CoronaVinyl Day 316 (S): The Best of Sonny & Cher by Sonny & Cher

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Today's CoronaVinyl category is "S," and we'll keep it in the '60s with Sonny & Cher's 1967 Best Of album.

Sonny Bono and Cher met in 1962 in LA, when he was 27 and she was 16.  At the time, Bono was working for famed producer Phil Spector as a songwriter and backing vocalist (he co-wrote The Searchers' hit "Needles and Pins," among other songs).  With Bono's help, Cher soon became a backup singer for Spector-produced recordings.  She sang backing vocals on the likes of The Ronettes' "Be My Baby" (one of the great pop songs of all-time) and The Righteous Brothers' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling."  They unofficially married in 1964 (they officially married in 1969) and soon began recording as a duo, releasing music until 1973, when their marriage began to disintegrate (they divorced in 1975).

Between 1965 and 1967, Sonny & Cher had 8 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including four Top 10s and one #1 (1965's "I Got You Babe").  This Best Of album has 12 songs, eleven of which charted on the Billboard Hot 100, and the other one ("Sing C'est La Vie") wasn't released as a single in the U.S., but went to #1 in Belgium and #2 in Australia.  The album went to #23 on the Billboard album chart and remained on the chart for over a year.  All in all, it's just good '60s pop.  Unsurprisingly, much of it has a Phil Spector Wall of Sound feel to it, which I certainly enjoy.

After 1967, they had an additional three Top 40 hits, including two more Top 10 hits.  In the early '70s, they had their own variety show on TV called The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour (for which Cher received a Golden Globe).  That lasted for three seasons, until their divorce.  Of course, after their divorce, Cher went on to be a hugely successful solo music career and an acting career that netted her an Academy Award and Golden Globe for Best Actress for 1987's Moonstruck (though I prefer her performance in 2003's Stuck On You). 

Bono went into politics and was the mayor of Palm Springs, California before being elected as a U.S. Representative in 1994, until his untimely death in 1998 when he hit a tree while skiing in Tahoe.  He remains the only member of Congress who has ever had a #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100.  Sonny & Cher received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1998.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Little Man"
You may remember this song from an Amazon Prime ad campaign in 2015 and 2016 featuring an miniature horse.  I do, anyway.  The song has kind of a gypsy feel to it, and it's just a cool little pop song.  While it "only" went to #21 in the U.S., it was a huge hit internationally, reaching #1 on the pop charts in Belgium, Denmark, Finland, The Netherlands, Norway Singapore, and Sweden, and the top 10 on the pop charts in several other countries.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "But Your Mine"
A recurring theme in Sonny & Cher's songs appears to be that they're hippies and that Sonny is outkicking his coverage with Cher (which I think we can all agree was true).  This is a prime example.  It's all about a couple who are outcasts because they're hippies, so straight society gives them guff and side-eyed looks.  Cher ends the first verse with the line "You're not real pretty / But you're mine."  Thanks?