Cher

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Cher, the American singer and actress born Cheryl Sarkisian, first reached radio in 1964 with a record that programmers misjudged. The single was “Ringo, I Love You,” produced by Phil Spector and released under the name Bonnie Jo Mason. Many programmers rejected it. They heard a deep contralto and assumed a gay man was singing to Ringo Starr, the Beatles drummer.

  That voice would outlast nearly every change in popular taste. Cher has sold over 100 million records. She is the only solo artist with number-one singles on the US Billboard charts in seven consecutive decades, from the 1960s to the 2020s.

  Yet she was written off again and again. Record labels, network censors and critics all told her what she could not do. How does a performer dismissed for her voice keep outlasting the people who dismissed her? What did each reinvention cost her, and who helped or hindered her along the way? And why do directors, designers and rival singers keep inviting her back?

  4383117

• 2. A Restless Childhood

  ›

  El Centro, California, is where Cheryl Sarkisian was born on the 20th of May 1946. Her father, John Sarkisian, was an Armenian-American truck driver with drug and gambling problems, and he was rarely around. Her mother, Georgia Holt, was a model and actress of Irish, English, German and Cherokee descent. Cher's paternal grandparents had survived the Armenian genocide.

  When Cher was 10 months old, her parents divorced. Before leaving, her father placed her in an orphanage for several months. Holt was allowed to visit once a week and could see her daughter only through a window. Both later found the experience traumatic.

  In 1951, Holt married the actor John Southall, and the couple had a daughter, Georganne, who became Cher's half-sister. That marriage ended when Cher was nine. Cher later called Southall her “real father” and a “good-natured man who turned belligerent when he drank too much”. Holt went on to marry and divorce several times, and the family kept moving between New York, Texas and California. Money was tight, and Cher remembered holding her shoes together with rubber bands.

  In Los Angeles, Holt chased acting work while waiting tables. She sometimes won small television parts for her daughters, in shows such as The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. By fifth grade, Cher had organized a class performance of the musical Oklahoma! When the boys refused to take part, she played the male roles herself. At nine, her voice was unusually low for a girl.

  Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) was Cher's great idol, and she copied the unconventional outfits and manner of Hepburn's character. She also admired Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis and Katharine Hepburn. But the shortage of dark-haired actresses in Hollywood discouraged her. She recalled, “In the Walt Disney cartoons, all the witches and evil queens were really dark. There was nobody I could look at and think, ‘That's who I'm like.’” She described herself as “unattractive” and “untalented.” Of her ambitions, she said, “I couldn't think of anything that I could do... I just thought, ‘I'll be famous’. That was my goal.”

  In 1961, Holt married the bank manager Gilbert LaPiere, who adopted both girls. Cher became Cheryl LaPiere and was enrolled at Montclair College Preparatory School, a private school in Encino. Coming from a modest background, she stood out among wealthier classmates. Biographer Connie Berman wrote of her “striking appearance” and “outgoing personality.” A former classmate remembered, “She said she was going to be a movie star and we knew she would.”

  Cher excelled in French and English but struggled with other subjects, and she later discovered she has dyslexia. She sang for students at lunch and surprised her peers by wearing a midriff-baring top. Looking back, she said, “I was always thinking about when I was grown up and famous.”

  At 16, Cher left school and moved in with a friend. She took acting classes and paid her way by dancing in nightclubs along Hollywood's Sunset Strip. There she introduced herself to performers, managers and agents. Berman wrote that she “did not hesitate to approach anyone she thought could help her get a break.”

  In November 1962, she met Sonny Bono, who was 11 years older and worked for the producer Phil Spector. After her friend moved out, Cher accepted Sonny's offer to work as his housekeeper.

  1355657

• 3. Sonny and Cher

  ›

  Phil Spector, the producer Sonny Bono worked for, put Cher to work as a backing vocalist on several recordings. Among them were the Righteous Brothers' “You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'” and the Ronettes' “Be My Baby.” Cher and Sonny soon became close friends and then lovers. On the 27th of October 1964, they held an unofficial wedding ceremony in a hotel room in Tijuana, Mexico.

  Stage fright shaped how the pair performed. Sonny had planned to launch Cher as a solo artist. She talked him into singing with her, and he began joining her onstage to sing backing vocals. Cher calmed her nerves by looking at Sonny. She later said she sang to the audience through him.

  Their first record together was “The Letter,” released in early 1964 as Caesar & Cleo on Vault Records. It used inverted harmonies, with Cher singing the lower part and Sonny the higher. They kept that reversal of the usual male and female roles on later recordings.

  Later in 1964, a one-off deal with Reprise Records produced another Caesar & Cleo single, “Love Is Strange.” A week before its release, their managers presented them to Reprise as a new act called Sonny & Cher, hoping for a richer contract. Reprise did not know they were the same pair, so it released “Love Is Strange” and “Baby Don't Go” at the same time. The label declined a long-term deal once it found out. The Caesar & Cleo singles sold poorly, but “Baby Don't Go” did well in Los Angeles. That success led Atlantic Records to sign the duo to its Atco label.

  In late 1964, Cher also signed a solo contract with Imperial, an imprint of Liberty Records, with Sonny as her producer. Her single “Dream Baby,” credited to Cherilyn, got airplay in Los Angeles. For the follow-up in summer 1965, she covered Bob Dylan's “All I Really Want to Do,” now billed as Chér. It reached number 15 in the US and number nine in the UK. The Byrds had released their own version, and the two records began competing. The Byrds' label chose to push the B-side instead. Roger McGuinn recalled, “We loved the Cher version... We didn't want to hassle. So we just turned our record over.”

  Atco's first Sonny & Cher single, “Just You,” failed to chart in April 1965. After recording “I Got You Babe,” the pair traveled to London in July 1965 on the advice of the Rolling Stones. Writer Cintra Wilson said press photographers turned up when the couple were thrown out of the London Hilton over their outfits on the night they arrived. By her account, they were stars overnight. “I Got You Babe” reached number one in the US and displaced the Beatles at the top of the UK charts. English teenagers copied the look, with bell-bottoms, striped pants and fur vests.

  Back in the US in late 1965, the duo made a film cameo in Wild on the Beach, appeared on teen television shows such as Hullabaloo and Shindig!, and toured major arenas. Their concerts drew many Cher look-alikes, girls who straightened and dyed their hair black and wore her vests and bell-bottoms. Their debut album, Look at Us, spent eight weeks at number two, behind the Beatles' Help! At one point, five of their songs sat in the Hot 100's top 50 together, a feat previously managed only by Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

  “Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)” gave Cher's parallel solo career its biggest early hit. It reached number one in Italy, number two in the US and number three in the UK, and it was her first million-selling solo single. Her next album, Chér, offered the international number-one “Sunny” and “Alfie,” the Burt Bacharach and Hal David song, in its first US recording. Biographer Mark Bego described the songs on her 1967 album With Love, Chér as “little soap-opera stories set to rock music.”

  Production on the musical Good Times ran through 1966, and studio stills in the press softened the duo's bohemian image. Journalists saw their new Hollywood look as out of step with the youth culture they once symbolized. Their monogamous life during the sexual revolution and their anti-drug stance widened the gap. Bego wrote, “in spite of their revolutionary unisex clothes, Sonny and Cher were quite ‘square’ when it came to sex and drugs.”

  William Friedkin directed Good Times, which opened in May 1967 and failed commercially while their record sales were already sliding. By early 1968, their singles had stopped charting. Berman observed that the heavy, loud sound of Jefferson Airplane and Cream made their folk rock seem too bland. Cher later said she loved the electric guitar style of Led Zeppelin and Eric Clapton and wanted to adapt, but Sonny refused. Her 1968 album Backstage, which ranges from bossa nova to anti-war protest songs, did not chart.

  In 1969, Imperial dropped Cher and Atco dropped Sonny & Cher, though Atco then offered Cher a solo deal. She recorded 3614 Jackson Highway at Muscle Shoals Sound Studio without Sonny, moving toward R&B and soul. Decades later, AllMusic called it “the finest album of her career.” Sonny disliked the record and blocked her from releasing more for Atco.

  Meanwhile the marriage was unraveling. Sonny dated other women, then tried hard to win Cher back. After she learned she was pregnant, they officially married, and Chaz Bono was born on the 4th of March 1969.

  Hoping to win back young listeners, the duo spent $500,000 and mortgaged their home to make Chastity, released in 1969. Sonny wrote and produced it, and Cher played a young woman searching for the meaning of life. The art film failed, leaving the couple $190,000 in debt with back taxes. Still, Cue magazine wrote, “Cher has a marvelous quality that often makes you forget the lines you are hearing.”

  At their lowest point, the pair built a nightclub act with a more adult sound. Cintra Wilson said it was so depressing that people heckled them, and Cher began heckling back. Sonny reprimanded her, and then she heckled Sonny too. The exchanges became the highlight of the act and began drawing crowds. Cher adopted alluring, low-cut gowns that became her signature look. Television executives took notice, and soon the couple were appearing in prime time with a “new, sophisticated and mature” image.

  1012111415

• 4. Primetime and Breakup

  ›

  Fred Silverman, CBS head of programming, noticed Sonny and Cher guest-hosting The Merv Griffin Show in 1971 and offered them a program of their own. The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour premiered as a summer replacement series on the 1st of August 1971 and ran for six episodes. Strong ratings brought the couple back that December with a full-time show. Over its three-year run, more than 30 million viewers watched each week.

  Critics praised the comic timing, with a deadpan Cher mocking Sonny about his looks and short stature. According to Berman, the pair “exuded an aura of warmth, playfulness and caring that only enhanced their appeal.” Viewers also met the young Chaz, and Berman added, “They seemed like a perfect family.” Cher sharpened her acting in sketches, including her own creation Laverne LaShinsky, a brash and over-the-top housewife. Her outfits by Bob Mackie set 1970s fashion trends.

  In 1971, the couple signed with the Kapp Records division of MCA Records. Cher's first solo single there, “Classified 1A,” was sung from the view of a soldier who bleeds to death in Vietnam. Sonny wrote it, believing her first solo release for the label should be poignant and topical. Radio programmers rejected it as uncommercial.

  Kapp then brought in the producer Snuff Garrett, who gave Cher her second US number one, “Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves.” Bego wrote that it proved Garrett knew more about her voice and persona than Sonny did. It was the first single by a solo artist to top both the US Hot 100 and the Canadian singles chart at once. Its follow-up, “The Way of Love,” reached number seven.

  After the 1972 ballad album Foxy Lady, Garrett quit over a disagreement with Sonny about her material. At Sonny's insistence, Cher released the standards album Bittersweet White Light in 1973, and it failed commercially. Later that year, the lyricist Mary Dean brought Garrett “Half-Breed,” a song about the daughter of a Cherokee mother and a white father, written for Cher. Garrett held onto it until Cher dismissed Sonny as producer and rejoined him. It became her third US number one.

  “Dark Lady,” released in December 1973, became her fourth. That tied her with Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page and Connie Francis for the most number-one singles by a female solo artist in US history at the time.

  Offscreen, Cher and Sonny had ended their relationship in late 1972, yet they stayed legally married for two more years to protect their careers. Sonny's infidelity and controlling behavior had strained them for years. By 1973, they lived in the same house while dating other people. “The public still thinks we are married,” Sonny wrote in his diary, “that’s the way it has to be.”

  In January 1974, Cher won the Golden Globe for Best Television Actress for the show. Sonny filed for separation the next month, citing “irreconcilable differences.” A week later, Cher countered with a divorce suit accusing him of “involuntary servitude” and of withholding her share of their earnings. CBS cancelled the show in April 1974.

  During the proceedings, Cher learned she was legally an employee of Cher Enterprises, a company 95% owned by Sonny and 5% by his lawyer. She was required to work exclusively for it, leaving her without control of her career or money. The record executive David Geffen, with whom she had begun a relationship in 1973, helped her break free of the contract. She won custody of Chaz after a highly publicized legal battle, and the divorce was finalized on the 26th of June 1975. Cher ended her relationship with Geffen because of his possessiveness.

  Her solo CBS show, Cher, debuted on the 12th of February 1975 with an extensive wardrobe, the largest for any weekly series. On it, she became the first woman to deliberately expose her navel on American television, after fighting network censors. Lindsay Zoladz of The Ringer noted that censors were stricter with Cher as a single woman, seeing her as more provocative alone than as Sonny's wife.

  The Los Angeles Times declared, “Sonny without Cher was a disaster. Cher without Sonny... could be the best thing that's happened to weekly television this season.” Guests included David Bowie in his American TV debut, Ray Charles, Elton John, Bette Midler, Tina Turner and the Jackson 5. Billboard credited her with bringing “a rock sensibility to prime-time TV.” Despite high ratings, the show ended after two seasons and was replaced by a reunion show with Sonny.

  On the 30th of June 1975, four days after finalizing her divorce, Cher married the rock musician Gregg Allman, co-founder of the Allman Brothers Band. She filed for divorce nine days later over his heroin and alcohol problems, but they reconciled within a month. Their son, Elijah Blue Allman, was born on the 10th of July 1976.

  The Sonny and Cher Show debuted on CBS in February 1976 and was the first show ever to star a divorced couple. Their biting onscreen banter about the divorce, together with her troubled relationship with Allman, sparked a public backlash. That contributed to its cancellation in August 1977. In 1976, the Cher doll from Mego Toys outsold Barbie to become the year's best-selling doll.

  In 1977, billed as Allman and Woman, the couple recorded the duet album Two the Hard Way. On their European tour, fans of Cher and fans of the Allman Brothers Band often brawled at venues, and Cher canceled the tour. Their relationship ended soon after, and the divorce was finalized in 1979.

  738404147

• 5. Comeback Cycles

  ›

  In 1979, Cher legally adopted the single name Cher, with no surname. She was a single mother of two under financial pressure, so she aimed her singing at commercial success and set aside her rock ambitions for the time being. Signing with Casablanca Records, she launched a comeback with “Take Me Home,” a single and album that rode the disco craze. Both were instant successes, stayed bestsellers for more than half of 1979 and went gold. Sales were probably helped by the cover, which showed Cher in a Viking outfit.

  Encouraged, she returned to rock with the 1979 album Prisoner. Its cover showed her naked and draped in chains, a symbol of her struggle as a “prisoner of the press” under tabloid scrutiny. Feminist groups criticized the image, critics found the mix of rock and disco inconsistent, and the album failed. “Hell on Wheels,” from the film Roller Boogie, reflected her love of the roller-skating craze she had helped popularize. With Giorgio Moroder, she wrote “Bad Love,” her last Casablanca disco track, for the film Foxes in 1980.

  In 1980, Cher formed the rock band Black Rose with the guitarist and then-partner Les Dudek. She cut her signature long hair for a punk-inspired look and declined top billing so the group would feel equal. The band struggled to book concerts, and its album drew poor reviews. Cher told Rolling Stone that critics “didn't attack the record, they attacked me. It was like, ‘How dare Cher sing rock & roll?’” Black Rose broke up in 1981.

  At Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Cher performed two shows nightly, seven days a week, earning $300,000 weekly. Beginning in June 1979 and running until 1982, the residency grew into her first solo tour, the Take Me Home Tour, with dates in North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia. The Press of Atlantic City called it “the biggest cabaret act ever seen on any stage.” In 1981, her duet with Meat Loaf, “Dead Ringer for Love,” reached number five on the UK singles chart. The new wave album I Paralyze followed in 1982, and it was a commercial failure and her only album for Columbia Records.

  Signing with Geffen Records in 1987 revived her recording career. Jon Bon Jovi, Michael Bolton, Richie Sambora and Desmond Child produced her first Geffen album, Cher. It faced resistance from retailers and radio but was certified platinum. Its hair metal power ballad “I Found Someone” was her first US top-ten single in eight years.

  Heart of Stone, in 1989, reached number one in Australia and the top 10 in Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US, where it went triple platinum. Three singles reached the US top ten: “After All” with Peter Cetera, “Just Like Jesse James” and “If I Could Turn Back Time.” The last spent seven weeks at number one in Australia and drew controversy for a sexually suggestive video filmed aboard a battleship.

  For the film Mermaids, Cher recorded a cover of Merry Clayton's “The Shoop Shoop Song (It's in His Kiss),” which topped the UK chart for five weeks. Her 1991 album Love Hurts spent six weeks at number one in the UK. Jim Farber of Entertainment Weekly praised her “sexually autonomous persona,” noting that she turned heartbreak lyrics into expressions of revenge rather than victimhood.

  Believe, released in 1998, swapped her rock sound for dance-pop inspired by 1970s disco. The album sold 11 million copies worldwide and went quadruple platinum in the US, with gold, platinum or multi-platinum status in 39 countries. Entertainment Weekly called it “the most dramatic comeback Hollywood has seen.” Its title track reached number one in 23 countries and sold over 10 million copies. It was the best-selling single of 1998 in the UK and of 1999 in the US.

  In Britain, “Believe” debuted at number one, held the top spot for seven weeks and became the best-selling single there by a female artist. In the US, it led the Hot 100 for four weeks, making Cher, at 52, the oldest woman to top that chart. Pitchfork wrote that, coming from a woman long subjected to public ridicule, the song took on “an extra survivalist edge.” It won the Grammy for Best Dance Recording and the 1999 Billboard Music Award for Hot 100 Single of the Year.

  On the 31st of January 1999, she sang the US national anthem at Super Bowl XXXIII. The special VH1 Divas Live '99, which she co-headlined, drew 19.4 million viewers and became the highest-rated program in VH1's history at that point. Her Do You Believe? Tour sold out in every American city it visited and drew a global audience of over 1.5 million. Billboard named her top dance artist of 1999.

  Her follow-up, Living Proof, reached number nine in the US in 2001. Billboard named her top dance artist again for 2002, and by then her wealth was estimated at $600 million.

  8283889731

• 6. Hollywood Reinvention

  ›

  Falling record sales and radio airplay pushed Cher toward acting in 1982. Hollywood did not take her seriously as an actress. She later said, “I was dropped by my label and couldn't get a job... so I went to Las Vegas,” which she likened to an “elephant's graveyard” for fading stars. Despite her success there, she felt unfulfilled: “I was making a fortune... but I was dying inside.”

  That year, Cher moved to New York to study acting with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. She never enrolled, because she auditioned for and won a part in Robert Altman's Broadway production of Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean. Co-starring with Karen Black and Sandy Dennis, she played a James Dean fan club member at a 20-year reunion. Frank Rich of The New York Times praised her “cheery, ingratiating nonperformance” and suggested the play needed more of her and less of her co-stars. Altman later cast her in the film version.

  The director Mike Nichols had seen her onstage and offered her the role of Dolly Pelliker, the lesbian roommate of Karen Silkwood, played by Meryl Streep, in the 1983 film Silkwood. Audiences doubted her. She once attended a screening where the crowd laughed at her name in the opening credits. Even so, she earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress and won a Golden Globe in that category.

  Mask, in 1985, was her first critical and commercial success in a lead role, reaching number two at the box office. She played Rusty Dennis, a drug-addicted biker raising a disfigured teenage son, and won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival. During production, she clashed with the director Peter Bogdanovich. When he called for a boycott of the film's promotion to protest Universal Pictures' edits, she refused to support him. She remarked, “From working with Peter, it's no surprise to me that he would serve his own interests before those of the film.”

  Critics predicted an Oscar nomination, but she was left off the list. Bego suggested that her public feud with Bogdanovich and her unconventional image may have played a part. At the 58th Academy Awards, she wore a dramatic, tarantula-like outfit that Esther Zuckerman of Vanity Fair later called her “Oscar revenge dress.” Presenting the Best Supporting Actor nominees, she quipped, “As you can see, I did receive my Academy booklet on how to dress like a serious actress.” The moment brought her much publicity.

  In May 1986, she appeared on Late Night with David Letterman and insulted the host on air, which drew wide coverage. Letterman later said it hurt his feelings, since she was one of the few guests he had truly wanted. She returned in November 1987 and joined Sonny for an impromptu “I Got You Babe,” their last reunion before his death. Andy Greene of Rolling Stone wrote that, had YouTube existed, “this would have gone insanely viral the next morning.”

  Cher starred in three films in 1987. In Suspect, she played a public defender aided and romanced by a juror, played by Dennis Quaid. In The Witches of Eastwick, she played one of three small-town divorcees, alongside Michelle Pfeiffer and Susan Sarandon. A mysterious, wealthy visitor, played by Jack Nicholson, seduces them. In Moonstruck, she played an Italian widow who falls for her fiancé's younger brother, played by Nicolas Cage.

  The Witches of Eastwick and Moonstruck ranked among the ten highest-grossing films of 1987. Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote that Moonstruck offered proof that Cher had become a larger-than-life movie star, worth watching whatever she did. Cher won the Academy Award for Best Actress and the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy.

  By 1988, she was one of the most bankable actresses of the decade, commanding $1 million per film. That year, her fragrance Uninhibited earned about $15 million in its first year of sales. She was also known for exhibitionist fashion, plastic surgeries and relationships with younger men. She dated Val Kilmer, Eric Stoltz and Tom Cruise. From 1986 to 1989, she was with Rob Camilletti, a baker 18 years her junior whom the media dubbed the “Bagel Boy.”

  Mermaids, in 1990, was her first film in three years. She drew on her mother to play a woman who moves her daughters, played by Winona Ryder and Christina Ricci, from town to town after failed relationships. She clashed with the first two directors, Lasse Hallström and Frank Oz, who were replaced by Richard Benjamin. Producers, seeing her as the star attraction, gave her creative control. The film was a box office success with positive reviews.

  In the early 1990s, Cher contracted the Epstein-Barr virus and developed myalgic encephalomyelitis, also called chronic fatigue syndrome. It left her too exhausted for music or film. She declined leading roles in Thelma & Louise and The War of the Roses. Her next screen appearances were cameos in Robert Altman's The Player (1992) and Prêt-à-Porter (1994).

  To earn money, she appeared in infomercials for health, beauty and diet products and took in nearly $10 million. Entertainment Weekly said she had eroded her “hard-won A-list actress status.” Saturday Night Live parodied the ads. In Clueless, the character Cher Horowitz jokes that she was named after a “great singer of the past who now does infomercials.” The real Cher later said, “Suddenly I became the Infomercial Queen... people stripped me of all my other things.”

  In 1996, she directed and starred in the final segment of If These Walls Could Talk, a three-part anthology TV film about abortion, alongside Demi Moore and Sissy Spacek. It was her directorial debut, and she played a doctor targeted by an anti-abortion group. It became HBO's highest-rated original movie to that point, with 6.9 million viewers.

  Faithful, a dark comedy by Paul Mazursky, also came out in 1996 and was her first theatrical lead in six years. She played a suicidal woman whose husband hires a hitman, played by Chazz Palminteri. It grossed only $2 million, and Cher refused to promote it, calling it “horrible.”

  Tea with Mussolini, directed by Franco Zeffirelli in 1999, cast her as a flamboyant American socialite unwelcome among Englishwomen played by Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. Film Comment wrote that she proved how sorely she had been missed on movie screens. In Stuck on You, in 2003, she played a satirical version of herself dating a high schooler, played by Frankie Muniz.

  Burlesque, in 2010, was her first musical since Good Times. Cher played an intimidating nightclub owner who mentors an aspiring performer, played by Christina Aguilera. Reviews were mixed and the box office modest, but Entertainment Weekly later called it “a campy, niche classic that inspired everything, from drag queen revues to viral internet moments.” In 2011, she voiced Janet the Lioness in Zookeeper.

  Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, in 2018, brought her back to film after nearly a decade. She played Ruby Sheridan, grandmother of Sophie, played by Amanda Seyfried, and mother of Donna, played by Streep. Director Ol Parker answered questions about the three-year age gap with Streep by saying, “Cher exists outside of time.” Vulture wrote, “Every single movie... would be infinitely better if it included Cher.” She recorded “Fernando” and “Super Trouper” for the soundtrack, and Björn Ulvaeus of ABBA said, “She makes ‘Fernando’ her own. It's her song now.”

  In 2020, The New York Times Magazine put her on its annual “Best Actors” list, making her the first actor included without a theatrical release that year. Her performance in Moonstruck was praised as “radiant” and a source of comfort during quarantine.

  6970738074

• 7. Voice and Craft

  ›

  Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times judged that no early female rock singer matched the authority and command of Cher's key early hits. Of her 1960s work, he said, “no one matched the pure, seductive wallop of Cher.” Music historians have kept returning to the voice itself.

  Ann Powers of The New York Times called it “a quintessential rock voice: impure, quirky and a fine vehicle for projecting personality.” Annie Zaleski, in Cher's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction essay, described the timbre as “recognizable, dusky and sultry, like exquisite black velvet,” with a wide range and warbling vibrato. Laura Snapes of The Guardian called it “miraculous,” able to express “vulnerability, vengeance and pain” at once. Author Paul Simpson observed that she delivers lyrics “with such conviction you'd think she was delivering an eternal truth about the human condition.”

  Her delivery changed with the decades. AllMusic's Bruce Eder described her 1970s vocals as “almost as much ‘acted’ as sung.” On the 1980 record Black Rose, she began using sharper, more aggressive vocals on hard rock albums, building a sexually confident image. For It's a Man's World in 1995, she did the opposite. She restrained her voice, sang in higher registers and dropped the vibrato. Her command of both male and female ranges let her sing solo on androgynous, gender-neutral songs.

  Cher has moved through rock, soul, jazz, disco, new wave, power ballads, hip hop and electronic dance music. She says she aims to “remain relevant and do work that strikes a chord.” Zaleski wrote that she handles nearly every style effortlessly. Phill Marder of Goldmine credited her “nearly flawless” song selection, noting that most of her solo hits came from independent songwriters she chose, though Sonny contributed to the early ones.

  Her music often centers on heartbreak, independence and women's empowerment. Judy Wieder of Out called her a “brokenhearted symbol of a strong but decidedly single woman.” Some early songs touched subjects rarely heard in American pop, including divorce, prostitution, unplanned and underaged pregnancy, and racism. AllMusic's Joe Viglione wrote that the 1972 single “The Way of Love” is either a woman declaring love for another woman or a woman saying goodbye to a gay man she loved.

  Not Commercial, released in 2000, was largely self-written during a songwriting camp in 1994 and recorded with members of David Letterman's CBS Orchestra. She chose the title after her label's chief called the project “nice, but not commercial” and rejected it for its explicit language and unsparing themes. Those included the suicide of Kurt Cobain, homelessness, veteran neglect and personal trauma. She sold it independently on her website, an unusual move for an artist under contract with a major label.

  The song “Sisters of Mercy” describes the nuns who stopped her mother from retrieving her from a Catholic orphanage as “daughters of hell,” and it drew condemnation from the Catholic Church. AllMusic's Jose F. Promis heard a “1970s singer-songwriter feel” that highlights her storytelling.

  In 1998, “Believe” became the first commercial recording to use Auto-Tune, an audio processor for correcting off-key vocals, as a stylistic effect. The result was a robotic, futuristic sound. Cher proposed the effect and met resistance from her label. She told them, “You can change the song over my dead body.” Dubbed the “Cher effect,” the technique was described by Simon Reynolds of Pitchfork as having “revolutionized the sound of popular music” and as “the sound of the 21st century.” She used Auto-Tune extensively on Living Proof and on later albums.

  1723318344

• 8. Farewells That Weren't

  ›

  In June 2002, Cher launched Living Proof: The Farewell Tour, promoted as her final concert tour. Jon Pareles of The New York Times praised it as a celebration of her resilience, saying she could “triumph over restraint, aging and gravity.” It was set for 49 shows but was extended repeatedly. By October 2003, it had grossed $145 million from 200 shows with 2.2 million attendees, the most successful tour by a female artist.

  The NBC special Cher: The Farewell Tour drew 17 million viewers, the highest-rated network concert special of 2003, and earned her a Primetime Emmy Award. Forbes named her the highest-paid female musician of 2003, with earnings of $33.1 million. The tour finally ended in April 2005 after 325 shows, with over 3.5 million attendees and $250 million in grosses.

  After three years of retirement, she signed a $60 million deal for a 200-show residency at the Colosseum at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Titled Cher, it ran from 2008 to 2011 with advanced stage effects and over 20 costume changes.

  In 2013, she produced the documentary Dear Mom, Love Cher. It follows her effort to support her mother Georgia Holt's dream of becoming a singer, which ended with Holt's debut album at age 87. Holt died in December 2022 at the age of 96.

  Closer to the Truth, also in 2013, was her first studio album since 2001. It debuted at number three on the Billboard 200, her highest position on that chart to date. She premiered the lead single “Woman's World” during the season four finale of The Voice, her first live TV performance in over a decade. The Boston Globe wrote that at 67 she sounded more convincing than J-Lo or Madonna reporting from the club.

  In June 2013, she headlined the annual Dance on the Pier benefit for LGBTQ Pride Day, filling the event for the first time in five years. In March 2014, she started the Dressed to Kill Tour, joking during shows that it was her last farewell tour while crossing her fingers. Its first leg of 49 sold-out North American shows grossed $54.9 million. A kidney infection later forced her to cancel the remaining dates.

  In 2015, the Wu-Tang Clan's album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin credited her under her 1964 alias, Bonnie Jo Mason. The album was produced as a single copy and sold by online auction, becoming the most expensive album ever sold.

  In February 2017, the three-year concert residency Classic Cher began at the Park Theater in Las Vegas and The Theater at MGM National Harbor in Washington, D.C. At the 2017 Billboard Music Awards, she performed “Believe” and “If I Could Turn Back Time,” her first awards show performance in over 15 years. Gwen Stefani presented her with the Billboard Icon Award, calling her the “definition of the word Icon.” In March 2018, Cher headlined the 40th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, and tickets sold out in three hours after she hinted at it on Twitter.

  Her 2018 album Dancing Queen, a set of ABBA covers, debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. It tied 2013's Closer to the Truth as her highest-charting solo album in the US. First-week sales of 153,000 units made it the year's largest sales week for a pop album by a female artist. Rolling Stone wrote that she makes the ABBA songs sound as if they were written for her. Her Here We Go Again Tour ran from 2018 until the COVID-19 lockdowns postponed it indefinitely in 2020.

  The Cher Show, a jukebox musical with three actresses playing Cher at different stages of her life, premiered in Chicago in June 2018. It ran on Broadway from December 2018 to August 2019. On the 2nd of December 2018, Whoopi Goldberg presented Cher with the Kennedy Center Honors, with tribute performances by Adam Lambert, Cyndi Lauper and Little Big Town.

  In 2019, she launched Cher Eau de Couture, a “genderless” follow-up to Uninhibited. During the pandemic in 2020, she released her first Spanish-language song, a cover of ABBA's “Chiquitita,” with proceeds donated to UNICEF. She also voiced a bobblehead version of herself in Bobbleheads: The Movie. With BBC Radio 2 Allstars, she covered Oasis' “Stop Crying Your Heart Out” for the Children in Need charity, and it became a UK top-ten single.

  Fashion brands kept calling. After attending the 2015 Met Gala as Marc Jacobs' guest, she became the face of his Fall/Winter campaign. She appeared with the rapper Future in Gap's Fall 2017 campaign. In June 2022, she launched the “Chersace” capsule collection with Versace, with proceeds benefiting the LGBTQIA+ charity Gender Spectrum. In September 2022, she closed Balmain's Spring/Summer 2023 show at Paris Fashion Week.

  That November, she confirmed she was dating the music executive Alexander Edwards, who is 40 years her junior. Online criticism of the age gap drew a tweet from her: “Love doesn't know math.”

  Christmas, her first holiday album, arrived in 2023 with duets featuring Cyndi Lauper, Stevie Wonder, Michael Bublé, Darlene Love and the rapper Tyga. It reached number one on the Billboard Top Holiday Albums chart. Its lead single, “DJ Play a Christmas Song,” topped the Billboard Adult Contemporary and Dance/Electronic Digital Song Sales charts in December 2023.

  That same month, she criticized the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for excluding her since she became eligible in 1990. She said, “I wouldn't be in it now if they gave me a million dollars.” She received her first nomination two months later. She was inducted on the 19th of October 2024, becoming the first performer to have won an Academy Award for acting and been inducted. She accepted out of admiration for her fellow inductees, and at the ceremony she sang “Believe” as a duet with Dua Lipa.

  In May 2024, Cher won a legal dispute with Mary Bono, the widow of Sonny Bono, over royalties from her recordings with him. Under a 1978 divorce settlement, Cher was entitled to half the publishing revenue, but Mary Bono stopped payments in 2021 after invoking a copyright termination clause. A federal judge ruled the royalties were a separate contractual obligation and ordered Mary Bono to pay around $418,000 in withheld earnings.

  To mark 60 years in music, Cher released the compilation album Forever in 2024. Rolling Stone noted that it left out “Half-Breed,” which it linked to artists reevaluating their catalogs in light of changing cultural sensitivities. In November 2024, she published Cher: The Memoir, written over seven years. It debuted at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list and stayed there for three weeks. It is only the first of a two-part autobiography.

  4331153657