The Sonny Side of Chér

The Sonny Side of Chér
Studio album by Cher
Released April, 1966
Recorded September 1965 – February–March 1966
Studio Gold Star Recording Studios, Hollywood, CA
Genre
Length 33:35
Label
Producer Sonny Bono
Cher chronology
All I Really Want to Do
(1965)All I Really Want to Do1965		 The Sonny Side of Chér
(1966)		 Chér
(1966)Chér1966
Singles from The Sonny Side of Chér
  1. "Where Do You Go"
    Released: 1966
  2. "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
    Released: 1966
Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
Allmusic[1]

The Sonny Side of Chér is the second studio album by American singer-actress Cher, released on April, 1966 by Imperial, as her second album, Cher again collaborated with Sonny Bono and Harold Battiste. The album is by-and-large a covers album and contains two songs written by Bono. The title of the album is a pun on the name of Cher's first husband Sonny Bono. The album was Cher's second successful album of the sixties.

Album information

After the success of her previous album, Cher quickly recorded another album. The Sonny Side of Chér was in the chart with the second studio album of Sonny & Cher, The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher. The album follows the same formula of the previous album with rearranged covers and new songs written by Bono. The Sonny Side of Chér was overall less successful than the previous release, but produced bigger hits than the first album did. It contains Cher's first solo Top Ten hit, the Bono-penned song "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)". With "Bang Bang", Cher was definitively settled in the American pop culture. The album also had two songs with French influence, "A Young Girl" and "Our Day Will Come" and Edith Piaf's famous "Milord".

Like her previous album All I Really Want to Do, Cher covered one song written and performed by Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone".[2] The album also included Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual", the popular song "Our Day Will Come" and "The Girl from Ipanema".[2] Other covers are "A Young Girl" and "Ol' Man River" (which shows the huge vocal power Cher already had on this early album).[2]

In 1992 the original album and Cher's debut studio album All I Really Want to Do were reissued by EMI on one CD which featured all tracks from both.[3] After in 1995 EMI re-released this version together with the album Cher.[3] The last version of the album was released in 2005 only in UK by BGO Records. These editions feature a different track order than the original LP.

Commercial performance

The Sonny Side of Chér, like Cher's previous album, was a success in the Billboard 200. The album entered into the chart while The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher was also charting, eventually reaching up to #26. The album also entered in the UK Albums Chart and debuted at #28 in May, and reached its highest position (#11) three weeks later.[4] The album remained in the chart for eleven weeks and exited in July.[4] The Sonny Side of Chér was also Cher's last album that entered in the UK Albums chart until her 1987 comeback album Cher (released by Geffen). The Sonny Side of Chér also entered in the Norway albums chart and peaked at #17.

Singles

Two singles were released from this album; both were written by Bono. "Where Do You Go", the album's first single release, was a Dylan-mimic [2] and reached number twenty five in the Billboard Hot 100 and number seventeen on the Canadian Single Charts. The second single released was Cher's most successful song of the sixties, "Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)", which peaked in the US at #2 and which was also a hit in the UK Singles Chart at #3. The song was covered by Bono in the Sonny & Cher live album Live in Las Vegas Vol. 2, and was later re-recorded for the 1987 studio album Cher.

Track listing

Side one
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"Sonny Bono2:40
2."A Young Girl (Une enfante)"
3:22
3."Where Do You Go"Bono3:12
4."Our Day Will Come"
2:12
5."Elusive Butterfly"Bob Lind2:30
6."Like a Rolling Stone"Bob Dylan3:45
Side two
No.TitleWriter(s)Length
1."Ol' Man River"
2:50
2."Come to Your Window"Lind2:48
3."The Girl from Ipanema"
2:09
4."It's Not Unusual"
2:08
5."Time"Michael Merchant3:16
6."Milord"
2:43

Personnel

No musicians were credited, only: "A very special thanks to some of the greatest musicians in Hollywood for their part in making this album possible"

Charts

Chart (1966) Peak
position
Norway Albums Chart[5] 5
UK Albums Chart[6] 11
United States Billboard 200[7] 26

References

  1. ↑ Allmusic review
  2. 1 2 3 4 "The Sonny Side of Chèr Review". CherScholar.com. Retrieved 2009-02-05.
  3. 1 2 "All I Really Want to Do albums". Homepages.ihug.com.au. Archived from the original on July 17, 2009. Retrieved 2009-08-11.
  4. 1 2 "The Sonny Side of Chér UK chart". Chartstats.com. Archived from the original on 2013-01-19. Retrieved 2009-08-12.
  5. ↑ http://www.americanradiohistory.com/hd2/IDX-Business/Music/Archive-Cash-Box-IDX/60s/1966/CB-1966-12-10-OCR-Page-0059.pdf
  6. ↑ UK Albums Chart . Retrieved October 31, 2010.
  7. ↑ Billboard charts - Cher Billboard. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
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