Cher - With Love, Cher 1968

Sonny Bono's bells and castanet production by way of Phil Spector certainly adds a magical spell to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin'," but it is disconcerting, as an attempt at a female Barry McGuire is not as much fun as the Dylan love song that was Cher's first solo hit, "All I Really Want to Do." With Love, Cher has a somewhat unflattering photo by Sonny Bono of his wife against a blue sky on the front cover, and a series of exquisite black-and-whites on the back, her features striking, their youth and the sense of a real love affair leaping off the LP jacket. "Hey Joe" is even tougher to take than "The Times They Are A-Changin'," clearly the wrong material for this great singer, but she keeps the gender in place when doing the answer part, ambiguity à la "You'd Better Sit Down Kids" and "The Way of Love," which makes for some fun. The percussive sounds on the love theme from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, "I Will Wait for You," adds a dimension missing on the Dylan cover, and it is one of the more intriguing and fulfilling moments on the album. Sonny's tune, "Mama (When My Dollies Have Babies)," begins with an annoying off-key choir of kids only to settle into a mellow Wall of Sound, which works. But it's the big Top Ten hit, her fifth solo smash, that really is the moment in the sun here. "You'd Better Sit Down Kids" is just a tremendous performance surrounded by winners like "Sing for Your Supper," and not so spectacular events like "Hey Joe." For a '60s album, though, there is more meat than filler, andWith Love, Cher shows why the singer endeared herself to listeners and got to play in the same ballpark as Dusty and Petula. AMG.

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Cher - All I Really Want To Do 1965

After Sonny & Cher hit big with "I Got You Babe," Sonny Bono decided that he would strike while they were hot and got Cher a solo deal with Liberty Records. The angle they took for the 1965 album All I Really Want to Do was folk-rock with a tiny bit of girl group pop thrown in. Choosing from the songbooks of writers like Dylan (the title track, "Don't Think Twice," "Blowin' in the Wind"), Pete Seeger("The Bells of Rhymney"), Jackie DeShannon ("Come and Stay With Me"), as well as Bono himself (theJack Nitzsche co-write "Needles and Pins," the girl group classic "Dream Baby") and using his Spector-derived production skills to create rich, chiming backgrounds for Cher to sing over, the duo made what turns out to be one of the stronger folk-pop records of the era. Cher isn't the most subtle singer, but she sounds young and full of life on these tracks, like she really believes in what she is singing (a feeling you don't always get on her more lightweight material). No one will mistake her for Joni Mitchell or Sandy Denny, but you shouldn't belittle her efforts as a folksinger, either; All I Really Want to Do is proof that she was for real. AMG.

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