pro bono

How much do you think Phil Spector still resents Sonny Bono?

Sonny basically took the whole Wall of Sound premise and, like Phil, built it around a female voice, combined it with the folk-rock-protest thing, and through himself into the bag as a co-performer, and took it all the way to the bank. I remember a late '60s Rolling Stone interview where Spector dismissed Bono as a pretender (pointing out that he'd stolen a whole piece of The Fortunes' "You've Got Your Troubles" for the Sonny & Cher hit "But You're Mine"), but don't you imagine that Spector wishes he'd thought of the S&C shtick first and done it as Phil & Ronnie? What's worse, the Bonos were right under Phil's nose in the studio, doing handclaps, vocals, percussion and stuff on Spector sessions.

I'm reflecting on this because there are a couple of S&C singles in that "500 Lost Gems of the Sixties" book, and I was motivated to go into their catalog. Also, their film "Good Times" (directed by William Friedkin) was on TCM the other day.

The singles are shameless shlock, but kind of inspired: Sonny picked up every tip he could from Spector and Jack Nitzsche (with whom he'd co-written "Needles and Pins"), realized that those early Spector songs like "He's Sure The Boy I Love" were ripe for recasting as a thematic jump-off point for "society-doesn't-understand-us" love songs, and cast himself and Cher as romantic rebels.

"500 Gems" has "Baby Don't Go" and "But You're Mine" on its list, and I wouldn't argue with either one, but I've decided to post the lesser-known "It's The Little Things" 45, and a video of S&C doing Spector outright: