While Sonny & Cher are seen as freaks in the United States mid-1965, it's love at first sight across the Atlantic. The more fashionable (and less prejudiced) British response to their promotional visit breaks precedents when they're re-booked (for a month) on TOP OF THE POPS, and a press deluge sends their popularity and record sales skyrocketing. Sonny & Cher are the stylish, imaginative and original vanguards for the countercultural revolution to follow: to all appearances they define equal partnership with an anti-establishment take on gender and politics.

LOOK LIKE US

For the next year England serves as a base for Sonny & Cher's American Invasion of Europe via music and fashion. Used to a four-boy rock lineup of dubious musical pedigree, musically savvy Londoners enthuse over Sonny & Cher's added piano and second drummer in concert, as well as their ability to recreate their hits live. On continental Europe, French and Italian covers of the Sonny & Cher records are charting in the six-figure range as fast Sonny is making them. Of course he’s been making them for years, and when the re-issues hit the stores in 1965 teenyboppers don’t have a clue what label they actually record for, but worldwide they sure as hell know what Sonny & Cher look like.

FABULOUS magazine - as guest-edited by Donovan - dispatches The Zombies' Colin Blunstone and a Marianne Faithfull look-alike model (right) to the streets of London for a fashion spread on The Sonny & Cher Look: if it can't be bought, designers re-create it. The unique style however is nobody's vision but Sonny & Cher's. A rebellious teenager's refusal to wear dresses or go to a beauty parlor could spell disaster: in Cher's case (adapting boys' clothes for night and stripper makeup for daywear) it means millions of girls will take to wearing pants formally, and an archetype of brunette beauty will challenge Eurocentric ideals forever.

SOUND LIKE US

1964 off - label project

The Standells VeeJay 643 The Boy Next Door (SB/G) / BJ Quetzal (SB, G&S) (inst.) Prod SB (rel 1/65)

The Standells VeeJay 679 Big Boss Man / Don’t Say Goodbye Prod SB

All 3 vocal cuts on THE STANDELLS RARITIES Rhino LP 115 (1984)

1965 reissues

Sonny & Cher Reprise 0392 8-65 Baby Don’t Go (SB) / Walkin’ The Quetzal (SB/G&S) (inst)

Sonny & Cher Vault 916 9-65 The Letter / Spring Fever (SC) (inst)

Salvatore Bono & Cher la Piere aka Caesar & Cleo Reprise 0419 10-64 Love Is Strange / Let The Good Times Roll (some w/ PS)

Sonny Highland 1160 I’ll Change / Try It Out On Me (formerly Rush 1001)

1965 off - label projects ….for more on Quetzals click HERE

Reb Foster Loma 2008 Something You Got / Reb & The Rousers: Quetzal & Jude (inst) (both Arr Prod SB for York-Pala

The Fiends GNP Crecendo The Addams Family (inst) / Quetzal Quake (SB, G&S) (inst)

The Pastel Six Chattagoochee 696 I Can’t Dance / Red River Quetzal (inst)

Cookie Jackson Uptown 700 I’m Gonna Shout It On The Mountain (SB,G&S) / Uptown Jerk (SB, G&S)

BJ & The Profits Uptown 705 It’s Gonna Rain Outside (SB) / I Lost All Faith (SB, G&S)

Sonny Bono VeeJay 710 Midnight Surf (Theme For Valora) (SB,G&S) (inst) / Ride The Wild Quetzal (inst – rel 11-65)

Joey Paige Tollie 9045 Cause I’m In Love With You / Yeah Yeah Yeah (SB) (both Arr Prod SB – Eng Stan Ross – rel 1-66)

Sonny & Cher’s musical success in Europe won’t come automatically: every regional market presents obstacles from government control of media and virtual monopolies of radio and juke-boxes by record companies, to consumer preference for local language and interpretation. The pre-rock Old Guard still dominates charts in 1965, and so-called Beat Music is generally meeting with strong resistance. A loud youth culture - or more correctly, a savvy anti-bourgeois movement - demands artists like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles and Dylan. Sonny & Cher’s continental breakout in late 1966 will be due to quality music as much as to image and teenybopper appeal; “I Got You Babe” won’t be their defining moment of stardom in Southern Europe, but as Ahmet Ertegun launches the Atco label in France with the record he puts the nation on notice: “Sonny, Cher, and Sonny & Cher have conquered the United States and England, and quickly – let us not doubt it – will conquer France and every other country!” And voila – the label’s in the black from day one, thanks to Sonny et “Dear”, and the associated cash-flow from cover versions.

Europe's Romance languages and musical sensibilities inhibit the creation of original rock and beat records, but good local lyricists - along with excellent arrangers and producers - are well able to transform melodically strong Anglo pop-rock songs into brilliant Italian and French / Canadian records. Sonny's imagination and musical influences (from childhood tarantella to Harold Battiste's world music via Phil Spector) may not greatly move Americans but the opposite applies to Europeans. And it won't be any of Sonny & Cher's Top Ten hits which opens the floodgate of international success: "Sing C'est La Vie" is bigger than "I Got You Babe" in Australia, and France's Frank Alamo ends his career as a YeYe Boy on a high point with the song, prior to army service. An accompanying color video ensures that neither Frank nor "Sing C'est La Vie" will be quickly forgotten by his French or Quebecois fan base.

Italian cover versions kick off in 1966 with back-to-back releases of “I Got You Babe” and “Just You” (as “Sei Contento” and “Ancora Sempre e Solo Te” respectively) for folkies Jonathan & Michelle, to the same non-reaction as Gidiuli’s version of “I Got You Babe”. Ragazzi del Sole however break through with “Laugh At Me”, as “Se Mi Chamera Non Ridere de Mi”. But the sensational Patty Pravo's solidly in-the-pocket version of "But You're Mine" ("Triste Ragazzo" = "Sad Boy") dramatically redefines the original without reinventing it (since it’s pure canzone in form anyhow), and in doing so it becomes one of her all-time career-defining anthems. (Decades later inmates will deliver an impromptu acapella performance welcoming La Pravo to the slammer for a brief stay behind bars.)

I Nomadi's straight-ahead protest take on "The Revolution Kind" ("Come Potete Giudicar" = "How Can You Judge") launches a long career for a group which will remain committed to apolitical social justice senza apologia - unlike the writer of their breakthrough hit. Sonny’s original cop-out English lyric is ignored in translation but 'Come Potete Giudicar' button pins (the bumper stickers of Italo-rebels) are omnipresent, and Nomadi’s massively popular 45 features “You Don’t Love Me” from Sonny & Cher’s LP on the B-Side. European superstars Petula Clark (“Where Do You Go””,"Bang Bang"), Dalida ("Bang Bang", "Little Man", "Mama"), Paul Mauriat (“Bang Bang”. "Mama") and Milva ("Little Man") all add Sonny Bono songs to their hits repertoires, and to their albums which are racking up millions in multilingual sales worldwide. Superb lyricists like Mogol, Miki Del Prete and Allesandro Colombini provide translations or new lyrics for Sonny & Cher recordings, and their songs destined to be standards for the beat crowd, or sentimental favorites in the hands of Euro divas like the semi-tragic Dalida.

Late in 1966 Cher competes with no less than four versions of "Bang Bang" in Italy alone. Equipe 84 redefine the song as an epic spaghetti western, and blast Cher out of the Top 10 on their way to a shoot-out with Sinatra’s “Strangers” for the top slot. After months in second place they only enjoy top gun status for a couple of weeks. Dalida (re-invented as a Nancy Sinatra look-alike) blows them all away with her tortured Bang Bang”: she replaces Equipe 84 at Number One, after refusing to perform on any venue with rival versions. (Some chart compilers give up tracking sales and airplay, and award everybody who's recorded “bang Bang” honors.) With Quebecoise competition from Claire Lepage (and an alternate lyric), Sheila takes the song to the top in France, and her movie the following year is called… yep…"Bang-Bang”. Some snicker when Ahmet Ertegun pronounces it “one the greatest post-WW2 songs ever written", but they haven't seen the sales figures from Europe and can't know its golden future as Sonny's most valued copyright. Dalida finishes 1967 as she started: sitting squarely on top of the Italian charts with yet another Cher cover from Sonny's trusty upright ("Mama"), and delivering a repeat performance of hand-wrenching High Melodrama.

January 1967's San Remo Song Festival is anti-climactic for Sonny & Cher inasmuch as neither Cher nor the duo make it to the finals with their entries, or feature prominently in the predictable notoriety of the proceedings. Harold Battiste conducts the orchestra for Cher’s "Ma Piano" and Sonny & Cher's "Il Cammino di Ogni Speranza”; both songs are also performed by soundtrack singer Nico Fidenco and star Beat Girl Caterina Caselli respectively, according to but one tradition of the festival. San Remo has an established reputation for scandal, controversy and dramatic outrages, often directed at co-performers. Dirty record company politics see Cher narrowly get to perform "Ma Piano" ("Slowly") at the expense of I Nomadi. Neither is wanted by the composer or his cohort Fidenco, who derides Cher's phonetic (though excellent) delivery rather than the lousy and quickly-forgotten song they both sing. La Caselli blames the shared "Il Cammino" ("Journey of Hope") defeat on teetotalling Sonny & Cher's inebriation and worse. But the ubiquitous Dalida's recently fianced Luigi Tenco puts sour grapes and grappa into reasonable perspective by blowing his brains out with a handgun following his loss. Tenco's "protest suicide” defines San Remo '67: the festival della canzone begins its decline, Il Cult di Tenco is born and "Bang Bang" is already in Dalida's tragedienne repertoire, albeit with a new resonance.

Sonny & Cher enjoy the average twenty-month lifespan of most hit acts of the pop-rock era, with a remarkable twist: as Anglo Top 40 tastes dispense with Sonny and Cher, their original records become demos for European superstars and even underground hits for defiant rockers behind the Iron Curtain. The flash of songwriting magic Sonny Bono showed in 1965 will be realized for as long as he focuses on writing strong, original material….despite Italian lyrics by Mogol, “Caro Cara” is shallow and out-dated Ye Ye music but it’s the best offering from the GOOD TIMES soundtrack. Cher’s final stateside smash of the Sixties “You Better Sit Down Kids” (“Bambini Miei Cari” = “My Darling Children”) surprisingly ends up as a B-Side. The Italian Jobs are finito and The French Connection’s vaporized, but Sonny has made his mark: few Anglo "rock" composers will see their ditties morph so very successfully into the diverse Beat or dramatic tearjerker idioms of French - and especially Italian - popular song. Even fewer will do it on the strength of a five-chord mastery of the piano.

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Riviera EP 231.120 Sing C’est La Vie FR	Rifi 45 RFN 16145 I Got You Babe IT	Rifi 45 RFN 16146 Just You IT	Jolly 45 20359 Laugh At Me IT
Atco 45 #7 But You’re Mine FR / ENG	Arc 45 AN 4097 But You’re Mine IT	Columbia 45 SCMQ 7006 The Revolution Kind IT	Vogue FS – 45.1339 Where Do You Go FR
Ariston 45 AR 0161 Bang Bang IT	Ricordi 45 SRL 10.438 Bang Bang IT	Clan 45 ACC 24038 Bang Bang IT	Barclay 45 - BN 6097 Bang Bang” IT
Teledisc 45 TD21 Bang Bang (alt. lyric) FR	Philips EP 437.233 Bang Bang FR	Atlantic 45 90195