CHER: HALF-BREED (1973)
1) My
Love; 2) Two People Clinging To A Thread; 3) Half Breed; 4) The Greatest Song I
Ever Heard; 5) How Can You Mend A Broken Heart; 6) Carousel Man; 7) David's
Song; 8) Melody (Little Bossa Nova); 9) The Long And Winding Road; 10) This God
Forsaken Day; 11) Chastity Sun.
Back into the arms of Snuff Garrett — once the
idea of «The Great American Songbook As Reimagined By The Sonny Bono Orchestra
And Re-Testosteroned By Cher» turned out to be commercially defunct, Cher
decisively ditched Sonny as producer (and, less than a year later, would ditch
him as husband) and returned to Mr. Garrett for yet another record of pure
Vegasy schlock. On the whole, this one is a tiny bit better than Foxy Lady, yet still nowhere near a
return to the moderately high quality of Gypsys.
You can probably sense the difference if you
compare the title tracks — both pictured Cher as the abused protagonist in
outcast fantasy scenarios, but where ʽGypsies, Tramps & Thievesʼ had a
ringing note of truth to it, ʽHalf-Breedʼ is almost purely theatrical, relying
more on its pop catchiness than on a nuanced vocal performance. Ironically, of
the two, it is ʽHalf Breedʼ that should have struck closer to home — Cher does have some Cherokee ancestry on her
mother's side, although I highly doubt it that "the other children always
laughed at me / Give her a feather, she's a Cherokee" comes even remotely
close to being autobiographical. Nevertheless, the proto-disco strings, the
overall arrangement that gives the impression of a poor soundtrack to some
blacksploitation movie, and the lack of a particularly striking vocal move
prevents the song from being taken too seriously, and puts it too close to the
territory of simple vaudeville entertainment.
Not that there's anything wrong with simple
vaudeville entertainment, and I do like the song, written for Cher by master
entertainer Al Capps — the real
problem is that there's not enough of pure, healthily cheesy vaudeville
entertainment on the record. Instead, the tracks that draw most of the
attention are covers of hit ballads — two McCartney tunes, done decently but
unspectacularly (ʽMy Loveʼ is sung well, but that pitiful guitar solo in the
middle is a pathetic joke compared to the elegant solo by Henry McCullough on
the original release; and ʽThe Long And Winding Roadʼ shouldn't be touched by
Cher, who can't do «pleading» to save her life), and one Bee Gees tune, done
unconvincingly (again, to do ʽHow Can You Mend A Broken Heartʼ, you have to at
least create the illusion that you actually, like, have a broken heart — Cher's heart, meanwhile, always gives the
impression of being encrusted with steel plate armor, and its 80-year guarantee
has not expired yet).
Of the tracks that draw less attention, only
one other is also a piece of bouncy, light-hearted cheese, but this time it
pretty much stinks — Johnny Durrill's ʽCarousel Manʼ, another silly tale of
outcast life in the Wild West, with not a shred of conviction; and the rest is
still more balladry, this time obscure, but probably for a reason. Dick Holler,
Jack Segal, pre-Toto David Paich... steady, reliable, sparkless composers as
interpreted by a steady, reliable, sparkless singer. The only time she does sparkle is at the very end, when
she takes a recent Seals & Crofts song and re-writes it as ʽChastity Sunʼ,
dedicating it to her daughter (not particularly relevant now that the daughter
is no longer a daughter, but it's fun how, what with Chaz Bono's sex change
adventure and all, the words "When I look at you / In your eyes I see /
The world that God meant to be" now take on a starkly progressive meaning)
— anyway, that song is probably the only one on the whole album where Cher
stops being Cher for a moment and becomes a genuinely loving mother, even
finding it in herself to introduce a little falsetto during the tenderest
moments.
Still, one sweet moment, scattered bits of
cheesy entertainment, and a few (botched) megahits with originally great
melodies do not earn Half-Breed a
lot of respectability — on the whole, it's just one more generic early
Seventies' LP, aimed at the target audience of the largely unfunny Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, and even the
fact that it temporarily put Cher back on the charts again (album sales were
much higher than for Bittersweet White
Light, and ʽHalf-Breedʼ was a number one for her) does not mean much in the
grand scheme of thumbs
down.
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