The Sonny Side of Chér is the second studio album by American singer-actress Cher, released on March 28, 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, it was released in CD in 1992, by EMI together with Cher's first album on one CD which.[3] After in 1995 EMI re-released this version together with the album Chér.[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.
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.[4]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)".[5] 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".[4]
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 [6] and reached number twenty five in the Billboard Hot 100 and number seventeen on the Canadian Single Charts.[5][7][8] 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.[5][9] 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.
The album received mixed reviews from music critics. Tim Sendra from AllMusic website wrote that even though the album uses "the folk-rock formula that had made her previous album such a delight" The Sonny Side of Cher is "nothing more than a chuckle-inducing curiosity, just the kind of silly record casual listeners might expect from the duo." He praised the cover songs "Like a Rolling Stone" by Bob Dylan, "Elusive Butterfly" and "Come to Your Window" by Bob Lind but criticized the fol-rock sound in pop tunes like "It's Not Unusual," "Our Day Will Come," and "The Girl from Ipanema." He concluded that "the album is doomed by its lack of heart and inability to rise above the formulaic." Billboard magazine review called the album "well produced", "well performed" and a "fast-moving item".
Commercial performance[]
"Where Do You Go"
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"Where Do You Go" was the first single released by Cher not be a cover.
"Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)"
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The song became Cher's first U.S. solo top 10 single.
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The Sonny Side of Chér peaked at number 26 on the Billboard 200. The album entered into the chart while The Wondrous World of Sonny & Cher was also charting.
The album also entered in the UK Albums Chart and debuted at number 28 in May, and reached its highest position (#11) three weeks later.[11]
The album remained in the chart for eleven weeks and exited in July.[11]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 #5.[12]
