I can’t think of a better way to celebrate by sitting back and listening to a 50 year old record, one of the greatest works of popular music to come out of the 20th Century, here stripped of the wall of sound and with its beating heart laid bare. It’s the isolated vocals from the Ronettes all-time, stone-cold classic “Baby I Love You”, and, frankly, it’s stunning. 

This will raise the hairs on your neck high enough to match Ronnie’s infamous beehive. And if rumors are to be believed, one of those backing voices is none other than Cher.

And I completely agree with the sentiment - I love you all and let’s have a Happy New Year! xx

The Ronettes “Baby I Love You” Isolated Vocal mix
 

 

 

Posted by Niall O'Conghaile
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01.08.2013
04:55 pm
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David Letterman checking out Cher’s bum (1987)
11.12.2010
01:19 pm
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And Sonny Bono doesn’t notice a thing!

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.12.2010
01:19 pm
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Phil Spector, Nilsson & Cher: A Love Like Yours (Don’t Come Knocking Every Day)
09.23.2010
03:07 pm
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We’ve had plenty of Cher-related novelties here on Dangerous Minds. And we’ve out share of Harry Nilsson and Phil Spector rarities as well. So why not go for a triple-header? Have a listen to what Harry called “Nilssonny & Cher,” produced by the monomaniacal Phil Spector. Recorded during downtime in the recording of John Lennon’s Rock ‘n Roll album, this is one of those “lost” records that came out for a very short time before disappearing completely, but that is now as easy to hear as pressing play below…
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.23.2010
03:07 pm
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Early Cher/Phil Spector team-up: Ringo I Love You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah)
09.03.2010
12:20 pm
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Here’s yet another Cher/Phil Spector rarity, “Ringo, I Love You (Yeah, Yeah, Yeah) from 1964. This surprisingly punky ditty was recorded by a then 18-year-old Cher (performing as Bonnie Jo Mason) and was co-written and produced by Phil Spector, but it never charted. Apparently radio programmers thought her deep voice was a male’s voice, or at least deep enough to be confused as one, meaning that the song would have taken on overtones not orignally intended.
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
A Woman’s Story: Cher produced by Phil Spector

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.03.2010
12:20 pm
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Cher vs. Christina Aguilera in ‘Burlesque’: drag queen training film or C-cup Russ Meyer
08.05.2010
04:06 pm
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I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait for this November release. Burlesque looks like a delirious mashup of Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls, Flash Dance, Coyote Ugly and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls. Who could ask for anything more?

In what is sure to be a doublewide’s worth of celluloid delight, Cher, her face in the last stages of rigor mortis, plays an aging exotic dancer who owns a down-on-its luck joint called The Burlesque Lounge. Into her life walks bright-eyed, Ali, a small-town gal from Iowa with big dreams and a set of thighs that could crack open coconuts. Hired as a waitress, Ali quickly works her way up to the stage, knocks the socks off everyone with her funky moves and soulful warbling, and becomes the star attraction at the lounge, the diva of the dive. Sounds great, right? And to add just the right amount of campy sweetness to the whole mix, Christina Aguilera plays Ali. Man, I’m choking up Jujubes just thinkin’ about it.

As added insurance that this glitzy, camp classic in the making, has street cred, Burlesque is directed by a former stunt boy from 80’s breakdance classic Beat Street, Steve Antin.

Oh, shit, I’m frothing at the mouth. I need a moist towelette. Quick.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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08.05.2010
04:06 pm
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Cher: Half Breed
04.04.2010
10:45 pm
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Although today she is primarily regarded as a gay icon, Cher was undoubtedly one of the most lusted after women in America during the 1970s. I know, I was there. She wore the most revealing outfits of any woman on television, had an amazing body and the longest, most beautiful hair I’d ever seen. I thought she was amazingly, outrageously stupendously hot.

I was nine years old when the above TIME cover came out and I can recall staring at it—I mean staring at it—in a Rite Aid, totally and utterly sexually transfixed. I’d never seen porn at that point in my young life, but this cover was pretty darned wonderful, I reckoned. Before I could probably fully form the thought that certain of these puzzlingly female creatures must be amazing in bed, I think I intuited this fact rather easily when it came to Cher. In the clip below, Cher sings her classic hit song Half Breed, demonstrating the effect she had back then.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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04.04.2010
10:45 pm
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