Cher (27 page)

7

DISCO DIVA TO BROADWAY BABY

Just as she had resurrected herself in the past, by 1979 Cher had created a whole new life for herself. It was as though the Sonny and Gregg episodes never happened at all. She made a drastic move by legally removing all of her previous surnames, and now she was officially known by one name only: “Cher.” She had a new boyfriend, a new certified Gold album, a new Number 1 hit single, a new $5-million house in California, a new network television special, and a whole new outlook on life.

“I’m getting ready for a fresh start in the New Year,” she announced as 1978 came to a close. “I’ve made mistakes because I’ve never played it safe, but I give myself credit because I do go on trying for a good life. I’m very happy though, now, getting ready for the New Year ahead. I think it’ll be marvelous with everything happening for me” (96).

Just as she had cut off her hair the year before, she began the new year by shearing off all her last names. She explained at that time, “With these final papers in order, I’ll no longer be Mrs. Bono, Mrs. Allman, or Mrs. Anybody. I don’t even have the title Miss Sarkisian, because I don’t want a last name. I’m going to petition the court so I can be legally known by the one name of ‘Cher’ ” (96). And so she did, effectively removing all traces of the men in her past—Sonny, Gregg, her father, and her stepfather.

The new man in her life continued her reputation for the unexpected and bizarre. He was Gene Simmons, the lead singer of the rock group KISS. Simmons and his three partners in the band were—and still are—as famous for their outrageous black-and-white Kabuki-like facial makeup
onstage as they were for their multimillion-selling rock and roll albums. They refused to be photographed without their trademark makeup, and their public had no idea what they looked like without it. Simmons, who is also the group’s guitarist, was renowned for his in-concert special effects. Two of his signature routines were breathing fire out of his mouth and drooling flame-red stage blood off of his exceedingly long tongue. In a decade that is now famous for the emergence of costumed theatrical rock acts—like Alice Cooper, Elton John, and David Bowie—the group KISS excelled.

Cher had met Gene at a party that Casablanca Records threw in 1978. She had just dumped Gregg Allman and was once again free to come and go as she pleased. As she explained it, “I went to a Casablanca party, and someone said that Gene Simmons was there, and I said, ‘Oh God, I’d love to meet her. I’ve seen all her movies.’ Everyone just got hysterical” (6). Cher had thought that she was going to meet actress Jean Simmons (
Great Expectations
1946,
Hamlet
1948,
Spartacus
1960). Boy, was she in for a surprise.

According to Gene,

We pretty much disliked each other on first sight. We talked until five in the morning and never even held hands. Then I had to go to New York and I thought I’d forgotten all about it—after all, one girl is just as flyaway as the next. On the plane I found the stewardess coming on really strong to me. Normally, I would have done something about it. Instead I found myself thinking about this skinny girl with strange teeth and a big nose. We’re taking it one step at a time. It’s weird for me because until I met her, I was just like your everyday rock musician. I’ve slept with anything that quivered (97).

“There’s a new strength to my life and a peace,” proclaimed Cher at the time.

Gene has made some of that possible, because he’s not just a musician behind a mask. He’s an intelligent man who doesn’t smoke or drink, so I can’t be accused all this time of being involved with somebody off-the-wall. I really do love him. I’m not seeing anybody else—but at the moment we don’t want to live with each other full-time. I want to live by myself for a while, because right now my career must come first (96).

Gene was of the perfect disposition for Cher—especially after the Gregg Allman nightmare. According to Cher, “Gene takes Chastity to the
movies and they get in food fights. He’s teaching Elijah to swim. When he had time off and I wasn’t home, he came to be with them. It’s hard to find someone who likes your kids as much as you do—especially when they didn’t have anything to do with it” (98). For Cher, Simmons was everything that Allman was not.

The whole KISS connection reached the status of a “family affair” when Cher’s sister, Georganne La Piere began dating another member of the group, Paul Stanley. Georganne had gone on to an acting career, and in the early 1970s she originated the role of Heather on the afternoon soap opera
General Hospital
.

When Fred A. Bernstein interviewed Gene Simmons’s mother, Florence, for his book
The Jewish Mother’s Hall of Fame
, Mrs. Simmons told him that Cher once came out to her home on Long Island for a Passover seder. According to Florence, Cher spent three hours standing at the dinner table during the holiday meal. The reason that she couldn’t sit down was that she had just had her tattooed butt surgically lifted!

In 1978, the four members of KISS, based on their strong popularity, each released simultaneous solo albums,
Gene Simmons, Paul Stanley, Ace Frehley
, and
Peter Criss
. Gene invited Cher to sing on his self-titled album, and she is heard on it, singing on the song “Living in Sin.” The song is a musical ego trip, with Gene singing about picking up one of his young teenage female groupies and “living in sin at the Holiday Inn.” Cher can be heard on the record singing background vocals, and in the middle of the song, she is the voice of the groupie who phones Simmons’s hotel room and gushes accolades to him.

In January 1979, Cher and Sonny reunited for a special appearance on
The Mike Douglas Show
, but it was Cher’s relationship with Gene Simmons that was keeping her warm throughout the rest of the year. Said Cher at the time, “I don’t think that Gene’s particularly attractive. I just like him. He’s very loving and he gives me a lot of support. He’s excited about what I do. He’s glad I don’t really
need
him, but rather
want
to be with him. He’s perfect. I couldn’t ask for anyone better” (99).

Through working on Gene’s album, which was released by Casablanca Records, Cher met the president of the record label, Neil Bogart. Since Cher’s Warner Brothers contract had lapsed, she was shopping for a record deal, and she accepted an offer from Bogart and began work on a new album. The album, which was released in February 1979, was entitled
Take Me Home
, and the cover of it is still one of the most famous and most outrageous photographs ever taken of Cher.

In the photo, she is wearing a gold-plated bikini made of metal and a wing-like headpiece that made her resemble a 24-karat Viking goddess out of some erotic Valkyrie fantasy. Cher was a vision in gold, and skin. Although she had a gold
lamé
cape draped over her back, more of her flesh was exposed than covered. Even the breastplates had cut-out holes in them. The photo, taken by Barry Levine, is one of the most outlandishly stunning photographs ever to grace an album cover, before or since. Cher’s body was in excellent shape, and she made the most of it for this session. Also contained on the album is a standing shot of Cher in her gilded Viking warrior get-up, which showed off the costume’s low, plunging, winged bikini bottom, with wings that fly outward several inches past her hip, and a matching gold scabbard strapped to her hip.

The year 1979 is remembered for being the height of the disco craze in America, Europe, and Japan. Ever since Cher had boogied at the 1977 opening of Studio 54, America had been listening to the hot synthesized dance beat of disco. The Village People, Donna Summer, K.C. & the Sunshine Band, Grace Jones, Sister Sledge, Chic, Gloria Gaynor, and Tavares all had careers that were made on the dance floors. Those established performers who were adaptable enough to “go disco” with their music also scored hot disco hits as well. On this list were Rod Stewart (“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy”), the Bee Gees (“Staying Alive”), Blondie (“Heart of Glass”), the Supremes (“I’m Gonna Let My Heart Do the Walking”), Diana Ross (“Love Hangover”), Sarah Dash (“Sinner Man”), Mary Wilson (“Red Hot”), Bonnie Pointer (“Heaven Must Have Sent You”), and Martha Reeves (“Skating in the Street”) all had chart hits during this era by adopting a disco beat. Why shouldn’t Cher join in on the craze?

Casablanca was the home of the Village People, Donna Summer, the Ritchie Family, and Pattie Brooks. Neil Bogart knew how to sell disco records to the public like nobody’s business. According to Cher, “When I went to Casablanca what I really wanted to do was rock & roll. Neil Bogart said that wasn’t my strongest thing ‘Do this first [disco], and let me try to get you back into the music scene’ ” (100).

Said Bogart at the time, “Cher is a fascinating woman with much more depth than she is usually given credit for. Her gifts are unique and I think, in the past, she only scratched the surface on the talent she has, I look forward to a long and rewarding relationship with her here at Casablanca” (13). He proved to be a man of his word.

Bogart put Cher in the studio with Bob Esty. Two additional cuts were produced by Barry Manilow’s co-producer Ron Dante. Esty was fresh
from his successes working with Donna Summer and Barbra Streisand when he was asked to produce Cher’s
Take Me Home
album. He produced Streisand’s song “Main Event,” and he had worked on Summer’s
Once Upon a Time
album and the biggest song of her career, “Last Dance.” Bob and his writing partner, Michele Aller, were signed to Casablanca Records as a singing/songwriting team, patterned after Ashford & Simpson.

Speaking of the evolution of working with Cher, Esty explained,

I had just done “Last Dance” with Donna Summer, had cowritten it, and arranged it and produced it, and later that year signed with Casablanca Records. They had just signed Cher to the label, and the president of the label, Neil Bogart, wanted to break her back into the recording business, because she’d been having a rough time. Her variety show had been canceled, she had divorced Sonny, so it was not a real good time for her. Neil Bogart had lived next door to her in Malibu, and Barbra Streisand lived right there too with Jon Peters. Neil said to me, that Ron Dante had produced an album for Cher with Charles Koppelman as executive producer. I think it was a thing where he had signed her, and according to Neil, he heard the album, and it didn’t hit him as anything but just what she had done with the other three [Warner Brothers] albums a combination of all kinds of songs—some standards, rock—just a typical Cher album at the time. Neil wanted her to fit the Casablanca image. Now, the Casablanca image was either disco, or KISS. So, he wanted her to have a hit like “Last Dance.” So Michele and I were asked to write a song in the style of “Last Dance,” which she could sing. At the time—like everyone else—I was thinking “Cher? Disco?” (101).

The first song that they worked on was “Take Me Home.” However, it didn’t go very smoothly at first. “I played ‘Take Me Home’ for Cher, and she said she liked it,” Esty explained.

I think she would have liked anything at this point. It was exactly what Neil Bogart wanted. So, we went in and tracked the record, and I sang the “guide” vocal, and I have a high enough voice so that I could do it. So we attempted a vocal with her, and she was having trouble, because it was a style of music she wasn’t used to, and I think she thought it was long with too many sections. And, I was trying to work with her on her approach to the song. I don’t know this for sure, but I got the feeling that nobody except Sonny had ever asked her to do one of her vocals over again, or try singing it another way. And I think she was a little bit put off by it. I now know she’s insecure, but I didn’t know that at the time. And I think she felt a little bit intimidated and unsure. So, she asked Charles Koppelman to come in and sit with her while she did the vocals, and not me. That made me feel kinda weird. But, I figured, “Whatever she wants.” She went in and did the vocals, and she still couldn’t get them. Then it was decided that it was too high, so we brought it down another key, and retracked the whole thing again. I worked with her on the vocal, and by working on it I got what I thought was a rapport. I thought that everything was fine, but then I noticed that she would come into the studio and she’d sit in a corner and just put her head down, like not wanting to be involved at all. Then I would tell her that it was time for her to go in and sing, and she would go out and sing her heart out. It was very strange (101).

Finally, Aller and Esty, writing tunes for the album, and Esty producing, reached a better working relationship with Cher. “We recorded the other songs for the album, and she did a great job singing them,” recalls Esty. “She was a real trouper. She just did it until it was right, and I think that she did some of her best vocals ever on that album” (101).

Esty found that of all the songs on the album, “Git Down (Guitar Groupie)” was the one that best fit her personality. “Cher is a groupie in many ways,” he explained.